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547,384 | Steven Gerrard | 1,173,775,107 | English football manager (born 1980) | [
"1980 births",
"2006 FIFA World Cup players",
"2010 FIFA World Cup players",
"2014 FIFA World Cup players",
"21st-century British autobiographers",
"Al-Ettifaq FC managers",
"Aston Villa F.C. managers",
"Designated Players (MLS)",
"England men's international footballers",
"England men's under-21 international footballers",
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]
| Steven George Gerrard MBE (born 30 May 1980) is an English professional football manager and former player who is the current manager of Saudi Pro League club Al-Ettifaq. Described by pundits and fellow professionals as one of his generation's greatest players, Gerrard spent the vast majority of his playing career as a central midfielder for Liverpool and the England national team, captaining both.
Born in Merseyside, Gerrard played for Liverpool from 1998 to 2015, winning nine trophies, including the UEFA Champions League, two FA Cups and three League Cups. He was Man of the Match in the 2005 UEFA Champions League final, in which Liverpool overturned a 3–0 deficit to defeat AC Milan on penalties, and the 2006 FA Cup final, which has been termed The Gerrard Final in homage to his performance. Despite success in cup competitions, he never won the Premier League. During his career, Gerrard was thrice selected in the FIFA FIFPRO Men's World 11. Gerrard won 114 England caps between 2000 and 2014, captaining the team 38 times and scoring 21 goals. He played at three UEFA European Championships, in 2000, 2004 and 2012 (where he was named in the Team of the Tournament) and three FIFA World Cups, in 2006, 2010 and 2014.
Gerrard began his managerial career managing the Liverpool Youth Academy's under-18 team, before starting his senior managerial career in 2018 with Scottish Premiership club Rangers. In his third full season in charge, Gerrard's side went unbeaten in the league to win Rangers' first league title in ten years. In November 2021, he became the manager of Aston Villa, but after just eleven months in charge, he was dismissed due to a poor run of results.
As a player, his individual awards include UEFA Club Footballer of the Year in 2005, PFA Players' Player of the Year in 2006, FWA Footballer of the Year in 2009, appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2007 and induction into the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2021. He was named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year a record eight times. As a manager, he was named as Manager of the Year for 2021 by PFA Scotland and the SFWA.
## Early life
Steven George Gerrard was born on 30 May 1980, in Whiston, Merseyside, England, and is the second son of Paul and Julie Ann Gerrard. He started out playing for his hometown team, Whiston Juniors, where he was noticed by Liverpool scouts; he joined the Liverpool Academy in 1989 aged nine. His childhood footballing heroes were John Barnes and Ian Rush at Liverpool, and Paul Gascoigne for England. When Gerrard was young, a garden fork was imbedded in the big toe of his right foot. In his autobiography, Gerrard: My Autobiography, he credited Liverpool's academy director Steve Heighway and his father for preventing an operation to amputate his toe.
Although not a Catholic and living outside the catchment area, Gerrard attended Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School upon the recommendation of his primary school teacher, whose husband was a PE teacher at the school, due to its superior football reputation over other schools in the area. Gerrard had trials with various clubs at fourteen, but his success was not immediate; Gerrard never made it into the England schoolboys' team. His trials included one with Manchester United, which he said in his 2006 autobiography was "to pressure Liverpool into giving me a Youth Training Scheme contract." He signed his first professional contract with Liverpool on 5 November 1997.
## Club career
### Liverpool
#### 1998–2004: Beginnings, cup treble and club captaincy
Gerrard made his first-team debut for Liverpool on 29 November 1998 as a late substitute in a Premier League match against Blackburn Rovers. He made thirteen appearances in his debut season, replacing injured captain Jamie Redknapp in central midfield. He also occasionally played on the right wing, but scarcely contributed in the short match time he received, which he attributed to nerves. Gerrard recalled in a 2008 interview with The Guardian, "I was out of position and out of my depth." Nonetheless, Liverpool's coaching staff remained convinced that he would improve. Gerrard saw himself as a defensive player primarily, looking to make key tackles rather than push the team forward.
Replacing Paul Ince, Gerrard regularly partnered Redknapp in midfield for the 1999–2000 season. After starting the Merseyside derby on the bench, he replaced Robbie Fowler in the second half, receiving his first career red card for a challenge to the upper leg of Everton's Kevin Campbell. Later that season, Gerrard scored his first senior goal in a 4–1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday. However, he began to suffer from persistent back problems, which sports consultant Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt later diagnosed as a result of accelerated growth, coupled with excessive playing, during his teenage years. He was then beset by groin injuries that required four separate operations.
In the 2000–01 season, Gerrard made fifty starts in all competitions, scoring ten goals. That season, he won his first major honours with Liverpool—the FA Cup, Football League Cup, and the UEFA Cup—scoring in the final of the last competition. He was named PFA Young Player of the Year by his peers. The following season, he won the FA Charity Shield and UEFA Super Cup. In March 2003, Gerrard scored the opening goal in the club's 2–0 win over Manchester United in the Football League Cup final, held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. After a year as vice-captain, Gerrard replaced Sami Hyypiä as Liverpool captain in October 2003. Manager Gérard Houllier said that he had recognised Gerrard's leadership qualities early on, but that he needed time to mature.
In June 2005, Gerrard extended his contract at the club, signing a four-year deal. Houllier resigned as Liverpool manager after a trophy-less 2003–04 campaign, and Gerrard was linked with a move to Chelsea during the off-season. Gerrard admitted that he was not "happy with the progress Liverpool has made", and that "for the first time in my career I've thought about the possibility of moving on." Ultimately, Gerrard turned down a £20 million offer from Chelsea, staying with Liverpool under new coach Rafael Benítez.
#### 2004–2007: Champions League and FA Cup success
Liverpool had many injuries early in the 2004–05 season, and a broken toe suffered in a September league match against Manchester United sidelined Gerrard until late November. On 8 December, Gerrard scored a crucial 25-yard half volley in the 86th minute of Liverpool's final Champions League group stage match against Olympiacos to send the club through to the knockout round. A strike that saw Sky Sports co-commentator Andy Gray exclaim, "Oh, you beauty!! What a hit son! What a hit!", Gerrard claimed that this was his most important, if not his best, goal for Liverpool to date. However, Gerrard netted an own goal during the 2005 League Cup final on 27 February, which proved decisive in Liverpool's 3–2 loss to Chelsea after extra time at the Millennium Stadium.
During a six-minute stretch in the second half of the 2005 Champions League final against AC Milan, Liverpool came back from a three-goal deficit to tie the match at 3–3 after extra time, with Gerrard scoring one of the goals, a header from a John Arne Riise cross. Liverpool's third goal was gained as a penalty from a foul awarded to Liverpool when Gennaro Gattuso was judged to have pulled down Gerrard in Milan's penalty area. Xabi Alonso's penalty was saved by Dida but the rebound was scored. Gerrard did not participate in the penalty shoot-out (he was the designated fifth penalty taker) which Liverpool won 3–2 as they claimed their first Champions League trophy in twenty years. Dubbed the Miracle of Istanbul, the match is widely regarded as one of the greatest finals in the competition's history, and Gerrard was lauded as the catalyst for the second half comeback. Gerrard was named the Man of the Match, and later received the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year award.
In regards to his contract issues with Liverpool, Gerrard told the press after the final, "How can I leave after a night like this?" but negotiations soon stalled and on 5 July 2005, after Liverpool turned down another lucrative offer from Chelsea, Gerrard's agent Struan Marshall informed Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry that Gerrard was rejecting a club-record £100,000-a-week offer. Parry conceded the club had lost Gerrard, saying, "Now we have to move on. We have done our best, but he has made it clear he wants to go and I think it looks pretty final." The next day, Gerrard signed a new four-year deal as Parry blamed the earlier breakdown of talks on miscommunication between the two sides. Gerrard stated upon signing the contract that he would rather win one Premier League title with Liverpool than win multiple titles at Chelsea as it would mean more to him.
Gerrard scored 23 goals in 53 appearances in 2005–06, and in April became the first Liverpool player since John Barnes in 1988 to be voted the PFA Players' Player of the Year. He scored twice in the 2006 FA Cup final against West Ham United, including an injury time 35-yard equalizer that sent the match into extra time, and Liverpool won their second consecutive major trophy on penalties. A match called The Gerrard Final, the goals made him the only player to have scored in the FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup and Champions League finals. Liverpool eliminated Chelsea in the 2006–07 Champions League semi-finals on penalties, to return to their second final in three seasons, which they lost 2–1 to Milan in Athens.
#### 2007–2012: Continued success and stardom
Gerrard suffered a toe fracture in an August 2007 Champions League qualifier against Toulouse, but returned four days later to play the entirety of a 1–1 league draw against Chelsea. On 28 October 2007, Gerrard played his 400th game for Liverpool in a league match against Arsenal, in which he scored. He scored in all but one of Liverpool's domestic and European matches during the month of November, and after scoring the only goal in a Champions League away tie against Marseille on 11 December, he became the first Liverpool player since John Aldridge in 1989 to score in seven consecutive games in all competitions. In December 2007, Gerrard was voted sixth (after Kaká, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba and Ronaldinho) for the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year.
Gerrard made his 300th Premier League appearance on 13 April 2008 in a match against Blackburn Rovers, scoring the opening goal in a game which Liverpool won 3–1, and finished the season with twenty-one goals in all competitions, surpassing his total from the 2006–07 season. Gerrard was selected for the PFA Team of the Year and he was also one of the nominees or the PFA Players' Player of the Year, alongside teammate Fernando Torres.
Gerrard needed to undergo groin surgery at the beginning of the 2008–09 season, but the problem was not serious and he quickly returned to training. He scored what appeared to be his hundredth career Liverpool goal against Stoke City on 20 September, but it was disallowed after Dirk Kuyt was ruled offside. He achieved the milestone eleven days later in a 3–1 Champions League group stage win over PSV.
He made his 100th appearance in European club competition for Liverpool on 10 March 2009 against Real Madrid and scored twice in a 4–0 win. Four days after the victory over Real, Gerrard would score at Old Trafford for the first time from the penalty spot, putting Liverpool ahead on their way to a 4–1 victory over Manchester United. Following these results, three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Zinedine Zidane hailed Gerrard as possibly the best player in the world. On 22 March 2009, Gerrard scored his first ever hat-trick in the Premier League, against Aston Villa, in a 5–0 victory.
On 13 May 2009, Gerrard was named as the 2009 Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year, beating Ryan Giggs by just 10 votes and becoming the first Liverpool player to win the award in nineteen years. Gerrard was delighted and "a little bit surprised" to win the award. On 5 December 2009, Gerrard made his 500th appearance for Liverpool at Blackburn. He ended the 2009–10 season with 12 goals and nine assists from 46 matches.
Following the 2009–10 season, Rafael Benítez departed Liverpool after six years and was succeeded as manager by Roy Hodgson, who quickly assured fans that Gerrard would not be sold. To further eliminate any speculation surrounding his future at the club, Gerrard made a statement emphasizing his excitement at the coming season with Liverpool and praising the signing of Joe Cole. Gerrard soon played his first pre-season match of the 2010–11 season against Borussia Mönchengladbach on 1 August 2010 alongside new signing Joe Cole.
Gerrard scored his first goal of the 2010–11 season from the penalty spot in a Europa League qualifier against Macedonian side FK Rabotnički on 5 August 2010. His next two goals came on 19 September at Old Trafford in a 3–2 loss against Manchester United; he scored from a penalty kick in the 64th minute and a free-kick six minutes later to level the game at 2–2. He followed this up one week later with the second equaliser in a 2–2 home draw with Sunderland. Eleven days later, Gerrard came off the bench to score a second-half hat-trick in a 3–1 win over Napoli in the Europa League.
Gerrard missed the start of the 2011–12 season due to a groin injury, which had also kept him out of action for large parts of the previous season. Gerrard later went on to reveal he rejected the chance to join Bayern Munich in the summer to focus on getting Liverpool back in the Champions League, saying "... a traditional club like Liverpool still has a value, that's the reason why I have stuck around for so long ... it is more important to win a couple of trophies and achieve something that is a lot more difficult than go down the easy road and move to a club where it becomes easier."
On 29 October, Gerrard underwent treatment to clear an infection in his right ankle, which was placed in a protective plaster cast. He was forced to miss Liverpool's league match against West Bromwich Albion that day and was ruled out for at least the match against Swansea City the following week and England's friendly matches against Sweden and Spain the week after that. On 30 December, Gerrard came off the bench against Newcastle United and scored a fine goal.
Gerrard went on to help Liverpool to reach their first cup final in 6 years, and their first at Wembley Stadium in 18 years, as Liverpool beat Manchester City 3–2 on aggregate in the semi-finals. Gerrard scored a penalty in both legs to send Liverpool to the 2012 Football League Cup final against Cardiff City on 26 February 2012, which Liverpool won on penalties. On his 400th Premier League appearance for Liverpool, Gerrard scored a hat-trick to give Liverpool a 3–0 victory over rivals Everton in the Merseyside derby on 13 March.
#### 2012–2015: Final seasons with Liverpool
On 18 August 2012, Gerrard played his 250th match as Liverpool captain. He scored his first Premier League goal of the season on 23 September, opening the scoring in a 2–1 defeat against Manchester United.
On 15 July 2013, Gerrard signed a contract extension with Liverpool. On 3 August 2013, Liverpool played Olympiacos, against whom Gerrard scored arguably his most celebrated goal, at Anfield for Gerrard's charity fund-raising testimonial match. Liverpool won the match 2–0, in a game where past players such as Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler made appearances. Alder Hey Children's Charity, of which Gerrard is a founding partner, received £500,000 from the proceeds. On 5 October, Gerrard scored in a 3–1 win over Crystal Palace, becoming Liverpool's first ever player to score in 15 successive league campaigns, overtaking the record previously set by Billy Liddell in 1959. Also in October 2013, he became the longest-serving Liverpool captain, 10 years after his appointment by Gérard Houllier on 15 October 2013, breaking the previous record held by Alex Raisbeck, who captained Liverpool from 1899 to 1909.
On 19 October 2013, Gerrard scored his 100th Premier League goal, a penalty against Newcastle United in a 2–2 draw. On 16 March 2014, Gerrard scored two penalties and missed another in Liverpool's 3–0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. With nine career goals against arch rivals Manchester United he is Liverpool’s highest goalscorer in the fixture. On 6 April, he scored another two penalties as Liverpool beat West Ham United 2–1 to go top of the Premier League table with five matches to play. These goals took him above Kenny Dalglish as Liverpool's sixth-top goalscorer of all time.
On 27 April, Gerrard was involved in what was later labelled as a defining moment of the 2013–14 Premier League season; where Liverpool would ultimately finish second. Liverpool originally topped the league when they faced Chelsea in their third last match of the season. Gerrard slipped while receiving a pass which allowed Demba Ba to score the opening goal for Chelsea; Chelsea went on to win 2–0, which meant that Liverpool's title hopes were no longer in their own hands. Gerrard finished the season with 13 goals and the League's most assists at 13. Gerrard was a nominee for the PFA Players' Player of the Year award that year, while he won the 2014 Liverpool Echo Sports Personality Award. Gerrard would later refer to this period as "the worst three months of my life".
In October 2014, Gerrard ruled out retiring at the end of the 2014–15 season and said that he could join another club if he were not offered a new contract at Liverpool. On 1 January 2015, Gerrard announced that he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season. Gerrard said he would have signed a new contract had it been offered in the offseason, but said the club did not make an offer until November. By that time, Brendan Rodgers had spoken to him about managing his playing time and he had been left out of the starting line-up against Real Madrid in the Champions League, contributing to his decision to leave Liverpool. His goal against Basel in the final group stage game of the Champions League was Gerrard's 30th goal in the competition, a club record until it was surpassed by Mohamed Salah in 2021. On 5 January 2015, Gerrard scored two goals in his first game after announcing his departure in the FA Cup 3rd round tie in a 2–1 win at AFC Wimbledon. This followed another two-goal performance in the previous match against Leicester, the first time he scored two or more goals in consecutive games since July 2005. On 4 February 2015, he made his 700th appearance for Liverpool, in an FA Cup tie against Bolton.
On 22 March, Gerrard was sent off 38 seconds after coming on as a half-time substitute in a match against Manchester United for stamping on Ander Herrera. Gerrard made his 500th league appearance for Liverpool in a goalless draw against West Brom on 25 April; he became only the third player ever to achieve 500 or more Premier League appearances for one club, after Ryan Giggs and former teammate Jamie Carragher. His final appearance for Liverpool at Anfield was on 16 May against Crystal Palace in a 3–1 loss. His final appearance for the club was eight days later in a 6–1 defeat at Stoke, with Gerrard scoring Liverpool's only goal of the game.
### LA Galaxy
#### 2015–2016: Final years and retirement
On 7 January 2015, the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer (MLS) announced the signing of Gerrard to an 18-month Designated Player contract, reportedly worth \$9 million. He joined the team in July, following the end of the 2014–15 Premier League season. On 11 July, Gerrard made his debut for LA, coming on at half time for Ignacio Maganto in a 1–0 loss at Real Salt Lake in the U.S. Open Cup quarter-finals. He made his MLS debut on 17 July, scoring once, while assisting one goal of his former Liverpool teammate Robbie Keane's hat-trick, during a 5–2 defeat of fellow Californians the San Jose Earthquakes at the StubHub Center. That month, Gerrard was one of the 22 players to be named to the 2015 MLS All-Star Game roster. He made 13 appearances across the regular season, scoring one more goal, the team's last of a 3–2 home win over FC Dallas on 27 September.
After the Galaxy were eliminated from the 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs by Seattle Sounders FC, Gerrard announced that he may retire in 2016, saying that he found unexpected difficulty in the long journeys to away matches in the United States, and the diverse altitude and weather across the country.
Gerrard played his final game for the Galaxy on 6 November 2016 in a MLS Cup Playoff penalty shoot-out loss to Colorado Rapids. Gerrard took and scored Los Angeles' first spot-kick but the club were eliminated after Giovani dos Santos and Ashley Cole failed to convert. Nine days later, he stated he would be leaving on the expiration of his contract. He announced his retirement from professional football on 24 November, at age 36.
## International career
### 2000–2004: Beginnings and early call-ups
Gerrard made his international debut against Ukraine on 31 May 2000. That summer, he was called up for UEFA Euro 2000, making only one appearance as a substitute in a 1–0 win over Germany before England were eliminated in the group stage. He scored his first international goal in the famous 5–1 victory over Germany in a 2002 World Cup qualifier in September 2001, and while England qualified, Gerrard was forced to pull out of the squad due to his ongoing groin problems after pulling up in Liverpool's final match of the season against Ipswich.
### 2004–2006: Inaugural FIFA World Cup
Before the Euros, Gerrard won the only trophy with the national team in his career – the friendly 2004 FA Summer Tournament. Gerrard scored his second goal for the national team in the Euro 2004 qualifier against Macedonia on 16 October 2002 in a 2–2 draw, his third goal was the opener in a 2–1 win over Serbia and Montenegro on 3 June 2003. He was a regular starter in Euro 2004, scoring once to make it 3–0 in England's win over Switzerland in the second Group game of the tournament but England would be eliminated by the tournament hosts Portugal in the quarter-finals losing 6–5 on penalties in a match when Gerrard was substituted off in the 81st minute for Owen Hargreaves.
He participated in his first World Cup in 2006 and scored two goals, both in the group stage, against Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden, although his spot-kick was one of three saved by goalkeeper Ricardo as England again bowed out to Portugal in the quarter-finals on penalties. He was England's top scorer in the tournament.
### 2006–2010: Vice-captaincy and "Golden Generation"
Gerrard was made vice-captain of the England team by coach Steve McClaren, and while he filled in for John Terry as captain, England suffered back-to-back losses to Russia and Croatia that ended their Euro 2008 qualifying hopes. After new coach Fabio Capello took over the team in early 2008, Gerrard was given a trial run as captain but Capello settled on Terry for the role. Gerrard was subsequently replaced as England vice-captain by Rio Ferdinand.
Gerrard helped England qualify for the 2010 World Cup, scoring two goals in England's 5–1 win over Croatia. John Terry was replaced by Rio Ferdinand as captain in 2010, following revelations about the former's private life, and Gerrard subsequently became vice-captain again. When the England team left for the 2010 World Cup, Gerrard was the most experienced player in the squad with 80 caps. During preparations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, however, Rio Ferdinand was injured, meaning that Gerrard was appointed by Capello as captain for the tournament.
After the tournament Gerrard, part of a group of England players dubbed the "Golden Generation", confirmed that he would continue to be available for selection, despite suggestions from Capello that he would seek to rebuild the team.
### 2010–2014: Captaincy and international retirement
In August 2010, Gerrard scored twice in a friendly match against Hungary and helped England to a 2–1 win. Due to Ferdinand's continued absence through injury, Gerrard retained the captaincy for the opening match of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign against Bulgaria, which England won 4–0. He was later named permanent captain by new coach Roy Hodgson, in time for the tournament finals.
This was the first time that he was named directly the captain of England and not in place of an injured or unavailable captain. He provided three assists and won two man of the match awards to help England finish top of their group. Despite their quarter-final exit on penalties to Italy, Gerrard was later the only England player to be named in the UEFA Team of the Tournament. On 14 November 2012, Gerrard won his 100th cap for England in a friendly match against Sweden.
For the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Gerrard captained England to their first group stage elimination since 1958 and their first elimination after only two matches, after two straight 1–2 defeats against Italy and Uruguay. Gerrard had played a part in both goals conceded against Uruguay courtesy of his club-mate, Luis Suárez. For England's final game against Costa Rica, Gerrard was replaced as captain by Frank Lampard and used as a substitute.
On 21 July 2014, Gerrard announced his retirement from international football. He represented England 114 times (currently the fourth most capped player), scoring 21 goals. Jordan Henderson described Gerrard as "probably the best player this country has ever seen – not only as a player, but also as a leader and a captain."
## Style of play
Regarded by several pundits and footballing figures as one of the greatest players of his generation, in 2009, Zinedine Zidane and Pelé considered Gerrard to be possibly the best footballer in the world. Known for his versatility and wide range of skills, he was capable of playing in many positions. A hardworking box-to-box player with great endurance, Gerrard was usually deployed as a central midfielder, but he had also been used as a second striker, a holding midfielder, an attacking midfielder, a right-back, and a right winger.
Gerrard began his professional career as a wide midfielder on the right, although he did not excel in this position as he had a tendency to commit careless fouls in his youth. Nevertheless, Liverpool retained their faith in the youngster, and he was later shifted to a defensive midfield position as he matured, where he excelled as a ball-winner rather than as a playmaker.
He continued to evolve tactically, coming into his own in a box-to-box central midfield role, which allowed him to be effective both offensively and defensively; indeed, at his peak, he was known for his ability to make late runs from behind into the penalty area. Under Benítez, he was also used in a supporting and creative role, as an attacking midfielder behind the strikers, or even as a deep-lying playmaker; he was increasingly deployed in the latter position in his later career, in order to compensate for his physical decline, and due to his ability to dictate play in midfield with his vision and passing range.
Gerrard, naturally right footed, was able to score goals from distance due to his ball striking ability—he scored many key goals from long range throughout his career, including in three Cup finals. As he entered his mid 30s and his physical capability to get forward and join the attack declined, the number of long range strikes at goal decreased, with most of his goals coming from free kicks and penalty kicks.
In particular, his tactical intelligence and ability to read the game allowed him to break down the opposition's attacking plays. In addition to his footballing attributes, Gerrard was highly regarded for his leadership, determination, and influence on the pitch throughout his career. Despite being vocal in his criticism of diving, Gerrard was accused of diving himself by certain pundits throughout his career.
## Managerial career
In November 2016, days before retiring as a player, Gerrard had an interview for the vacant managerial post at League One club Milton Keynes Dons, but said that he was not ready for the job.
### Liverpool Academy
In January 2017, he was appointed youth coach at Liverpool, effective from February. On 11 April, it was reported that Gerrard would be taking charge of the Liverpool Under-18 side ahead of the 2017–18 season after impressing Jürgen Klopp and Alex Inglethorpe with his work ethic, knowledge and attitude towards academy coaching. However, before he took the next step on the path to receive his coaching credentials, Gerrard pulled on the Liverpool shirt one last time in a friendly against Australian club Sydney FC at the end of this Premier League campaign. On 7 September 2017, the club announced Gerrard would manage the Under-19 team in the 2017–18 UEFA Youth League.
### Rangers
In late April 2018, Gerrard entered talks to become the new manager of Scottish Premiership club Rangers. On 1 May, incumbent manager Graeme Murty was dismissed, with the club confirming three days later that Gerrard would succeed him from 1 June, ahead of the 2018–19 season, signing a four-year contract. He made his senior managerial debut on 12 July, when he led Rangers to a 2–0 UEFA Europa League win over Macedonian team Shkupi. Gerrard's first game in charge in the domestic league was a 1–1 draw against Aberdeen, away from home. Under Gerrard's management, Rangers went twelve matches unbeaten in all competitions from the start of the season before finally suffering defeat on 2 September, losing 1–0 to rivals Celtic in the Old Firm derby. On 29 December, in the reverse fixture, Gerrard guided Rangers to their first win over Celtic since 2012, in a game that ended with a 1–0 scoreline.
Ahead of the 2019–20 season, Gerrard was linked with a return to the Premier League, after the managerial position at Newcastle United became vacant. The move would have seen him replace his former Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez, who left the club at the end of his contract. Gerrard reportedly turned down the opportunity to take over as the club's manager, because he was comfortable at Rangers.
During the 2020–21 season, Gerrard led Rangers through a record-breaking season, claiming back-to-back derby wins over rivals Celtic, and topping their Europa League group. On 7 March 2021, Rangers won the Scottish Premiership title without losing a single league match, receiving 102 points and conceding only 13 goals across 38 matches. It was also Gerrard's first trophy as a manager.
### Aston Villa
On 11 November 2021, Gerrard was appointed as head coach at Premier League club Aston Villa on a three-and-a-half-year contract, succeeding Dean Smith, who was dismissed four days earlier. Villa paid Rangers compensation of around £4 million to release him from his contract. He led the club to a 2–0 home win against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League in his first game in charge. Results under Gerrard were generally mixed and the team finished the season in 14th place, three places lower than the previous campaign.
After winning just two of their opening 12 league games of the 2022–23 season, Gerrard was dismissed by Villa on 20 October 2022.
### Al-Ettifaq
On 3 July 2023, Gerrard became the manager of Saudi Pro League club Al-Ettifaq.
## Outside football
### Personal life
Gerrard's cousin, Anthony Gerrard, became a professional centre-back. He came through at Everton, where he did not make the first team, and spent most of his career in the Football League. The two faced each other in a professional match for the first time in the 2012 Football League Cup final, when Steven's Liverpool defeated Anthony's Cardiff City in a penalty shoot-out in which both Gerrards missed.
One of Gerrard's other cousins, Bobby Duncan, played for Liverpool's Academy team.
Gerrard and his wife, Alex Curran, married on 16 June 2007, the same day as the weddings of his England teammates: Gary Neville, and Michael Carrick. The ceremony took place at Cliveden House Hotel in Taplow, Buckinghamshire. They have four children together.
Councillors of Knowsley voted to make Gerrard a Freeman of the Borough on 13 December 2007, and two weeks later, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to sport. He received an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University on 26 July 2008 as recognition for his contribution to sport.
In 2018, Amazon produced a documentary called "Make Us Dream" detailing the life of Gerrard from a young boy up until his post as Liverpool youth coach.
### Autobiography
In September 2006, Gerrard published his first autobiography, Gerrard: My Autobiography, ghost-written by journalist Henry Winter, which went on to win the Sports Book of the Year honour at the British Book Awards. Gerrard's second volume of autobiography, My Story, written with Donald McRae, was published in September 2015. The autobiography ends with "I play for Jon-Paul." Gerrard's cousin, Jon-Paul Gilhooley, was killed in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, when Gerrard was eight. Jon-Paul, who was 10 when he died, was the youngest of the 97 victims of the tragedy. "It was difficult knowing one of your cousins had lost his life", Gerrard said. "Seeing his family's reaction drove me on to become the player I am today.
Gerrard released a second book in 2012, Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story.
In his third and latest autobiography, 2015's My Story, he opined the four best players to have played alongside him are former Liverpool teammates Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres and Luis Suárez and England teammate Wayne Rooney.
### Legal problems
On 1 October 2007, Gerrard was involved in a low-speed collision in Southport when the car he was driving hit a ten-year-old cyclist, who had shot into the street and inadvertently crossed Gerrard's path. He later visited the boy in the hospital and presented him with a pair of boots signed by Wayne Rooney, the boy's favourite player, after which he stayed to sign autographs for other young patients.
On 29 December 2008, Gerrard was taken into custody outside the Lounge Inn in Southport on suspicion of a section 20 assault. He and two other men were later charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray, relating to an incident which left the bar's disc jockey with a broken tooth and cuts to his forehead. The three were given police to court bail and were required to appear at North Sefton Magistrates' Court on 23 January 2009, where they all pleaded not guilty. The case was adjourned until 20 March when the assault charge was dropped but Gerrard was required to attend Liverpool Crown Court to face trial for affray. On 3 April, Gerrard again pleaded not guilty.
The case went to trial in Liverpool Crown Court. Gerrard's co-defendants pleaded guilty before the trial but Gerrard maintained his innocence. Gerrard admitted hitting Marcus McGee but claimed it was in self-defence and on 24 July, Gerrard was found not guilty by the jury. Following the verdict, Gerrard said he was looking forward to getting back to playing football and putting the experience behind him.
### Entertainment
In 2011, Gerrard appeared in the film Will, about an orphaned young Liverpool fan who hitchhikes to Istanbul for the 2005 UEFA Champions League final. In August 2014, Gerrard participated in the ALS Association's Ice Bucket Challenge and went on to challenge Cardiff City winger, Craig Noone.
### Sponsorship
Gerrard has had several different sponsorships in his career including current deals with Adidas, Jaguar Cars and Lucozade. In 2014, Forbes listed his combined income from salaries, bonuses and off-field earnings at \$17.2 million for the previous 12 months. While Gerrard has worn several football boots during his career, he first wore a pair of Nike boots on his Liverpool debut, but soon signed a deal with Adidas in 1998 and has gone on to appear in many Adidas commercials with the likes of Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Lionel Messi and Kaká. Gerrard has worn ten versions of the Adidas Predator boot, with the Accelerator being the first, and throughout his career, he has been one of the brand's major boot endorsees. In 2013, Gerrard switched boot silos to the Nitrocharge 1.0 first wearing the boots in the League Cup clash against rivals Manchester United on 25 September 2013.
## Career statistics
### Club
### International
Source:
England score listed first, score column indicates score after each Gerrard goal.
## Managerial statistics
## Honours
### Player
Liverpool
- FA Cup: 2000–01, 2005–06
- Football League Cup: 2000–01, 2002–03, 2011–12
- FA Community Shield: 2006
- UEFA Champions League: 2004–05
- UEFA Cup: 2000–01
- UEFA Super Cup: 2001
Individual
- UEFA Club Footballer of the Year: 2005
- PFA Players' Player of the Year: 2005–06
- PFA Young Player of the Year: 2000–01
- PFA Premier League Team of the Year: 2000–01, 2003–04, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2013–14
- PFA Fans' Player of the Year: 2000–01, 2008–09
- PFA Merit Award: 2015
- FWA Footballer of the Year: 2008–09
- Onze d'Argent: 2005
- FA England Player of the Year Award: 2007, 2012
- Liverpool Player of the Season: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009
- Liverpool Fans Online Player of the Season: 2005, 2007
- FIFA FIFPro World XI: 2007, 2008, 2009
- UEFA Team of the Year: 2005, 2006, 2007
- UEFA Ultimate Team of the Year
- UEFA European Championship Team of the Tournament: 2012
- ESM Team of the Year: 2008–09
- Premier League Player of the Month: March 2001, March 2003, December 2004, April 2006, March 2009, March 2014
- Most assists in the Premier League: 2013–14
- Premier League 20 Seasons Awards (1992–93 to 2011–12), Fantasy Team (public choice)
- English Football Hall of Fame: 2017
- FIFA Club World Championship Silver Ball: 2005
- Premier League Hall of Fame: 2021
### Manager
Rangers
- Scottish Premiership: 2020–21
Individual
- SFWA Manager of the Year: 2020–21
- PFA Scotland Manager of the Year: 2020–21
- SPFL Premiership Manager of the Year: 2020–21
- LMA Special Achievement Award: 2020–21
- Scottish Premiership Manager of the Month: April 2019, September 2019, December 2019, August 2020, October 2020, November 2020, February 2021
### Orders
- Member of the Order of the British Empire: 2007
## See also
- List of men's footballers with 100 or more international caps |
142,528 | Jeff Bezos | 1,173,646,616 | American billionaire business magnate (born 1964) | [
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]
| Jeffrey Preston Bezos (/ˈbeɪzoʊs/ BAY-zohss; ; born January 12, 1964) is an American business magnate, media proprietor, and investor. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. With a net worth of US\$160 billion as of September 2023, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person in the world and was the wealthiest from 2017 to 2021, according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes.
Born in Albuquerque and raised in Houston and Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street in a variety of related fields from 1986 to early 1994. Bezos founded Amazon in late 1994 on a road trip from New York City to Seattle. The company began as an online bookstore and has since expanded to a variety of other e-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It is the world's largest online sales company, the largest Internet company by revenue, and the largest provider of virtual assistants and cloud infrastructure services through its Amazon Web Services branch.
Bezos founded the aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company Blue Origin in 2000. Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle reached space in 2015 and afterwards successfully landed back on Earth; he flew into space on Blue Origin NS-16 in 2021. He also purchased the major American newspaper The Washington Post in 2013 for \$250 million and manages many other investments through his venture capital firm, Bezos Expeditions. In September 2021, Bezos co-founded the biotechnology company Altos Labs with Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner.
The first centibillionaire on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires Index and the second ever to have eclipsed the feat since Bill Gates in 1999, Bezos was named the "richest man in modern history" after his net worth increased to \$150 billion in July 2018. In August 2020, according to Forbes, he had a net worth exceeding \$200 billion. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, his wealth grew by approximately \$24 billion. On July 5, 2021, Bezos stepped down as the CEO and president of Amazon and took over the role of executive chairman. AWS CEO Andy Jassy succeeded Bezos as the CEO and president of Amazon. In September 2022, he was ranked second on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of \$151 billion.
## Early life
Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 12, 1964, the son of Jacklyn (née Gise) and Ted Jorgensen. At the time of Jeff's birth, his mother was a 17-year-old high-school student and his father was 19 years old. Jorgensen was a Danish American unicyclist born in Chicago to a family of Baptists. After completing high school despite challenging conditions, Jacklyn attended night school, bringing her baby with her. Jeff attended a Montessori school in Albuquerque when he was two years old.
Ted Jorgensen drank and struggled financially. Jacklyn left her husband to live with her parents, filing for divorce in June 1965 when Jeff was seventeen months old.
After his parents divorced, his mother married Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos in April 1968. Shortly after the wedding, Mike adopted four-year-old Jeff, whose surname was then legally changed from Jorgensen to Bezos. Gise, her husband and her son left the area and asked Jorgensen to discontinue contact, to which he agreed.
After Mike had received his degree from the University of New Mexico, the family moved to Houston, Texas, so that he could begin working as an engineer for Exxon. Jeff attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. Jeff's maternal grandfather was Lawrence Preston Gise, a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Albuquerque. Lawrence retired early to his family's ranch near Cotulla, Texas, where Jeff would spend many summers in his youth. Jeff would later purchase this ranch and expand it from 25,000 acres (10,117 ha) to 300,000 acres (121,406 ha). Jeff displayed scientific interests and technological proficiency and once rigged an electric alarm to keep his younger siblings out of his room. The family moved to Miami, Florida, where Jeff attended Miami Palmetto High School. While Jeff was in high school, he worked at McDonald's as a short-order line cook during the breakfast shift.
Bezos attended the Student Science Training Program at the University of Florida. He was high school valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar, and a Silver Knight Award winner in 1982. In his graduation speech, Bezos told the audience he dreamed of the day when mankind would colonize space. A local newspaper quoted his intention "to get all people off the earth and see it turned into a huge national park". In 1986, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a 4.2 GPA and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree (B.S.E.) in electrical engineering and computer science; he was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. While at Princeton, Bezos was a member of the Quadrangle Club, one of Princeton's 11 eating clubs. In addition, he was elected to Tau Beta Pi and was the president of the Princeton chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS).
## Business career
### Early career
After Bezos graduated from college in 1986, he was offered jobs at Intel, Bell Labs, and Andersen Consulting, among others. He first worked at Fitel, a fintech telecommunications start-up, where he was tasked with building a network for international trade. Bezos was promoted to head of development and director of customer service thereafter. He transitioned into the banking industry when he became a product manager at Bankers Trust from 1988 to 1990. He then joined D. E. Shaw & Co, a newly created hedge fund with a strong emphasis on mathematical modelling from 1990 until 1994. Bezos became D. E. Shaw's fourth senior vice-president by age 30.
### Amazon
In spring 1994, Bezos read that web usage was growing at a rate of 2300% a year and eventually decided to establish an online bookstore. He and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, left their jobs at D. E. Shaw and founded Amazon in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington on July 5, 1994, after writing its business plan on a cross-country drive from New York City to Seattle. With Bezos at the helm and Scott taking an integral role in its operation—writing checks, keeping track of the books, and negotiating the company's first freight contracts—the foundation was laid for this garage-run operation to grow exponentially. Prior to settling in Seattle, Bezos had investigated setting up his company at an Indian reservation near San Francisco in order to avoid paying taxes. Bezos initially named his new company Cadabra but later changed the name to Amazon after the Amazon River in South America, in part because the name begins with the letter A, which is at the beginning of the alphabet. At the time, website listings were alphabetized, so a name starting with "A" would appear sooner when customers conducted online searches. In addition, he regarded "Amazon," the name of the world's largest river as fitting for what he hoped would become the world's largest online bookstore. He accepted an estimated \$300,000 from his parents as an investment in Amazon. He warned many early investors that there was a 70% chance that Amazon would fail or go bankrupt. Although Amazon was originally an online bookstore, Bezos had always planned to expand to other products. Three years after Bezos founded Amazon, he took it public with an initial public offering (IPO). In response to critical reports from Fortune and Barron's, Bezos maintained that the growth of the Internet would overtake competition from larger book retailers such as Borders and Barnes & Noble.
In 1998, Bezos diversified into the online sale of music and video, and by the end of the year he had expanded the company's products to include a variety of other consumer goods. Bezos used the \$54 million raised during the company's 1997 equity offering to finance the aggressive acquisition of smaller competitors. In 2000, Bezos borrowed \$2 billion from banks, as its cash balances dipped to only \$350 million. In 2002, Bezos led Amazon to launch Amazon Web Services, which compiled data from weather channels and website traffic. In late 2002, rapid spending from Amazon caused it financial distress when revenues stagnated. After the company nearly went bankrupt, he closed distribution centers and laid off 14% of the Amazon workforce. In 2003, Amazon rebounded from financial instability and turned a profit of \$400 million. In November 2007, Bezos launched the Amazon Kindle. According to a 2008 Time profile, Bezos wished to create a device that allowed a "flow state" in reading similar to the experience of video games. In 2013, Bezos secured a \$600-million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on behalf of Amazon Web Services. In October of that year, Amazon was recognized as the largest online shopping retailer in the world.
In May 2016, Bezos sold slightly more than one million shares of his holdings in the company for \$671 million, the largest sum he had ever raised from selling some of his Amazon stock. On August 4, 2016, Bezos sold another million of his shares for \$756.7 million. A year later, Bezos took on 130,000 new employees when he ramped up hiring at company distribution centers. By January 19, 2018, his Amazon stock holdings had appreciated to slightly over \$109 billion; months later he began to sell stock to raise cash for other enterprises, in particular, Blue Origin. On January 29, 2018, he was featured in Amazon's Super Bowl commercial. On February 1, 2018, Amazon reported its highest ever profit with quarterly earnings of \$2 billion. Due to the growth of Alibaba in China, Bezos has often expressed interest in expanding Amazon into India. On July 27, 2017, Bezos momentarily became the world's wealthiest person over Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates when his estimated net worth increased to just over \$90 billion. His wealth surpassed \$100 billion for the first time on November 24, 2017, and he was formally designated the wealthiest person in the world by Forbes on March 6, 2018, with a net worth of \$112 billion.
In March 2018, Bezos dispatched Amit Agarwal, Amazon's global senior vice president, to India with \$5.5 billion to localize operations throughout the company's supply chain routes. Later in the month, U.S. President Donald Trump accused Amazon and Bezos, specifically of sales tax avoidance, misusing postal routes, and anti-competitive business practices. Amazon's share price fell by 9% in response to the President's negative comments; this reduced Bezos's personal wealth by \$10.7 billion. Weeks later, Bezos recouped his losses when academic reports out of Stanford University indicated that Trump could do little to regulate Amazon in any meaningful way. During July 2018, a number of members of the U.S. Congress called on Bezos to detail the applications of Amazon's face recognition software, Rekognition.
Criticism of Amazon's business practices continued in September 2018 when Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act and accused Amazon of receiving corporate welfare. This followed revelations by the non-profit group New Food Economy which found that one third of Amazon workers in Arizona, and one tenth of Amazon workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, relied on food stamps. While preparing to introduce the bill, Sanders opined: "Instead of attempting to explore Mars or go to the moon, how about Jeff Bezos pays his workers a living wage?" He later said: "Bezos could play a profound role. If he said today, nobody who is employed at Amazon will receive less than a living wage, it would send a message to every corporation in America." Sanders's efforts elicited a response from Amazon which pointed to the 130,000 jobs it created in 2017 and called the \$28,446 figure for its median salary "misleading" as it included part-time workers. However, Sanders countered that the companies targeted by his proposal have placed an increased focus on part-time workers to escape benefit obligations. On October 2, 2018, Bezos announced a company-wide wage increase, which Sanders applauded. The American workers who were being paid the minimum wage had this increased to \$15 per hour, a decision that was interpreted as support for the Fight for \$15 movement.
In February 2021, Bezos announced that in the third quarter of 2021 he would step down from his role as CEO of Amazon to become the Executive Chairman of the Amazon Board. He was succeeded as CEO by Andy Jassy. On February 2, 2021, Bezos sent an email to all Amazon employees, telling them the transition would give him "the time and energy [he] need[s] to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and [his] other passions."
### Blue Origin
In September 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a human spaceflight startup. Bezos has long expressed an interest in space travel and the development of human life in the Solar System. His 1982 high school valedictorian senior graduation speech was followed up with a Miami Herald interview in which he expressed an interest to build and develop hotels, amusement parks, and colonies for human beings who were in orbit. The 18-year-old Bezos stated that he wanted to preserve Earth from overuse through resource depletion. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president.
After its founding, Blue Origin maintained a low profile until 2006 when it purchased a large tract of land in West Texas for a launch and test facility. After the company gained the public's attention during the late 2000s, Bezos additionally indicated his interest in reducing the cost of space travel for humans while also increasing the safety of extraterrestrial travel. In September 2011, one of the company's uncrewed prototype vehicles crashed during a short-hop test flight. Although the crash was viewed as a setback, news outlets noted how far the company went from its founding-to-date in advancing spaceflight. After the crash, Bezos has been superstitiously wearing his "lucky" Texas Cowboy boots to all rocket launches. In May 2013, Bezos met with Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Galactic, to discuss commercial spaceflight opportunities and strategies. He has been compared to Branson and Elon Musk as all three are billionaires who prioritize spaceflight among their business interests.
In 2015, Bezos announced that a new orbital launch vehicle was under development and would make its first flight in the late-2010s. Later in November, Blue Origin's New Shepard space vehicle successfully rocketed into space and reached its planned test altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before executing a vertical landing back at the launch site in West Texas. In 2016, Bezos allowed select journalists to visit, tour, and photograph his facility. He has repeatedly called for increased inter-space energy and industrial manufacturing to decrease the negative costs associated with business-related pollution.
In December 2017, New Shepard successfully flew and landed dummy passengers, amending and pushing its human space travel start date into late 2018. To execute this program, Blue Origin built six of the vehicles to support all phases of testing and operations: no-passenger test flights, flights with test passengers, and commercial-passenger weekly operations. Since 2016, Bezos has spoken more freely about his hopes to colonize the solar system, and has been selling US\$1 billion in Amazon stock each year to capitalize Blue Origin in an effort to support this endeavor. In May 2018, Bezos maintained that the primary goal of Blue Origin is to preserve the natural resources of Earth by making the human species multi-planetary. He announced that New Shepard would begin transporting humans into sub-orbital space by November 2018. In July 2018, it was announced that Bezos had priced commercial spaceflight tickets from \$200,000 to \$300,000 per person.
On July 20, 2021, he launched on the NS-16 mission with his half-brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen. He launched nine days after Richard Branson launched onboard the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission. Bezos's suborbital flight lasted over 10 minutes, reaching a peak altitude of 66.5 miles (107.0 km).
### The Washington Post
On August 5, 2013, Bezos announced his purchase of The Washington Post for \$250 million in cash, at the suggestion of his friend, Don Graham. To execute the sale, he established limited liability company Nash Holdings to serve as a holding company through which he would own the newspaper. The sale closed on October 1, 2013, and Nash Holdings took control. In March 2014, Bezos made his first significant change at The Washington Post and lifted the online paywall for subscribers of a number of U.S. local newspapers in Texas, Hawaii, and Minnesota. In January 2016, Bezos set out to reinvent the newspaper as a media and technology company by reconstructing its digital media, mobile platforms, and analytics software. After a surge in online readership in 2016, the paper was profitable for the first time since Bezos made the purchase in 2013.
### Bezos Expeditions
Bezos makes personal investments through his venture capital vehicle, Bezos Expeditions. He was one of the first shareholders in Google, when he invested \$250,000 in 1998. That \$250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock, worth about \$3.1 billion in 2017. He also invested in Unity Biotechnology, a life-extension research firm hoping to slow or stop the process of aging. Bezos is involved in the healthcare sector, which includes investments in Unity Biotechnology, GRAIL, Juno Therapeutics, and Zocdoc. In January 2018, an announcement was made concerning Bezos's role within a new, unnamed healthcare company. This venture, later named Haven, is expected to be a partnership between Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway.
Bezos also supports philanthropic efforts through direct donations and non-profit projects funded by Bezos Expeditions. Bezos used Bezos Expeditions to fund several philanthropic projects, including an Innovation center at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry and the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics at Princeton Neuroscience Institute. In 2013, Bezos Expeditions funded the recovery of two Saturn V first-stage Rocketdyne F-1 engines from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. They were positively identified as belonging to the Apollo 11 mission's S-1C stage from July 1969. The engines are currently on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight.
### Altos Labs
In September 2021, Bezos co-founded Altos Labs with Mail.ru founder Yuri Milner. Altos Labs is a well-funded biotechnology company dedicated to harnessing cellular reprogramming to develop longevity therapeutics. The company has recruited prominent scientists such as Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte (known for work on rejuvenation through reprogramming), Steve Horvath (known for work in epigenetic aging clocks), and Shinya Yamanaka (the Nobel Prize-winning inventor of cellular reprogramming in mammalian cells).
The company left stealth mode and launched on January 19, 2022, with a start capital of \$3 billion and an executive team led by Hal Barron.
## Public image
Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of "a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan". During the 1990s, Bezos earned a reputation for relentlessly pushing Amazon forward, often at the expense of public charity and social welfare. Journalist Mark O'Connell criticized Bezos's relentless customer focus as "very small" in terms of impact on humanity as a whole, a sentiment technologist Tim O'Reilly agreed with. His business practices projected a public image of prudence and parsimony with his own wealth and that of Amazon. In 1999, Bezos was worth \$10 billion yet drove a 1996 Honda Accord. Throughout the early 2000s, he was perceived to be geeky or nerdy.
Bezos was seen by some as needlessly quantitative and data-driven. This perception was detailed by Alan Deutschman, who described him as "talking in lists" and "[enumerating] the criteria, in order of importance, for every decision he has made." Select accounts of his persona have drawn controversy and public attention. Notably, journalist Brad Stone wrote a book that described Bezos as a demanding boss as well as hyper-competitive, and opined that Bezos perhaps "bet the biggest on the Internet" than anyone else. Bezos has been characterized as a notoriously opportunistic CEO who operates with little concern for obstacles and externalities.
During the early 2010s, Bezos solidified his reputation for aggressive business practices, and his public image began to shift. Bezos started to wear tailored clothing; he weight trained, pursued a regimented diet and began to freely spend his money. His physical transformation has been compared to the transformation of Amazon; he is often referred to as the metonym of the company. His physical appearance increased the public's perception of him as a symbolically dominant figure in business and in popular culture, wherein he has been parodied as an enterprising supervillain. Since 2017, he has been portrayed by Kyle Mooney and Steve Carell on Saturday Night Live, usually as an undercutting, domineering figure. In May 2014, the International Trade Union Confederation named Bezos the "World's Worst Boss", with its general secretary Sharan Burrow saying: "Jeff Bezos represents the inhumanity of employers who are promoting the North American corporate model", while in 2019, Harvard Business Review, which ranked Bezos the best-performing CEO for 4 years in a row since 2014, did not rank him even in the top 100, citing Amazon's "relatively low ESG (environment, social, and governance) scores" that reflect "risks created by working conditions and employment policies, data security, and antitrust issues."
During the late 2010s, Bezos reversed his reputation for being reluctant to spend money on non-business-related expenses. His relative lack of philanthropy compared to other billionaires has drawn a negative response from the public since 2016. Bezos has been known to publicly contest claims made in critical articles, as exemplified in 2015 when he sent a memo to employees denouncing a New York Times piece.
### Leadership style
Bezos used what he called a "regret-minimization framework" while he worked at D. E. Shaw and again during the early years of Amazon. He described this life philosophy by stating: "When I'm 80, am I going to regret leaving Wall Street? No. Will I regret missing the beginning of the Internet? Yes." During the 1990s and early 2000s at Amazon, he was characterized as trying to quantify all aspects of running the company, often listing employees on spreadsheets and basing executive decisions on data. To push Amazon forward, Bezos developed the mantra "Get Big Fast", establishing the company's need to scale its operations to produce market dominance. He favored diverting Amazon profits back into the company in lieu of allocating it amongst shareholders in the form of dividends.
Bezos uses the term "work–life harmony" instead of the more standard "work–life balance" because he believes that balance implies that you can only have one and not the other. He believes that work and home life are interconnected, informing and calibrating each other. Journalist Walt Mossberg dubbed the idea that someone who cannot tolerate criticism or critique should not do anything new or interesting "The Bezos Principle". Bezos does not schedule early morning meetings and enforces a two-pizza rule—a preference that meetings are small enough for two pizzas to feed everyone in the boardroom. When interviewing candidates for jobs at Amazon, he has stated he considers three inquiries: can he admire the person, can the person raise the common standard, and under what circumstances could the person become exemplary.
In 2018, it was reported that he met with Amazon investors for just six hours a year. Instead of using presentation slides, Bezos requires high-level employees to present information with six-page narratives. Since 1998, Bezos has published an annual letter for Amazon shareholders wherein he frequently refers to five principles: focus on customers, not competitors; take risks for market leadership; facilitate staff morale; build a company culture; and empower people. Bezos maintains the email address [email protected] as an outlet for customers to reach out to him and the company. Although he does not respond to the emails, he forwards some of them with a question mark in the subject line to executives, who then attempt to address the issues. Bezos has cited Jeff Immelt of New Enterprise Associates, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, and Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Company as major influences on his leadership style.
## Recognition
- In 1999, Bezos received his first major award when Time named him Person of the Year.
- In 2008, he was selected by U.S. News & World Report as one of America's best leaders.
- Bezos was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008.
- In 2011, The Economist gave Bezos and Gregg Zehr an Innovation Award for the Amazon Kindle.
- In 2012, Bezos was named Businessperson of the Year by Fortune.
- He is also a member of the Bilderberg Group and attended the 2011 Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and the 2013 conference in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. He was a member of the executive committee of The Business Council for 2011 and 2012.
- 2014–2018, he was ranked the best-performing CEO in the world by Harvard Business Review.
- He has also figured in Fortune's list of 50 great leaders of the world for three straight years, topping the list in 2015.
- In September 2016, Bezos received a \$250,000 prize for winning the Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization, which he donated to the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.
- In February 2018, Bezos was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for "leadership and innovation in space exploration, autonomous systems, and building a commercial pathway for human space flight".
- In March 2018, at the Explorers Club annual dinner, he was awarded the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award in recognition of his work with Blue Origin.
- He received Germany's 2018 Axel Springer Award for Business Innovation and Social Responsibility. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world on five separate occasions between 2008 and 2018.
- In 2019, Bezos was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation, being awarded with the Jeff Bezos Freedom's Wings Award and the Kenn Ricci Lifetime Aviation Entrepreneur Award.
- In February 2023, Bezos was presented with the Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit. Bezos had been designated a member of the Légion d'Honneur about 10 years earlier but was not available to collect it.
## Wealth
Bezos first became a millionaire in 1997 after raising \$54 million through Amazon's initial public offering (IPO). He was first included on the Forbes World's Billionaires list in 1999 with a registered net worth of \$10.1 billion, which placed his on the 19th position in the world and 10th in the USA. His net worth decreased to \$6.1 billion a year later, a 40.5% drop. His wealth plummeted even more the following year, dropping 66.6% to \$2.0 billion. He lost \$500 million the following year, which brought his net worth down to \$1.5 billion. The following year, his net worth increased by 66.66% to \$2.5 billion. From 2005 to 2007, he quadrupled his net worth to \$8.7 billion. After the financial crisis and succeeding economic recession, his net worth would decrease to \$6.8 billion—a 17.7% drop. His wealth rose by 85.2% in 2010, leaving him with \$12.6 billion. This percentage increase ascended him to the 43rd spot on the ranking from 68th.
After a rumor broke out that Amazon was developing a smartphone, Bezos's net worth rose to \$30.5 billion in 2014. A year later, Bezos entered the top ten when he increased his net worth to a total of \$50.3 billion. Bezos rose to be the 5th richest person in the world hours before market close; he gained \$7 billion in one hour. By the time the Forbes list was calculated in March 2016, his net worth was registered at \$45.2 billion. However, just months later in October 2016, his wealth increased by \$16.2 billion to \$66.5 billion, unofficially ranking him the third-richest person in the world, behind Warren Buffett. After sporadic jumps in Amazon's share price, in July 2017 he briefly unseated Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates as the wealthiest person in the world.
Bezos would continue to sporadically surpass Gates throughout the month of October 2017 after Amazon's share price fluctuated. His net worth surpassed \$100 billion for the first time on November 24, 2017, after Amazon's share price increased by more than 2.5%. When the 2017 list was issued, Bezos's net worth was registered at \$72.8 billion, adding \$27.6 billion from the previous year. His wealth's rapid growth from 2016 to 2017 sparked a variety of assessments about how much money Bezos earned on a controlled, reduced time scale. On October 10, 2017, he made an estimated \$6.24 billion in 5 minutes, slightly less than the annual gross domestic product of Kyrgyzstan.
On March 6, 2018, Bezos was designated the wealthiest person in the world, with a registered net worth of \$112 billion. He unseated Bill Gates (\$90 billion), who was \$6 billion ahead of Warren Buffett (\$84 billion), ranked third. He is considered the first registered centi-billionaire (not adjusted for inflation).
His wealth, in 2017–18 terms, equaled that of 2.7 million Americans. Bezos's net worth increased by \$33.6 billion from January 2017 to January 2018. This increase outstripped the economic development (in GDP terms) of more than 96 countries around the world. During March 9, Bezos earned \$230,000 every 60 seconds. The Motley Fool estimated that if Bezos had not sold any of his shares from its original public offering in 1997, his net worth would sit at \$181 billion in 2018. According to Quartz, his net worth of \$150 billion in July 2018 was enough to purchase the entire stock markets of Nigeria, Hungary, Egypt, Luxembourg, and Iran. Following the report by Quartz, Amazon workers in Poland, (Germany), and Spain participated in demonstrations and labor strikes to draw attention to his growing wealth and the lack of compensation, labor rights, and satisfactory working conditions of select Amazon workers. On July 17, 2018, he was designated the "wealthiest person in modern history" by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Fortune, MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.
In 2019, Bezos's wealth was reduced by the divorce from his wife MacKenzie Bezos. According to Forbes, had the Washington state common law applied to their divorce without a prenuptial agreement, Bezos's wealth could have been equitably divided with his ex-wife; however, she eventually received 25% of Bezos's Amazon shares, valued at approximately \$36 billion, making her the third-richest woman in the world. Bezos retained his interest in The Washington Post and Blue Origin, as well as voting control of the shares received by his ex-wife.
In June 2019, Bezos purchased three adjoining apartments overlooking Madison Square Park in Manhattan, including a penthouse, for a combined total of US\$80 million, making this one of the most expensive real estate purchases within New York City in 2019. Bezos had also purchased three adjoining apartments at 25 Central Park West in Manhattan for \$7.65 million in 1999; he bought a fourth unit in that building for \$5.3 million in 2012.
In February 2020, Bezos purchased the Warner Estate from David Geffen for \$165 million, a record price paid for a residence in the Los Angeles area. The previous record high price of \$150 million was paid by Lachlan Murdoch for the Chartwell Mansion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that Bezos's fortune had grown by \$24 billion, citing a surge in demand from households on lockdown shopping on Amazon. He further expanded his residential holdings in February 2022, purchasing a \$16.13-million-dollar apartment at a 24-story boutique condominium, located across from Madison Square Park in the Flatiron neighbourhood, where he already owns all the units on the top floors.
Bezos is the owner of the Y721, a luxury superyacht estimated to cost more than \$500,000,000. Once built, it will be the largest yacht in the world.
## Criticism
Bezos is known for creating an adversarial environment at Amazon, as well as insulting and verbally abusing his employees. As journalist Brad Stone revealed in his book The Everything Store, Bezos issued remarks to his employees such as "I'm sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?", "Are you lazy or just incompetent?", and "Why are you ruining my life?". Additionally, Bezos reportedly pitted Amazon teams against each other, and once declined to give Amazon employees city bus passes in order to discourage them from leaving the office.
Throughout his early years of ownership of The Washington Post, Bezos was accused of having a potential conflict of interest with the paper. Bezos and the newspaper's editorial board have dismissed accusations that he unfairly controlled the paper's content and Bezos maintains the paper's independence. Bezos treatment of employees at The Washington Post has also drawn scrutiny. In 2018, more than 400 Washington Post employees wrote an open letter to Bezos criticizing his poor wages and benefits for his employees. The letter demanded "Fair wages; fair benefits for retirement, family leave and health care; and a fair amount of job security".
## Personal life
In 1992, Bezos was working for D. E. Shaw in Manhattan when he met novelist MacKenzie Tuttle, who was a research associate at the firm; the couple married a year later. In 1994, they moved across the country to Seattle, Washington, where Bezos founded Amazon. Bezos and his now ex-wife MacKenzie are the parents of four children: three sons and one daughter adopted from China.
In March 2003, Bezos was a passenger in a helicopter that crashed in West Texas while surveying land to buy for Blue Origin; the other 3 occupants in the helicopter were pilot Charles "Cheater" Bella, Amazon lawyer Elizabeth Korrell, and local rancher Ty Holland. All survived; Bezos sustained only minor injuries and was discharged from a local hospital the same day.
Bezos portrayed a Starfleet official in the 2016 movie Star Trek Beyond, and joined the cast and crew at a San Diego Comic-Con screening. He had lobbied Paramount for the role apropos of Alexa and his personal/professional interest in speech recognition. His one line consisted of a response to an alien in distress: "Speak Normally." In his initial discussion of the project which became Alexa with his technical advisor Greg Hart in 2011, Bezos told him that the goal was to create "the Star Trek computer." Bezos's family corporation Zefram LLC is named after Zefram Cochrane, a character from Star Trek.
In January 2019, Bezos and his wife Mackenzie released a joint statement which revealed that they would be getting divorced after 25 years together. Subsequently, National Enquirer revealed that Bezos had an affair with media personality Lauren Sánchez; the affair with Sanchez had lasted for months. Later, Bezos published an online essay on February 7, 2019, in which he accused American Media, Inc. owner David Pecker of "extortion and blackmail" for threatening to publish intimate photos of Bezos and current girlfriend Lauren Sánchez if he did not stop his investigation into how his text messages and other photos had been leaked to the National Enquirer. Media reports have accused Sanchez's brother Michael of being the source for the photos obtained by National Enquirer; however, Bezos has speculated that it may have been the Saudi Arabian government.
On April 4, 2019, the divorce was finalized, with Bezos keeping 75% of the couple's Amazon stock and MacKenzie getting the remaining 25% (\$35.6 billion) in Amazon stock. However, Bezos would keep all of the couple's voting rights.
He is the Honorary Chair of the Explorers Club.
## Politics
According to public campaign finance records, Bezos supported the electoral campaigns of Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, two Democratic U.S. senators from Washington. He has also supported Democrats U.S. representative John Conyers, as well as Patrick Leahy and Republican Spencer Abraham, U.S. senators serving on committees dealing with Internet-related issues. Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, and in 2012 contributed \$2.5 million to Washington United for Marriage, a group supporting a yes vote on Washington Referendum 74, which affirmed a same-sex marriage law enacted in the state. Bezos donated \$100,000 towards a movement against a Washington state income tax in 2010 for "top earners". In 2012, he donated to Amazon's political action committee (PAC), which has given \$56,000 and \$74,500 to Democrats and Republicans, respectively.
After the 2016 presidential election, Bezos was invited to join Donald Trump's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, an advisory council to improve the technology used by the Defense Department. Trump has repeatedly attacked Bezos via Twitter, accused Bezos of avoiding corporate taxes, gaining undue political influence, and undermining his presidency by spreading "fake news".
In 2014, Amazon won a bid for a cloud computing contract with the CIA valued at \$600 million. A 2018, \$10 billion contract known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project, this time with the Pentagon, was allegedly written up in a way that favors Amazon. Controversy over this was raised when General James Mattis accepted a headquarters tour invitation from Bezos and co-ordinated the deal through Sally Donnelly, a lobbyist who previously worked for Amazon. In November 2019, when the contract was awarded to Microsoft instead, Amazon filed a lawsuit with allegations that the bidding process was biased. On July 6, 2021, the Pentagon cancelled the JEDI contract with Microsoft, citing that "due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs." Despite Bezos's support for an open borders policy towards immigrants, Amazon has actively marketed facial recognition software to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2019, a political action committee linked to Bezos spent over \$1 million in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the reelection bid of Seattle city council member and activist Kshama Sawant.
On November 22, 2021, Jeff Bezos donated \$100 million to the Obama Foundation to "help expand the scope of programming that reaches emerging leaders", and requested the Obama Presidential Center's plaza to be named after John Lewis.
### Saudi hacking claim
In March 2018, Bezos met in Seattle with Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, to discuss investment opportunities for Saudi Vision 2030. In March 2019, Bezos's security consultant accused the Saudi government of hacking Bezos's phone. According to BBC, Bezos's top security staffer, Gavin de Becker, "linked the hack to the Washington Post's coverage of the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul". Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and dissident was employed as a writer at the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. Khashoggi was killed in late 2018, in Turkey's Saudi consulate for his critical stance and journalism against the Saudi government and its leader.
In January 2020, The Guardian reported that the hack was initiated before the murder but after Khashoggi wrote critically about the crown prince in the Washington Post. Forensic analysis of Bezos's mobile phone conducted by advisory firm FTI Consulting, concluded it "highly probable" that the hack was achieved using a malicious file hidden in a video sent in a WhatsApp message to Bezos from the personal account of the crown prince on May 1, 2018. Saudi Arabia has denied the claim.
## Philanthropy
Bezos donated to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center several times between 2009 and 2017. In 2013, he pledged \$500,000 to Worldreader, a non-profit founded by a former Amazon employee.
In September 2018, Business Insider reported that Bezos was the only one of the top five billionaires in the world who had not signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative created by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that encourages wealthy people to give away a majority of their wealth. That same month, Janet Camarena, director of transparency initiatives at Foundation Center, was quoted by CNBC as having questions about Bezos's new , including the fund's structure and how exactly it will be funded.
In May 2017, Bezos gave \$1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides pro bono legal services for American journalists. On June 15, 2017, he posted a message on Twitter asking for ideas for philanthropy: "I'm thinking about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time—working on the long term". At the time of the post, Bezos's lifetime spending on charitable causes was estimated to be \$100 million. Multiple opinion columnists responded by asking Bezos to pay higher wages to Amazon warehouse workers. A year later in June, he tweeted that he would announce two philanthropic foci by the end of summer 2018. Bezos announced in September 2018 that he would commit approximately \$2 billion to a fund to deal with American homelessness and establish a network of non-profit preschools for low income communities. As part of this announcement, he committed to establishing the "Day 1 Families Fund" to finance "night shelters and day care centers for homeless families" and the "Day 1 Academies Fund" for early childhood education.
In January 2018, Bezos made a \$33 million donation to TheDream.US, a college scholarship fund for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as minors. In June 2018, Bezos donated to Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a private philanthropic fund founded by Bill Gates aimed at promoting emissions-free energy. In September 2018, Bezos donated \$10 million to With Honor, a nonpartisan organization that works to increase the number of veterans in political office.
In February 2020, Bezos pledged \$10 billion to combat climate change through the Bezos Earth Fund. Later that year, in November, Bezos announced \$791M of donations to established, well-known groups, with \$100M each going to Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund, and the remainder going to 11 other groups. In April 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bezos donated \$100 million to food banks through Feeding America. In November 2021, Bezos pledged to donate \$2 billion towards restructuring food systems and nature conservation at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Bezos Academy is a group of tuition-free preschools for students from low-income families, which was created by Bezos, and which operate in a manner similar to the Montessori method.
In November 2022, Bezos granted a \$100-million Courage and Civility Award to singer Dolly Parton in recognition of her charity work focused on improving children's literacy around the world.
On November 22, 2022, Jeff Bezos awarded \$123 million to organizations that are engaged in relocating homeless families to permanent housing. Day 1 Families Fund grants, the amounts of which vary in monetary terms, will be sent to 40 organizations across the country.
## See also
- List of Princeton University alumni
- List of richest Americans in history
- List of Time Person of the Year recipients
- The World's Billionaires |
25,254,167 | Wait Your Turn | 1,171,248,751 | null | [
"2009 singles",
"2009 songs",
"Black-and-white music videos",
"Def Jam Recordings singles",
"Dubstep songs",
"Music videos directed by Anthony Mandler",
"Rihanna songs",
"Song recordings produced by Chase & Status",
"Song recordings produced by Stargate (record producers)",
"Songs written by James Fauntleroy",
"Songs written by Mikkel Storleer Eriksen",
"Songs written by Rihanna",
"Songs written by Saul Milton",
"Songs written by Takura",
"Songs written by Tor Erik Hermansen",
"Songs written by Will Kennard"
]
| "Wait Your Turn" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her fourth studio album, Rated R (2009). It was written by Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Saul Milton, Will Kennard, James Fauntleroy II, Takura Tendayi, and Rihanna herself. Stargate (Eriksen and Hermansen) and Chase & Status (Milton and Kennard) produced the song. "Wait Your Turn" was released on November 13, 2009, as the second international and third overall single from Rated R.
Upon the release of Rated R, some critics noted the diverse musical variety on the album, whilst others commented on the heavy influence of dubstep on the song. The song was not a commercial success. "Wait Your Turn" peaked inside the top twenty on the UK R&B Chart. The song failed to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, making this Rihanna's second single that failed to reach that chart ("We Ride"). The song was performed live as part of a medley with "Hard" at the 2009 American Music Awards and on Good Morning America, along with "Russian Roulette" and "Umbrella". The song was also included on the set list of the Last Girl on Earth Tour (2010–11). As part of promotion for the release of Rated R, a music video was directed by Rihanna's longtime collaborator Anthony Mandler. A remix of the song features American rapper, and a member of Slaughterhouse, Joell Ortiz.
## Background and release
"Wait Your Turn" was written by Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Saul Milton, Will Kennard, James Fauntleroy II, Takura Tendayi and Rihanna, with production of the song helmed by the former four, under their stage names StarGate and Chase & Status, respectively. It comes from the recording sessions for the Rated R album, which took place during March to November 2009 at several recording studios throughout United States and Europe. After the song leaked online toward the end of October 2009, it was used in a promotional video for her first televised interviews since the alleged assault on her by then-boyfriend Chris Brown, singing the line, "The wait is ova", which is part of the lyrics. Eriksen of StarGate, who co-produced the song, had confirmed "Wait Your Turn" as the second single from Rated R; it was later released as the second international and third overall single. The song was made available for digital download via iTunes on November 13, 2009, in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Finland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The song interpolates "The Bridge Is Over" by Boogie Down Productions.
## Composition
"Wait Your Turn" was one of many songs featured on Rated R that incorporates musical genres different from any of Rihanna's previous work, drawing heavily on dubstep and hip hop genres. In her review of Rated R, Ailbhe Malone of NME briefly commented on the song, calling it "an electric backstreet stiletto stab, where, eyebrow cocked, Rihanna sings 'I’m such a fucking lady/You don’t have to be afraid.'" Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly observed that Rihanna was drawing a lot of inspiration for several of the songs on the album from her Bajan background and heritage, most noticeably in her style of singing, saying "Throughout, Rihanna dons hip-hop swagger like borrowed armor, leaning heavily on her Caribbean accent and unleashing a string of baddest-bitch boasts via dancehall-riddim'd bangers like 'Hard', 'G4L' and 'Wait Your Turn.'" Alexis Petridis of The Guardian referred to "Wait Your Turn" as a response to Rihanna trying to move on from her innocent "Umbrella" pop star image, commenting "At the other, however, the desire to escape the single's vast shadow has clearly led some of her collaborators to indulge in feats of impressively risky invention: the hypnotic, dirgey electronic grind of Wait Your Turn, Gangsta 4 Life's druggy, intoxicating mix of backwards drums, minor-key verses and spectral backing vocals."
## Reception
### Critical response
Greg Kot of The Chicago Tribune noted that Rihanna assumes the role of playing the victim in the song, and not the offender, saying "She's wary of men even when she’s flirting with them in 'Wait Your Turn'." Prior to Greenblatt's album review of Rated R, where she briefly commented on "Wait Your Turn", she also reviewed the song when it leaked onto the Internet in early November, saying "Now that the wait is nearly ova, are you feeling it, Music Mixers? I cannot tell a lie; I’m a little underwhelmed by this new walk-the-plank Pirate incarnation." William Goodman of Spin magazine was more critical and dismissive of the song, saying "'Wait Your Turn' ...leaked online over the weekend, and like the album's lead track, 'Russian Roulette,' it's a total let down: clunky, Auto-Tuned vocals repeat 'The wait is ova / The wait is ova' ad nauseam, over dark atmospherics and a spare dub beat that fails to connect ...it's certainly not worth the wait."
### Chart performance
"Wait Your Turn" made its first chart appearance on November 26, 2009, on the Irish Singles Chart, where it debuted at number 32 and remained for one week before falling out of the Top 50. The song debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 45 on December 5, before dropping to number 75 the following week, which was its last appearance on the chart. However, the song was more successful on the UK R&B Chart, where it debuted at number 17 on December 5, where it stayed in the Top 40 for three consecutive weeks. The song has since sold 20,000 digital copies in the UK. On the week commencing December 7, "Wait Your Turn" debuted on the Australian Singles Chart at number 82, before dropping out of the chart the following week.
## Music video
The music video for "Wait Your Turn" was filmed on October 16, 2009, in New York City and was directed by Anthony Mandler, who had previously directed the majority of Rihanna's music videos, including "Take a Bow" and "Rehab". Music video was edited by Nabil Mechi from Murex, who previously edit videos for "S.O.S." and "Umbrella". The music video made its premiere on November 9, 2009. In an interview with MTV News, Mandler spoke of the conceptualization of the video as well as the inspiration behind it:
> We shot the clip in mid-October on a cold day in New York City. The vibe and feeling was great ... It was the first video for the album, so obviously everyone was excited and focused on setting the tone for what's to come. Rihanna and I spoke in depth about creating a piece that was gritty, raw and more of a street video then a classic beauty piece ... We loved the energy and bravado of early hip-hop videos that were made without a lot of resources, working more with the textures and shapes of the surroundings, then trying to build and manipulate environments as we have done in the past ... I wanted to try and take everything we have done in the past and put it to the side.
It starts with a series of shots displaying Rihanna wearing a black eye-patch, a high-necked jacket and suspenders, and was filmed in a black and white grainy fashion, whilst Rihanna recites the lyrics "The wait is ova". Scenes are then intercut with shots of Rihanna wearing a black hooded top, in what appears to be a Church, which is followed by Rihanna changing outfits, again wearing a black bra top and a fur coat sitting on a pair of Angel's wings for the chorus. For the bridge of the song, Rihanna is featured in yet another change of outfit, this time wearing a white vest top and black fur coat, standing on the roof top of a New York skyscraper, with other tall buildings in the background. As Rihanna sings the final chorus, scenes from throughout the video are intercut with each other, with the new addition of Rihanna shown to be wearing what she wore at the start of the video in an underpass.
## Live performances
As part of promotion of Rated R in the United Kingdom, Rihanna performed the song for the first time at the launch of the Nokia X6 smartphone at Brixton Academy in London. She performed the song as part of a set list which included songs from the album, including "Russian Roulette" and "Hard", for the latter of which Rihanna was joined on stage by Young Jeezy, who is featured on the song. The set also saw Rihanna perform other songs from her repertoire, including "Don't Stop the Music", "Take a Bow", "Disturbia" and "Umbrella"; for the last of these, Rihanna was joined on stage by Jay-Z to perform the song.
Rihanna performed the song live for the first time at the 2009 American Music Awards, which was televised on November 22, 2009, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California, as part of a medley with the second single released from the album, "Hard". In his review of the performance, Gil Kaufman of MTV commented on the main aspects of the spectacle, commenting that she was wearing a "skintight white catsuit bisected by cut-out lines that revealed horizontal lines of skin across her body, spiked shoulder pads, white studded cuffs and a barbed-wire bracelet snaking up her right forearm." The performance started with a sci-fi themed video clip, which featured Rihanna being operated on by robots. After finishing "Wait Your Turn," Rihanna transitioned into "Hard", whilst red lasers shone throughout the stage and audience, as well as from her spiked shoulder pads.
On November 24, 2009, Rihanna appeared on Good Morning America, where she performed "Wait Your Turn" and "Russian Roulette" from Rated R as well as "Umbrella" from Good Girl Gone Bad (2007). The set featured Rihanna wearing "a white sequined blazer with a little black shirt underneath and stilettos", and was joined on stage by a group of dancers, who were all dressed in black. Rihanna also gave a short interview about the album and the level of energy which was put into it, saying "It came very natural only because it was my place of peace, being the studio just venting. It was the one place I didn't feel judged or criticized. Every emotion went into that album." The song was also included on the set list of the Last Girl on Earth Tour (2010–11) in the encore section, as part of a medley with "Live Your Life" and "Run This Town", before performing "Umbrella" as the final song. On June 24, 2012, Rihanna performed at the BBC Radio 1's Hackney Weekend. She performed "Wait Your Turn" as part of a set list which also included songs from her fifth and sixth sequel studio albums. The performance featured giant sphinx on the stage.
## Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Rated R.
- James Fauntleroy II, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Will Kennard, Saul Milton, Takura Tendayi and Robyn "Rihanna" Fenty – Songwriting
- StarGate and Chase & Status – Production
- Mikkel S. Eriksen – Vocal production
- Kevin "KD" Davis at Chalice Recording Studios, Hollywood, California – Mixing
- Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen and Chase & Status – Instrumentation
- Metropolis Studios, London – Recording
## Charts
## Release history |
13,553,683 | Japanese destroyer Sakura (1944) | 1,044,061,097 | Imperial Japanese Navy's Matsu-class destroyer | [
"1944 ships",
"Maritime incidents in July 1945",
"Matsu-class destroyers",
"Ships built by Yokosuka Naval Arsenal",
"Ships sunk by mines",
"Shipwrecks of Japan",
"World War II destroyers of Japan"
]
| Sakura (桜 or 櫻, "cherry blossom") was one of 18 Matsu-class destroyers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the final stages of World War II. Completed in late 1944, the ship was assigned to convoy escort duties in February 1945. She was slightly damaged when she struck a mine in May. Sakura sank after striking another mine near Osaka on 11 July with heavy loss of life.
## Design and description
Designed for ease of production, the Matsu class was smaller, slower and more lightly armed than previous destroyers as the IJN intended them for second-line duties like escorting convoys, releasing the larger ships for missions with the fleet. The ships measured 100 meters (328 ft 1 in) long overall, with a beam of 9.35 meters (30 ft 8 in) and a draft of 3.3 meters (10 ft 10 in). Their crew numbered 210 officers and enlisted men. They displaced 1,282 metric tons (1,262 long tons) at standard load and 1,554 metric tons (1,529 long tons) at deep load. The ships had two Kampon geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, using steam provided by two Kampon water-tube boilers. The turbines were rated at a total of 19,000 shaft horsepower (14,000 kW) for a speed of 27.8 knots (51.5 km/h; 32.0 mph). The Matsus had a range of 4,680 nautical miles (8,670 km; 5,390 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph).
The main armament of the Matsu-class ships consisted of three 127-millimeter (5 in) Type 89 dual-purpose guns in one twin-gun mount aft and one single mount forward of the superstructure. The single mount was partially protected against spray by a gun shield. The accuracy of the Type 89 guns was severely reduced against aircraft because no high-angle gunnery director was fitted. The ships carried a total of twenty-five 25-millimeter (1 in) Type 96 anti-aircraft guns in 4 triple and 13 single mounts. The Matsus were equipped with Type 13 early-warning and Type 22 surface-search radars. The ships were also armed with a single rotating quadruple mount amidships for 610-millimeter (24 in) torpedoes. They could deliver their 36 depth charges via two stern rails and two throwers.
## Construction and career
Authorized in the late 1942 Modified 5th Naval Armaments Supplement Program, Sakura (cherry blossom) was laid down on 2 June 1944 at the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal and launched on 6 September. Upon her completion on 25 November, the ship was assigned to Destroyer Squadron 11 of the Combined Fleet for training. On 12 February 1945, Sakura departed Moji as part of the escort for Convoy MOTA-36 bound for Keelung, Taiwan. She then escorted the cruiser Kashima to Shanghai, China and remained in the area, tasked with patrol and escort duties. On 15 March the ship was reassigned to the squadron's Destroyer Division 53. Six days later Sakura arrived at Kure, Japan. The squadron was briefly attached to the Second Fleet from 1–20 April before rejoining the Combined Fleet.
Sakura was slightly damaged when she struck a mine in Shimonoseki Strait between Kyushu and Honshu on 25 May. The ship was tasked with minesweeping duties the following month. When she struck a mine on 11 July in Osaka Harbor, her aft magazine exploded, severing her stern. The ship sank at coordinates with the loss of 130 crewmen. Sakura was removed from the navy list on 10 August. |
78,103 | Interstate 97 | 1,169,881,511 | Short Interstate Highway in Maryland | [
"Interstate Highway System",
"Interstate Highways in Maryland",
"Limited-access roads in Maryland",
"Roads in Anne Arundel County, Maryland"
]
| Interstate 97 (I-97) is a north-south Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. It runs entirely within Anne Arundel County, Maryland for 17.62 miles (28.36 km) from U.S. Route 50/U.S. Route 301 (US 50/US 301) in Parole near Annapolis north to I-695 and I-895 in Brooklyn Park near Baltimore. The Interstate is the primary highway between Baltimore and Annapolis. I‐97 connects Annapolis with Baltimore/Washington International Airport and links the northern Anne Arundel County communities of Crownsville, Millersville, Severna Park, Glen Burnie, and Ferndale. It is the second shortest primary Interstate Highway after I-87 in North Carolina.
I-97 was constructed along the corridor of Maryland Route 3 (MD 3) between Millersville and Ferndale and MD 178 between Parole and Millersville. From Millersville to south of Glen Burnie, the Interstate closely follows the former course of MD 3, which was built in the late 1910s and early 1920s and expanded to a divided highway in the late 1950s. North of there, the highway follows the Glen Burnie Bypass, a freeway built in the mid-1950s. The segment of I-97 from Millersville to Crownsville originated as a two-lane portion of MD 32 in the early 1970s. The Interstate was introduced in 1979 after the state of Maryland successfully obtained Interstate mileage for a Baltimore–Annapolis freeway from the federal government. The state decided to build the highway along I-97's current corridor rather than along the MD 2 corridor, which has partial freeway access via MD 10.
Construction on I-97 began in the late 1980s with new construction from US 50/US 301 to Crownsville. The Crownsville–Millersville segment of MD 32 was expanded and incorporated into the Interstate and the MD 3–MD 32 junction was upgraded. The portion of the MD 3 corridor from Millersville to south of Glen Burnie was upgraded on the spot to Interstate Highway standards in the early 1990s, after which MD 3 was truncated at Millersville. I-97's interchange with I-695 was rebuilt in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Glen Burnie Bypass was upgraded and expanded to six lanes in the mid-1990s. The complex process included reconstruction of several interchanges; the last interchange to be reconstructed was upgraded in the mid-2000s.
## Route description
I-97 begins at US 50/US 301 (John Hanson Highway), which run concurrently with unsigned I-595, on the edge of the community of Parole west of Annapolis. The freeways meet at a semi-directional T interchange; the ramp from I-97 to eastbound US 50/northbound US 301 merges with a collector–distributor road that extends east to that freeway's interchange with MD 665 (Aris T. Allen Boulevard). I-97 heads northwest as a four-lane freeway. The freeway crosses over MD 450 (Defense Highway) and passes along the south and west sides of Crownsville, where it crosses several tributaries of the Bacon Ridge Branch of the South River. North of Crownsville, I-97 has a partial interchange that comprises a pair of long ramps to MD 178 (Generals Highway); the interchange allows access from southbound I-97 to MD 178 and from the state highway to the northbound Interstate. I-97 gains an extra lane in each direction from the MD 178 ramps; those extra lanes split off at the freeway's partial interchange with the eastern end of MD 32 just north of Millersville. The Interstate curves northeast and has a complementary partial interchange with the northern end of MD 3 (Robert Crain Highway). The two state highways meet each other at a six-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange immediately to the west of I-97's sweeping curve, which facilitates all movements between the three highways.
I-97 continues north as a six-lane freeway and is closely paralleled on the east by Veterans Highway on the western edge of Severna Park. The highways cross the Severn River within Severn Run Natural Environment Area before they diverge slightly at the Interstate's partial cloverleaf interchange with Benfield Boulevard; access from northbound I-97 to the crossroad is via Veterans Highway. I-97 and Veterans Highway continue to parallel each other to the latter highway's northern end at I-97's partial cloverleaf interchange with the southern end of MD 3 Business (MD 3 Bus.; Robert Crain Highway) and New Cut Road. The interchange includes a flyover ramp from northbound I-97 to northbound Veterans Highway just south of its intersection with MD 3 Bus. The freeway continues north along the west side of Glen Burnie and meets MD 174 (Quarterfield Road) at a four-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange and MD 100 at a combination interchange that has flyover exit ramps from both directions of I-97.
I-97 temporarily gains two extra lanes in each direction between MD 100 and its partial cloverleaf interchange with MD 176 (Dorsey Road). Access from the southbound Interstate to MD 176 is via MD 162 (Aviation Boulevard), which forms part of the Airport Loop surrounding Baltimore/Washington International Airport. I-97 continues through Ferndale, where it crosses over the Glen Burnie branch of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA)'s Baltimore Light RailLink immediately before the highway's four-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange with MD 648 (Baltimore–Annapolis Boulevard), which provides access to the transit line's terminal station, Cromwell / Glen Burnie station. I-97's final interchange is with I-695 (Baltimore Beltway). The Interstate crosses the Cabin Branch of Curtis Creek within the interchange, which includes a flyover ramp from I-97 to westbound I-695; that ramp and the one from eastbound I-695 to I-97 merge on the inside of the two carriageways of the beltway. The Interstate drops to four lanes and reaches its northern terminus just north of the loop ramp from westbound I-695 to I-97 in Brooklyn Park. The highway continues as I-895A, a pair of ramps that merge with the spur from I-895 (Harbor Tunnel Thruway) to MD 2 (Governor Ritchie Highway). The continuation from I-97 includes a ramp to westbound I-695 that allows access to the beltway's interchange with MD 648.
I-97 does not have an official name. However, the Interstate is dedicated to John A. Cade, who served the area around Severna Park in the Maryland Senate from 1974 to his 1996 death and who worked to secure funding for the highway. The Maryland General Assembly passed a dedication bill in 1998, and the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) installed a pair of signs noting the dedication in Millersville and near Parole. Like all Interstate Highways, I-97 is a part of the National Highway System for its entire length. I-97 is the shortest completed two-digit mainline Interstate (I-87 in North Carolina is shorter, but is still under construction) and the only intracounty two-digit Interstate in the contiguous US.
## History
### Predecessor highways
The first modern highway along the path of what is now I-97 followed the corridor from New Cut Road to south of the intersection of MD 178 and Veterans Highway at Dorrs Corner. This highway was intended as a second route from Glen Burnie to Annapolis to complement the highway along the east side of the Severn River; this western route later became known as General's Highway, a name still applied to its MD 178 portion. Construction of this highway was underway by 1919. The new highway was completed as a gravel road from New Cut Road to north of Benfield and as a concrete road through Benfield and across Severn Run to near Dorrs Corner by 1921. In 1922, this highway was designated part of Robert Crain Highway, a new highway to connect the Baltimore area with Southern Maryland. The Glen Burnie–Dorrs Corner portion of the new highway was reconstructed and completed as a concrete road from Glen Burnie south through Millersville by 1923. Robert Crain Highway became part of MD 3 in 1927 and then US 301 in 1939 when the US Route was extended from Virginia to Baltimore. MD 3 was reconstructed in 1933 and 1934. The reconstruction eliminated several dangerous curves, particularly near the Severn River, and expanded the highway from a width of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 m). Veterans Highway follows much of that early 1930s course.
The next portion of I-97 predecessor highway was built as the four-lane Glen Burnie Bypass from Robert Crain Highway and New Cut Road north to the Baltimore Beltway. Construction on the four-lane freeway began in August 1954 with construction of several bridges over or for the highway; these bridges were completed in 1955 and 1956. The dual roadways and interchange ramps from the southern end of the bypass to MD 648 were constructed starting in March 1955; the concrete-surfaced highway was completed in February 1957. The northernmost portion of the bypass, including the adjacent portion of the Baltimore Beltway, was constructed between December 1955 and September 1957. US 301 was moved onto the bypass and the adjacent portion of the Beltway when the projects were completed in 1957. The small portion of I-97 north of the Beltway was added to the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel project as a direct connection between the Glen Burnie Bypass and the Harbor Tunnel Thruway's southern approach from MD 2 in 1955. This segment was completed and opened with the tunnel and its approach highways in November 1957. The Glen Burnie Bypass was constructed with five interchanges: a partial cloverleaf interchange at MD 3 Bus. and New Cut Road; a tighter four-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange at MD 174; a diamond interchange at MD 176; the current four-ramp partial cloverleaf interchange at MD 648; and a half-cloverleaf interchange at I-695 allowing full access between the Glen Burnie Bypass and beltway but no access between the beltway and the Harbor Tunnel Thruway.
US 301 was expanded to a divided highway from the southern end of the Glen Burnie Bypass to Benfield in 1956 and 1957. The highway's second set of lanes, including a new bridge across the Severn River, was constructed and the existing roadway was reconstructed from Benfield to Millersville between 1957 and 1960. The second set of lanes was built on the west side of what became a very wide median, which allowed businesses to site themselves in the median between the northbound and southbound lanes. During construction of the Benfield–Millersville stretch, US 301 was relocated to its present course from Bowie to the Eastern Shore and replaced with MD 3. A pair of ramps between the Glen Burnie Bypass and MD 177's freeway southern bypass of Glen Burnie (now MD 100) were constructed between 1963 and 1965. The first section of highway south of Dorrs Corner was built between 1969 and 1972 as a two-lane segment of MD 32 from east of Odenton to MD 178 in Crownsville. The highway used what are now the ramps of I-97's partial interchange with MD 178 and had a five-ramp interchange with MD 3 in Millersville that lacked access from northbound MD 3 to eastbound MD 32 and from westbound MD 32 to southbound MD 3.
### Interstate designation and construction
Despite the existence or upcoming construction of two divided highway corridors between Baltimore and Annapolis, a freeway connecting I-695 and US 50 was proposed as early as 1956 in the form of the Arundel Expressway, which would relieve congestion on MD 2. The portion of the Arundel Expressway that is today MD 10 was constructed from I-695 to MD 648 in Pasadena between 1970 and 1978. MD 10 was proposed to continue south of Pasadena as a toll road to US 50, but the section of the freeway south of MD 100 was removed from state plans by 1975. MD 10 was completed to its present end in Pasadena in 1991. The state of Maryland unsuccessfully petitioned the Federal Highway Administration for an Interstate designation for a Baltimore–Annapolis freeway after passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. However, the state was successful in obtaining Interstate mileage for the Baltimore–Annapolis corridor through the 1968 Howard–Cramer amendment, which provided for minor adjustments to the Interstate System if no additional costs were incurred. Much of the mileage of what became I-97 was reallocated from canceled Interstate Highways in Baltimore and the Washington, D.C. area.
With Interstate funding assured, MDOT SHA commissioned the Baltimore–Annapolis Transportation Corridor Study in 1973 to figure out, among other things, the best route for the Baltimore–Annapolis Interstate. The study discovered a western route following the MD 3 and MD 178 corridors would be less disruptive and require fewer acquisitions of homes and businesses compared to an extension of the Arundel Expressway south along the MD 2 corridor. In June 1979, MDOT SHA announced plans for I-97. The original route numbering plan, which was approved by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) at its November 1975 meeting, was for I-97 to include its current route plus US 50 from Parole west to I-95 (Capital Beltway). That proposal included two auxiliary Interstate highways. I-197 would follow US 50/US 301 east from I-97 to just west of the Severn River. I-297 would follow MD 3 between a pair of intersections with I-97 in Millersville and Bowie. AASHTO rescinded its approval of the 1975 plan at its June 1981 meeting, then approved what was essentially the original 1975 plan at its June 1982 meeting. The east–west segment of I-97 and I-197 was replaced by I-68. I-297 was withdrawn by request of the state of Maryland in 1983. The 1982 concept of I-68 became unsigned I-595 and I-68 was applied to the National Freeway in Western Maryland in 1991 after AASHTO approved the new designations at its June 1989 meeting.
The first portion of I-97 proper to be constructed was the section south of Millersville, which was placed under construction in three sections in March 1985. The first section of the highway, from US 50/US 301 to Millersville Road west of the MD 178 interchange, opened in December 1987. Construction of I-97 from Millersville Road to the intersection of MD 3 and MD 178 at Dorrs Corner started in July 1987. The Interstate through Millersville opened in April 1989. The interchange at I-97's southern terminus was originally constructed as a partial interchange, with I-97 tying into what are now the collector–distributor lanes of US 50 and US 301. The ramps from eastbound US 50/US 301 to I-97 and from I-97 to the westbound US Routes were added during the reconstruction of US 50/US 301 in 1992 and 1993.
### Reconstruction of existing highway
Reconstruction of the MD 3 divided highway and the Glen Burnie Bypass was a complex operation that involved many temporary openings, lane shifts, construction of new roadways, and reconstruction of existing roadways over several phases over several years. The first improvement was the reconstruction of the I-695 interchange between 1987 and 1991. The modern ramps from I-97 to westbound I-695 and from eastbound I-695 to I-97 were built, eastbound I-695's ramp over these two ramps was constructed, and the loop ramp from I-97 to westbound I-695 was removed. I-97 from its interchange with MD 648 to the new beltway ramps was reconstructed to Interstate Highway standards and expanded to six lanes between May 1993 and August 1995. Part of the functionality of the loop ramp to westbound I-695 was restored in October 1995 when another ramp from the Harbor Tunnel Thruway approach to westbound I-695 was added to allow access from I-97 to MD 648.
Reconstruction of the MD 3 divided highway from Millersville to MD 3 Bus. began in 1987 over two sections. The first section, from north of MD 3 Bus. to north of Benfield Boulevard, began in 1987. The work included the construction of the flyover ramp from northbound I-97 to Veterans Highway just south of MD 3 Bus. The section from north of Benfield Boulevard to MD 178 at Dorrs Corner was reconstructed starting in 1989. The second section included construction of the Benfield Boulevard interchange. The southbound MD 3 roadway was rebuilt in place as the southbound lanes of I-97. New northbound lanes were built immediately to the east of the southbound lanes. In February 1991, the new northbound lanes opened and access from I-97 to Veterans Highway was removed at Dorrs Corner. The old northbound lanes were reconstructed and repurposed as a two-lane road, Veterans Highway, later that year. Anne Arundel County agreed to accept Veterans Highway for maintenance after the I-97–related construction concluded in a road transfer agreement on July 21, 1988. MD 3 was truncated at Millersville after I-97 opened in October 1991; signage for MD 3 on I-695 was removed by 1993.
Before reconstruction of the Glen Burnie Bypass from MD 3 Bus. to MD 648 began in November 1993, the Stewart Avenue bridge across the Interstate just south of the MD 100 interchange was replaced and ramps from northbound I-97 to eastbound MD 100 and from westbound MD 100 to southbound I-97 were added between 1990 and 1992. The freeway was reconstructed to Interstate standards in three sections. The middle section from MD 174 to MD 176 was reconstructed concurrently with the segment of MD 100 west from I-97 to MD 295 starting in 1993. That segment of MD 100, including the MD 100–I-97 interchange, opened in November 1996, and the reconstruction of the middle section of I-97 was finished in July 1997. The sections of I-97 from MD 3 Bus. to MD 174 and from MD 176 to MD 648 and were reconstructed starting in January 1994. The MD 176–MD 648 roadway sectional was completed in March 1996. The northern half of the MD 176 interchange was reconstructed as part of the latter project. The new loop ramp from northbound I-97 to westbound MD 176 and the new ramp from MD 176 to northbound I-97 were completed in 1995. The ramp from southbound I-97 to MD 176 was removed during the widening project. The pair of ramps between southbound I-97 and MD 162 to replace the removed ramp were constructed between 1996 and 1998. The final piece of construction on I-97 was the reconstruction of its interchange with MD 174, which began in 2002 and concluded in 2005.
## Exit list
## See also |
22,500,460 | Canvassing (Parks and Recreation) | 1,146,028,079 | null | [
"2009 American television episodes",
"Parks and Recreation (season 1) episodes"
]
| "Canvassing" is the second episode of the first season of the American comedy television series Parks and Recreation. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on April 16, 2009. The episode was written by Rachel Axler and directed by Seth Gordon. In the episode, deputy director of Parks and Recreation Leslie and her staff canvass the neighborhood to seek support for an upcoming town meeting on their park proposal but end up drawing more critics than allies.
The episode was originally supposed to be the third episode of the series, but the broadcast order was changed and "Canvassing" was switched with "The Reporter". The episode received generally mixed reviews. According to Nielsen Media Research, "Canvassing" was watched by 5.92 million households in its original airing, which media outlets said was commendable, although it was about 900,000 less households than the pilot episode received the previous week. "Canvassing" and the rest of the first season of Parks and Recreation was released on DVD in the United States on September 8, 2009.
## Plot
The episode begins with Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), deputy director of the Department of Parks and Recreation for Pawnee, Indiana explaining to a documentary crew about the Annual Easter Egg Hunt, in which her colleague, Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), has hidden the eggs, and Leslie notes that nobody is able to find them. Tom secretly confesses to the documentary crew that he forgot to plant the eggs.
Leslie plans for an upcoming town hall meeting about her proposal to turn a construction pit into a park. She invites her mother Marlene Griggs-Knope (Pamela Reed), an official with the county school system, but she does not appear supportive and tells Leslie she may be too busy to attend. Leslie holds a subcommittee meeting with Tom, interested citizen Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), intern April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) and city planner Mark Brendanawicz (Paul Schneider). Mark warns her it might be too early for a meeting with the public, who could opt to vote the proposal down if they are unhappy with it. Leslie remains confident about the meeting and says the group will be doing neighborhood canvassing to try to win support.
The canvassing is largely unsuccessful. Most of the supporters of the park say they will not be able to attend the meeting. Mark, April and Tom speak with one seemingly interested resident, who is implied to be a pedophile. Leslie becomes frustrated with the lack of success and attempts to push poll the community residents. She suggests phrasing the question, "Wouldn't you rather have a park than a storage facility for nuclear waste?" Tom leaves the canvassing group to call prospective contractors about the park project, hinting at accepting bribes and making corrupt deals. Several residents express a lack of support for the park. Resident Kate Speevak (Lennon Parham) vows to attend the public meeting and voice her disapproval after a frustrated Leslie says, "You don't care about your kids if you don't support this park". The canvassing ends with an angry Leslie finding Mark and April playing Rock Band with Ann's boyfriend, Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) at Ann's house.
Leslie tries to get her boss Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) to postpone the town hall meeting, but Ron says he cannot because the town manager Paul Iaresco (Phil Reeves) has "fast-tracked" the project. As the meeting begins, Leslie notices her mother has attended after all, along with many of the people critical of the project. Led by Kate Speevak, the crowd says they do not support the proposal and are angry an environmental study has not been conducted. Leslie tries to pretend April is a supportive resident, but one of the audience members recognizes her from the canvassing.
When Ron tells Leslie to try to place a positive spin on the meeting and prevent a vote from occurring, Leslie attempts to filibuster the meeting. Kate pushes for a vote, but Leslie says she will not hold one until she has heard from each audience member individually. They criticize and yell at Leslie until 9 p.m., when she announces time is up and ends the meeting. Marlene, who privately described the meeting as a "train-wreck", nevertheless expresses her pride for Leslie with a smile. Although frustrated with the meeting itself, Leslie says she is happy to have hosted her first subcommittee meeting. When one resident, Lawrence (Eric Edelstein) says, "Hey park lady, you suck", Leslie says with pride, "Hear that? He called me 'park lady'".
## Production
### Conception and filming
"Canvassing" was written by Rachel Axler and directed by Seth Gordon, whom the cast and crew of Parks and Recreation admired for his documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It was originally supposed to be the third episode shown in the series, but the broadcast schedule was changed and it was switched with "The Reporter", the original second episode. Series co-creator Michael Schur said the plot for "Canvassing" was conceived early in the Parks and Recreation brainstorming process because the staff wanted to demonstrate Leslie's optimism and strong resolve in the face of harsh public criticism. Schur said he felt like Leslie "hangs in and ends up like Rocky: beaten and bloodied, but on her feet". Schur said during his research about municipal government, he received a lot of feedback that community meetings are seldom attended except by those opposed to a proposal, and those in favor of it or neutral about it tend not to attend. This was the inspiration behind the public forum at the end of "Canvassing", which was attended almost entirely by opponents of Leslie's proposed park. Alan Yang, a Parks and Recreation writer, conceived the idea of Leslie using a filibuster at her own public meeting.
Like most episodes of Parks and Recreation, a great deal of the scenes in "Canvassing" were improvised by the actors. The scenes with Tom hinting at bribes and corrupt deals with developers was largely improvised by actor Aziz Ansari. The producers were concerned the subplot would make Tom too unlikeable, but instead audiences responded positively because they felt it was an accurate portrayal of some aspects of small-town government. Ansari also improvised the lines in which he brown-nosed to the developers as they entered the public forum. In one talking head-style documentary interview, Leslie insists a park like the one she envisioned for Pawnee could not be built in communist Russia, and she goes on to impersonate Russian children playing in a park. The scene was completely improvised by Poehler during multiple takes, and Michael Schur called it "my favorite talking head that Amy has done". The cold open of the episode features Leslie wearing bunny ears and helping children on an Easter egg hunt at a park. Since Tom forgot to hide any eggs, Leslie and the children assume it is an extremely difficult egg hunt. The cold open was the last scene shot for "Canvassing", and was conceived at the last moment because the production date was near Easter, and series co-creator Michael Schur said he "thought it would be funny to put Amy (Poehler) in bunny ears". Since it was shot after the majority of the episode, Seth Gordon was not available to direct it.
All outdoor canvassing scenes were shot in a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, outside the Parks and Recreation studio. Michael Schur said they wanted to establish the type of groundwork public servants often had to conduct in a small town. Seth Gordon sought to make the canvassing scenes as realistic as possible, so he allowed a large amount of improvisation among the actors. The Pawnee residents who are vocally opposed to parks were based on real-life California residents the Parks and Recreation producers encountered who opposed the construction of parks in their hometown. One such group, "The Committee for a Better Park", was actually a group of residents opposed to parks in general, and the deceptiveness of their name and mission inspired the Parks producers while writing "Canvassing".
### Casting
"Canvassing" marked the first appearance of Marlene Griggs-Knope, Leslie's mother and an important public figure in the Pawnee school system. Marlene was played by Pamela Reed, who would continue to make several guest appearances as the character. During the casting auditions, Seth Gordon interviewed Reed as if she were playing the character and Reed improvised a great deal, creating many personality elements that were eventually incorporated into Marlene Knope's character. Gordon said, "Pamela was especially sort of nimble on her feet at inventing a character in the room on the fly, and I thought that was really impressive." During the audition, Reed was asked whether she was proud of her daughter, and Reed replied, "I want my daughter to be successful, which is why I always tell her, there's nothing wrong with being a wife and mother." The improvised line, which was based on something her father-in-law said to her, so impressed the producers that they incorporated it into the episode. Schur said the producers sought to establish Leslie's mother early in the series, and he felt her relationship to Leslie was the center of the entire "Canvassing" episode. Schur said of Leslie's attempts to impress her mom at her public forum, "We imagined it in the writer's room that she is eight years old and doing a piano recital, and she's nervous because her mom's there."
Lennon Parham, an actress and comedian who worked with Amy Poehler on the Upright Citizens Brigade sketch comedy troupe, made a guest appearance in "Canvassing" as Kate Speevak. Michael Schur said early on in the brainstorming process, the Parks and Recreation producers decided to establish an antagonist for Leslie named Kate Speevak, simply because they thought the name was funny. Seth Gordon said Poehler and Parham worked especially well together during their largely improvised scenes, which he attributed to their past work together on the Upright Citizens Brigade. The resident who appeared to be a sex offender during the canvassing was played by Brian Huskey, who Schur called a "fantastic improviser". Eric Edelstein portrayed Lawrence, a resident who antagonizes Leslie and Andy during the public meeting. Edelstein was not originally the actor assigned the "Hey parks lady, you suck" line, but the Parks and Recreation producers like Edelstein so much they gave it to him. Leslie's response line, "Hear that? He called me park lady", was improvised by Poehler.
## Cultural references
During office hours, Leslie catches Mark, April and Andy playing Rock Band, a popular music video game in which the players perform rock music using guitar, drum and microphone controllers; during the game, Andy sings the song "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit. Seth Gordon said the Parks and Recreation producers almost opted not to include a singing part due to concerns about the legalities of using the song, but they ultimately decided to use it. During Leslie's filibuster at the town hall meeting, she begins reading The Phantom Tollbooth, a children's adventure novel written by Norton Juster. The final scene of the episode, with Tom discussing how much he enjoyed The Phantom Tollbooth, was a last minute addition when the Parks and Recreation producers realized they had six possible seconds left to add to the episode.
During the canvassing, Leslie says she may resort to the tactics of Karl Rove, advisor to former President George W. Bush, in phrasing her questions to guarantee positive responses. Leslie refers to Andy as "a cute FDR", a reference to former President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Leslie says her mother is as respected as charity worker Mother Teresa, as powerful as Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin and as beautiful as British politician Margaret Thatcher. A PDF copy of the town hall meeting flyer was posted on NBC's official Parks and Recreation website about Pawnee, Indiana; it included before-and-after pictures of the proposed park.
## Reception
In its original American broadcast on April 16, 2009, "Canvassing" was watched by 5.92 million households, according to Nielsen Media Research, earning a 2.5 rating/7 share among viewers aged between 18 and 49, and a 2.5 rating/8 share among viewers between 18 and 34. Although the episode attracted about 900,000 fewer household viewers than the pilot episode the previous week, media outlets said the rating was still commendable; "Canvassing" aired following an episode of My Name Is Earl which had a series-low rating among viewers aged between 18 and 49, whereas the pilot episode aired between two episodes of the popular series, The Office. Additionally, "Canvassing" was viewed by almost one million more households than Samantha Who?, which ran in the same 8:30 to 9 p.m. timeslot as Parks and Recreation. "Canvassing" also captured a full 18 to 49 ratings point more than Samantha Who?.
The episode received generally mixed reviews. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger said he thought the episode was an improvement over the pilot episode, which he also enjoyed. Sepinwall said the episode seemed to distance the Leslie character from Michael Scott, Steve Carell's character on The Office, and gave more for the supporting cast to do; he particularly praised Schneider and Ansari. Matt Fowler of IGN said Amy Poehler "remains frighteningly unflappable" and said he enjoyed how disastrous the town hall meeting turned out to be, but said supporting characters like Mark and Ron "need to be fleshed out a bit more and made... well, funnier." Josh McAuliffe of The Times-Tribune said "Canvassing" was funnier than the pilot episode, but still lacked big laughs and "I think the writers can do some interesting things with the whole playground plot, among them introducing us to some of Pawnee's more colorful denizens."
Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club said although he liked the pilot episode, he thought jokes in "Canvassing" were "pretty thin on the ground", the supporting cast lacked good material and the Leslie character was less likable than the previous week. Phipps, who gave the episode a C grade, said, "This wasn’t a terrible half-hour of comedy by any stretch. It drifted by easily enough. But I’m already having to scour my notes to remind myself of the stuff that was funny." "Canvassing" was first broadcast in Australia on Channel Seven on December 8, 2009, and received a positive review from The Sydney Morning Herald writer Mark Ellis. He particularly praised Poehler and Ansari, and said of the episode, "Tune in just to hear her say to her canvassing companion, who complains it's hot and wants to cool off: 'We could blow in each other's faces.'"
## Home media
"Canvassing", along with the five other first-season episodes of Parks and Recreation, was released on a one-disc DVD set in the United States on September 8, 2009. The DVD included cast and crew commentary tracks for each episode, as well as about 30 minutes of deleted scenes.
The deleted scenes included on the DVD were originally featured on the official Parks and Recreation website after the episode aired. In the first, a minute-long clip, Ron tries to take a job offer that was previously offered to him at an Internet flower company web site, but when he finds the business is doing so poorly, he sadly realizes he will be in his government job for a long time. In a second minute-long clip, Leslie talks about her very detailed life plan, which involves eventually becoming head of the parks department, then governor of Indiana, then U.S. vice president and then getting married at age 84. The deleted clips were featured on the Parks and Recreation official website within a week of the episode's original production date. |
15,329,805 | New York State Route 239 | 1,144,489,453 | Former highway in New York | [
"Former state highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Erie County, New York"
]
| New York State Route 239 (NY 239) was a state highway in eastern Erie County, New York, United States. The southern terminus of the route was at an intersection with NY 354 in Marilla. Its northern terminus was at a junction with U.S. Route 20 (US 20) in the village of Alden. NY 239 was about 3 miles (5 km) in length and named Exchange Street. When NY 239 was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, it extended eastward to the Wyoming County village of Attica. NY 239 was truncated to Marilla in 1949 and removed from the state highway system completely in September 1980 as a result of a highway maintenance swap between the state of New York and Erie County earlier that year. The roadway is now County Route 578 (CR 578).
## Route description
NY 239 began at an intersection with NY 354 just west of the Erie–Wyoming county line in the town of Marilla. The route then traveled to the northeast, climbing in elevation as it proceeded onward. It then made a turn to the north, descending in elevation. Running at about a height of 900 feet (270 m) above sea level, NY 239 crossed into the town of Alden and continued toward downtown. NY 239 continued northward, passing nearby Henskee Road, a connector between NY 239 and County Line Road, which ran parallel to NY 239 along the Erie–Genesee county line. The route dipped further in elevation, entering the village of Alden. Inside the village, it passed the Buffalo Water Filtration Plant to the west and crossed the Conrail-owned Southern Tier Line. NY 239 passed through a primarily residential area of the village just before terminating at US 20 in the village center.
## History
NY 239 as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to an alignment extending from NY 35 in the village of Alden to NY 98 in the village of Attica by way of the hamlet of Cowlesville. The east–west road linking NY 239 near Cowlesville to Two Rod Road (then NY 358) north of Marilla was initially unnumbered. It became part of a realigned NY 354 c. 1935. NY 354 was extended eastward on January 1, 1949, over NY 239's alignment to a new terminus in Attica. As a result, NY 239 was truncated to its junction with NY 354 in the town of Marilla.
On April 1, 1980, ownership and maintenance of NY 239 was transferred from the state of New York to Erie County as part of a larger highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. The NY 239 designation was removed on September 25 of that year. The highway is now designated by Erie County as CR 578.
## Major intersections
## See also
- List of county routes in Erie County, New York (545–580) |
52,187,252 | Versace on the Floor | 1,170,474,988 | 2017 single by Bruno Mars | [
"2010s ballads",
"2016 songs",
"2017 singles",
"Atlantic Records singles",
"Bruno Mars songs",
"Contemporary R&B ballads",
"David Guetta songs",
"Music videos directed by Cameron Duddy",
"Obscenity controversies in music",
"Song recordings produced by David Guetta",
"Songs written by Bruno Mars",
"Songs written by Christopher Brody Brown",
"Songs written by Giorgio Tuinfort",
"Songs written by James Fauntleroy",
"Songs written by Philip Lawrence (songwriter)",
"Versace"
]
| "Versace on the Floor" is a song by American singer Bruno Mars from his third studio album, 24K Magic (2016). Atlantic Records released the song as the only promotional single and the third official single from the album to Hot AC radio in the United States on June 12, 2017. "Versace on the Floor" was written by Mars, Philip Lawrence, Christopher Brody Brown and James Fauntleroy. Mars, Lawrence and Brown handled the track's production under the name Shampoo Press & Curl. A remix by French DJ David Guetta was released on June 27, 2017, for digital download and streaming in various countries. "Versace on the Floor" is an retro-styled R&B song reminiscent of the slow jams from the 1990s, and resembles the early works of Michael Jackson. The song's lyrics address romance, intimacy and Gianni Versace's clothing line.
Some music critics considered it to be the soundtrack to school dances, others found its lyrics sexually driven. The song charted moderately in various countries. It reached number 33 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and number seven on the Dance Club Songs chart. It peaked at number 27 in New Zealand, and reached the top three on the Philippine Hot 100. Its remix peaked at number eight and 13 on the singles charts in Belgium (Wallonia) and Hungary, respectively. It has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and Music Canada (MC).
The song's music video, directed by Cameron Duddy and Mars, was released on August 13, 2017, and features American actress and singer Zendaya. Mars performed "Versace on the Floor" during the 2017 Billboard Music Awards and on his 24K Magic World Tour (2017–2018). The song was nominated for The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter's Award at the 2017 Soul Train Music Awards.
## Background and development
In September 2014, Bruno Mars hinted he was working on new music with the tweet "Now it's time to start writing chapter 3". Following the release of the successful Mark Ronson and Mars's single "Uptown Funk" (2014), Mars headed to the studio to record more songs, and said he had no plans to release a new album "until it's done". It was due in March 2016, but his appearance at the Super Bowl half-time show postponed it for several months. At the time, seven songs were already recorded.
During an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Mars explained there were six different versions of "Versace on the Floor". He played the original demo of the track for the interviewer, calling it the "poolside version" with a piña colada" vibe. Mars tells a girl they can "fly through a storm on a unicorn ... Make love on a mountain, bathe in a fountain". However, since he did not want the song to have a poolside vibe, he and his team remixed the track. The new version had the same lyrics, but a "more epic musical track". According to Mars, this version was set to be on the album, however, "something" was bothering him. "We're painting this picture ... I'm promising the world. But I'm not singing. This is supposed to be a big ballad on the album, but I'm not giving it to 'em! If we're gonna really, dramatically slow things down, I've got to be singing some shit." At this point, the team decided to work on a new melody and lyrics. The final version sounds like a "Boyz II Men–ish anthem that climaxes with an indelible hook". According to Mars, the final recording is the 12th version.
In November 2017, Mars was a guest on the Charlie Rose Show. He said the way he dressed and looked when he went into the studio could affect his creativity. For the recording of "Versace on the Floor" Mars and his production team decided to compete to see who could be the "flyest" coming to the studio. Mars arrived wearing a Versace jacket, which made him feel "fancy" and wanting to "have some silky Versace sex". Both Italian fashion house Versace and designer Donatella Versace, who has dressed the singer, inspired the song.
### David Guetta remix
Two weeks after the release of the original version as a single, Atlantic Records issued a remix by French DJ David Guetta, officially titled: Bruno Mars vs. David Guetta – "Versace on the Floor". Guetta premiered the track during a live show at Ushuaïa Ibiza a day before the official release of the remix on digital and streaming platforms. During the live show, Guetta affirmed "it's a little different from what I usually play here, it's a little softer".
Guetta was grateful for the opportunity to work with Mars on "Versace on the Floor". He said the track was not only a remix but also a "collaboration and combination of different worlds together". He wanted to make it more danceable and "DJ friendly", respecting the music Mars created without changing his vocal. He aimed to create a song "that speaks to a wide audience". Guetta used the original version of the song to create his remix. It took him two weeks to finish. He played it for Mars, who enjoyed the remixed version and decided to send it to radio stations.
Guetta produced the song, music and instrument programming with Giorgio Tuinfort. They were also credited as songwriters. Tuinfort, Marcel Schimmscheimer, and Pierre-Luc Rioux played the piano, bass and guitar, respectively. Jeroen De Rijk was responsible for the percussion. A 16-piece orchestra was also used. Bosko provided the vocals on the talk box. Additional recording was done by Paul Power, while Daddy's Groove mixed and mastered Guetta's version.
## Release and production
"Versace on the Floor" was released as a promotional single from 24K Magic, on November 4, 2016, on Spotify and iTunes. It was thought that the record was scheduled to be the second single from the album. However, in early January, AllAccess revealed "That's What I Like" was being sent to Top 40 radio stations as the second single. "Versace on the Floor" was released on June 12, 2017, as the third single to adult contemporary, hot adult contemporary and modern adult contemporary radio stations. It was issued a day later to American contemporary hit radio and rhythmic contemporary stations, via Atlantic Records. On June 27, 2017, the official remix of the single by David Guetta was released on digital and streaming platforms by Atlantic, and via Warner Music for radio airplay in Italy. On July 7, 2017, the remix was added to BBC Radio 1 playlists.
"Versace on the Floor" was written by Mars, Philip Lawrence, Christopher Brody Brown and James Fauntleroy. Its production was handled by Mars, Lawrence and Brown under their alias, Shampoo Press & Curl. Greg Phillinganes played the keyboards; Mars, Fauntleroy, and Lawrence sang background vocals. The track was recorded and engineered by Charles Moniz with additional engineering assistance from Jacob Dennis at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California. It was mixed at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach by Serban Ghenea, with John Hanes serving as mixing engineer. Tom Coyne mastered the track at Sterling Sound, NYC.
## Composition
"Versace on the Floor" is an R&B song inspired by the slow jams of the 1990s. However, some critics placed the song in the 1980s. It is based on a keyboard tone giving it a slower and deeper sound, like a "smooth power-ballad". Its instrumentation features "roller-rink" synthesizers and "breezy guitar". The song is performed in the key of D major with a tempo of 87 beats per minute. During the final chorus, it modulates into E♭ major. David Guetta's reworked single features a 1970s funk style with instrumentation featuring synths breakdowns, bass, retro synths and vocoded liners.
Mars initially sings tenderly, his voice ranging from a soprano to a falsetto. His vocals have been compared to the Stylistics's lead singer Russell Thompkins Jr., Ralph Tresvant and Michael Jackson. Further into the song the singer unleashes "the more forceful side of his voice". This is apparent in the song's composition as it transitions from a "smoky music-box vibe" to "a vibrant jungle ballad". Its production borrows from Selena's "Dreaming of You" (1995) and "Man in the Mirror" (1987) by Michael Jackson. "Versace on the Floor" is similar to the sound of New Edition, Freddie Jackson's "Rock Me Tonight (For Old Times Sake)" (1985) and the early works of Michael Jackson. Chris DeVille of Stereogum said it was Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love to You" "repurposed" for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, describing it as "a power ballad rising to Valhalla from a soft bed of Casios". The single also has "Prince-like flourishes and frills".
Lyrically, it shows Mars's romantic side, with "champagne flutes", rose petals, dancing and getting intimate with his beloved. "Philly soul bands" and Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" inspire the lyrics. It also shows Mars's attraction to the Gianni Versace clothing line. Will Robinson of Entertainment Weekly compared the track to Mars's "When I Was Your Man" (2012), but felt that "Versace on the Floor" is "less wistful and more romantic and steamier". Its lyrics have also been described as a sultry and sexy affair. On February 27, 2019, West Java's Indonesian Broadcasting Commission placed a ban on the daytime radio broadcast of several songs including "Versace on the Floor", due to their adult, offensive or obscene lyrics.
## Critical reception
"Versace on the Floor" received positive to mixed reviews from most music critics. Chris Gayomali and Max Berlinger of GQ praised the track for its throwback sound and highlighted the song's sexual lyrics. Gayomali described it as a "legitimate fuckjam and an old Shanice song", that would fit the Beverly Hills 90210 soundtrack. Berlinger felt it was "the ultimate slow-jam". Andrew Unterberger, writing for Billboard, called the song a "show-stopping 24K Magic centerpiece". Jackie Willis of Entertainment Tonight felt the single gave Boyz II Men "a run for their money!". Willis called the lyrics "super sultry and sexy". Vibe magazine's Desire Thompson complimented the lyrics for being "seductive". Sasha Geffen of MTV News and Nick Levine from NME shared that the song is reminiscent of school dances. Geffen also felt the track was "smooth". Mike Wass of Idolator enjoyed the track, noting it is inspired by the soul music of the 1970s and 1980s, and describing it as "a cross between Atlantic Starr and the Commodores". Anna Tingley of Billboard considered the song "catchy". In a mixed review, Patrick Ryan of USA Today felt that "Versace on the Floor" is an excessively sentimental track as it counterbalances the other lavish songs on the album. Las Vegas Weekly's Mike Pizzo dubbed the track as "embarrassingly overproduced", saying that it sounds rather old than "old-school cool".
Reviewing Guetta's version Vibe's J'na Jefferson praised the remix for giving "new life" to the track. Idolator's Mike Wass affirmed that Guetta was "faithful to the original's retro charm while tinkering with the sound here and there to make it more current". David Rishty, writing for Billboard, felt the Guetta remix elevated "the original record by a few notches". Jason Scott of PopDust said the remix should be "on repeat for all time". Scott added, "David Guetta injects his magical instincts into the Mars original".
The original version of "Versace on the Floor" was nominated for The Ashford & Simpson Songwriter's Award at the 2017 Soul Train Music Awards but lost to "Cranes in the Sky" (2016) by Solange Knowles. In 2021, Daria Paterek writing for Impact included "Versace on the Floor" on her "list of the top 10 R&B songs that debuted in the 2010s". Paterek affirmed it "demonstrates Bruno Mars' ability to adapt and successfully develop as an artist."
## Commercial performance
"Versace on the Floor" was released as a promotional single and debuted on the charts at number 88 in France and number 96 in Portugal. When the 24K Magic album was released, the track debuted at number 98 in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at number 73 on the Canadian Hot 100, the week of December 10, 2016, and at its peak position of number 27 in New Zealand. Around the same time, it peaked at number two in Israel.
Following its single release the song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100, peaking at number 33 and 43, respectively, spending 14 weeks on both charts. The track peaked at number seven on the Billboard Dance Club Songs. "Versace on the Floor" was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and by Music Canada (MC). It debut and peaked at number three on the Philippine Hot 100 on June 12, 2017.
On the UK Singles Chart the song peaked at number 59 and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). In Italy it peaked at number 82 on the FIMI Singles Chart. "Versace on the Floor" was certified platinum by the Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana (FIMI).
The David Guetta remix charted in three other countries, Belgium, Hungary and Poland. It reached the top ten, peaking at number eight on the Ultratop 50 chart in Wallonia (Belgium), number 13 in Hungary and number 32 on the Polish Airplay Top 100. Its remix also helped the original version of "Versace on the Floor" to chart in Australia, debuting at number 57. The song was certified two times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA).
## Music video
On August 13, 2017, Bruno Mars asked on Twitter: "What you thought I wasn't gonna shoot a video for this silky summer jam?" Later, he teased a short preview of the video at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards during his acceptance video after winning Teen Choice Visionary Award. During the ceremony, the music video for "Versace on the Floor", featuring American actress and singer Zendaya, directed by Cameron Duddy and Mars, premiered. Zendaya said she was asked by Mars to participate in the video.
In the video Mars and Zendaya exchange flirty glances in a hotel hallway before entering their respective rooms. They are both wearing custom Versace clothes. Mars is dressed in black pants, a short-sleeved silk button-down shirt, and smoking slippers with gold Medusa emblems, while Zendaya wears a gold chain mail mini-dress. There is a purple-toned haze in both rooms. Once Mars sits at a purple piano he begins to sing. His music has a magical effect on Zendaya who is next door. Becoming seduced by Mars's charm and the ballad, she gets "her freak on" next to the wall. Later, her Versace dress unzips itself while she grooves to the music. The video ends with Zendaya's gown hitting the floor, followed by a knock on Mars's door.
To show her appreciation and friendship with Mars, designer Donatella Versace posted an Instagram video featuring the chorus of "Versace on the Floor". The video features several models, including Candice Swanepoel and Adrian Chabada, along with Versace herself. They lip-sync and dance in "extravagant clothes from the designer".
Ashley Iasimone of Billboard commented that Mars and Zendaya both dressed in Versace, calling the video "stylish and sensual". Mike Wass of Idolator found the music video to be worth the wait, adding "the video has every chance of going viral". Vibe's Jessica McKinney felt the chemistry between Mars and Zendaya, saying "things got pretty steamy on set". Raisa Buner writing for Time dubbed the video "retro-glamorous" and praised it for having a "sensuous treatment" that fitted the song. Jennifer Drysdale of Entertainment Tonight called the video "sultry".
## Live performances
During The Late Late Show with James Corden on December 13, 2016, Mars included "Versace on the Floor" on the popular segment Carpool Karaoke. Nevertheless, its first televised performance was during the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, through a live stream from the 24K Magic World Tour, in Amsterdam. Mars wore an XXIV merch ball cap, a blazer and white sneakers and sang the track with his band. During his performance "Tetris-like blocks craned down" providing a visual with purple, blue and yellow colours. Laser lights appeared while Mars and two band members danced. At the end of the show, Mars was standing on top of a "Versace logo". Emily Yahr of The Washington Post felt Mars's performance was one of the five best moments of the night saying that his rendition "had more energy" than some people singing live in Vegas. Nick Williams, writing for Billboard, called it "electrifying" and found Mars's vocals to be "powerful" and "emotive". Brian Josephs of Spin and Lucas Villa of AXS praised the show and called it "glowing". Villa added, that Mars's vocals "shined". Time's Raisa Bruner criticized the inclusion of Mars's live performance calling it "unnecessary", saying it slowed the show and brought its energy down.
Mars performed the single at the Apollo Theater alongside the majority of the 24K Magic album for his CBS prime time special titled Bruno Mars: 24K Magic Live at the Apollo, which aired on November 29, 2017. "Versace on the Floor" was the ninth song on the set list of his third tour—24K Magic World Tour (2017–18). On June 27, 2017, David Guetta played the remix for the first time during a live show at Ushuaïa Ibiza, a day before the track's official release.
## Track listings
## Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of 24K Magic, and credits for the remix version are adapted from Tidal.
### Original version
- Bruno Mars – lead vocals, songwriting, background vocals
- Philip Lawrence – songwriting, background vocals
- Christopher Brody Brown – songwriting
- James Fauntleroy – songwriting, background vocals
- Greg Phillinganes – keyboards
- Shampoo Press & Curl – production
- Charles Moniz – recording, engineering
- Jacob Dennis – engineering assistance
- Serban Ghenea – mixing
- John Hanes – mix engineering
- Tom Coyne – mastering
### David Guetta remix
- David Guetta – performer, production, music, instrumentation programming
- Giorgio Tuinfort – production, music, instrumentation programming, piano
- Marcel Schimmscheimer – bass
- Pierre-Luc Rioux – guitar
- Anna Pelser, Annelieke Marselje, Ben Mathot, David Faber, Diewertje Wanders, Douwe Nauta, Franck Van der Heijden, Ian Jong, Judith van Driel, Loes Dooren, Marije de Jong, Marleen Wester, Riciotti Ensemble, Saskia Peters, Sofie van der Pol, Tseroeja van den Bos – orchestra
- Jeroen De Rijk – percussion
- Paul Power – additional recording
- Bosko – talkbox
- Daddy's Groove – mixing, mastering
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
## Release history
### Promotional release
### Single release |
27,034,494 | Msambweni | 1,171,302,176 | null | [
"Populated places in Coast Province"
]
| Msambweni (meaning "land of Msambwe") in Swahili) is a small fishing town and constituency in Kwale County of southeastern Kenya, formerly in Kwale District of Coast Province. The origin of the name, Msambwe (plural Misambwe) is a hardy and wild fruits (sambwe) tree indigenous to Msambweni. A few remnants of the Msambwe trees are still existing at Mkunguni Beach, Sawa Sawa Village. By road, Msambweni is 55.4 kilometres (34.4 mi) south of Mombasa and 46.5 kilometres (28.9 mi) northeast of Lunga Lunga on the Tanzanian border. As of 2009, the town had a population of 11,985 people.
Fishing is the primary source of income, although coconut palm, buxa coloring, cashew nuts and fruits are produced for trade. Because of its reef and extensive beaches, the snorkeling industry is gaining in popularity in Msambweni, and holiday cottages and hotels have sprung up in the area, such as the Msambweni Beach House. The town is noted for its leprosarium and contains the Msambweni District Hospital. The Koromojo Dam is immediately north of the town.
## Geography
By road, Msambweni is 55.4 kilometres (34.4 mi) south of Mombasa, 46.9 kilometres (29.1 mi) southeast of Kwale, and 46.5 kilometres (28.9 mi) northeast of Lunga Lunga on the Tanzanian border. It lies along the A14 road (Ukunda-Ramisi Road) between the villages of Ukunda and Shimoni.
Msambweni forms a constituency that starts from the Mwachema River at the border of Tiwi and Diani Beach to the north, and down to Ramisi River towards the border of Kenya and Tanzania to the south.
The area's scenery is characterized by its beaches, rocky outcrops and low cliff tops and is relatively unspoiled. At one end of the beach is a "rocky headland of fossilized coral, which is a jumble of cracks, caves and chimneys that make an ideal roost for bats" and there are baobab trees in the vicinity. There is a reef channel at Msambweni and aquifer which is about 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of the Tiwi aquifer. The reef, which stretches from Msambweni to Malindi in the north, is one of the world's largest continuous fringing reef. At the northern end of Msambweni Bay is Chale Island, a headland rather than an island, which is known as a sacred kaya (worshipping place). Many of the locals are superstitious and believe in witchcraft and spirits (jinis).
Bedrock in the area was likely formed by Mazeras Sandstones. Msambweni has an average rainfall of 55.18 inches a year.
## Politics
Msambweni Central forms a constituency with an elected Member of Parliament. As of 2001 the Msambweni Constituency had an area of 3,267 square kilometres (1,261 sq mi) with a population of 211,011 people. By 2009 it had a population of 288,393 people. Kassim Mwamzandi was MP from 1988–1997. The MP for Msambweni was Suleiman Dori Ramadhan until his death on 9 March 2020. He assumed office in 2013 and was re-elected in 2017. A by-election which was held towards the end of December 2020 was marginally won by independent candidate Feisal Bader.
## Economy
Msambweni grew from a small village into a bustling little town. Fishing is important to the local community of Msambweni and is the primary source of income. The area is mainly Muslim and inhabited by Digo peoples. The Kwake District Development Plan 2002–2008 attempted to improve fish landing sites and beach access for fisherman on the coast of Msambweni. Coconut palm is grown, as are cashew nuts, fruits and buxa coloring. Maize, cassava, cowpeas and rice are grown for domestic consumption. There are numerous stalls along the main road in the town selling fruit and vegetables. Silica sand is mined at Msambweni and transported to Nairobi to make bottle glass. Beekeeping and seaweed farming are also local occupation and its commercialization in the area has been supported by ACT! Kenya with financial assistance from the European Union.
A result of its reef, the tourist industry is taking off in Msambweni attracting snorkelers. Holiday cottages and hotels have sprung up. Club Green Oasis caters mainly to German tourists. Although supplied with electricity, in the 1990s the government expressed concerns about access to an ample clean water supply in the division.
## Landmarks
Msambweni is noted for its leprosarium, and contains the Msambweni Level 5 Hospital, which is reportedly one of the best hospitals on the coast, and Kari Medical Clinic, Vingujini Primary School, and Msambweni Secondary School. The Msambweni Campus of Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), formerly the Matuga Medical Training College in Matuga, is located next to the hospital. It was established in 1977 and shifted location to Msambweni in August 2006. It trains students in the Health Sciences, and since 2005 they have offered a three and half-year pre-service diploma course in Community Health Nursing.
On a 40 feet (12 m) clifftop is the Msambweni Beach House, set in 28 acres with a 700 feet (210 m) stretch of private beach. Although predominantly Muslim, the town has an interdenominational church. Immediately to the north of Msambweni is the Koromojo Dam. and between Msambweni and Kwale is the Shimba Hills National Reserve. There is a marine reserve at Shimoni beyond Funzi Island to the south. |
2,532,071 | Vesta Tilley | 1,162,250,263 | English music hall performer and male impersonator | [
"1864 births",
"1952 deaths",
"19th-century British women singers",
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"20th-century English singers",
"20th-century English women singers",
"Actors from Worcester, England",
"Actresses from Worcestershire",
"British drag kings",
"British women in World War I",
"Burials at Putney Vale Cemetery",
"Comedians from Worcestershire",
"English expatriates in Monaco",
"English film actresses",
"English impressionists (entertainers)",
"English silent film actresses",
"English stage actresses",
"English women comedians",
"Music hall performers",
"Vaudeville performers",
"Wives of knights"
]
| Matilda Alice Powles, Lady de Frece (13 May 1864 – 16 September 1952) was an English music hall performer. She adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the best-known male impersonators of her era. Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Starting in provincial theatres with her father as manager, she performed her first season in London in 1874. She typically performed as a dandy or fop, also playing other roles. She found additional success as a principal boy in pantomime.
By the 1890s, Tilley was England's highest earning woman. She was also a star in the vaudeville circuit in the United States, touring a total of six times. She married Walter de Frece, a theatre impresario who became her new manager and songwriter. At a Royal Command Performance in 1912, she scandalised Queen Mary because she was wearing trousers. During the First World War she was known as "England’s greatest recruiting sergeant" since she sang patriotic songs dressed in khaki fatigues like a soldier and promoted enlistment drives.
Becoming Lady de Frece in 1919, she decided to retire and made a year-long farewell tour from which all profits went to children's hospitals. Her last performance was in 1920 at the Coliseum Theatre, London. She then supported her husband when he became a Member of Parliament and later retired with him to Monte Carlo. She died in 1952 on a visit to London and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery. Her life story was commemorated in the 1957 film After the Ball.
## Early years
Matilda Alice Powles was born at Commandery Street, Worcester on 13 May 1864. She was the second child out of a total of thirteen and shared her first name with her mother Matilda Powles (née Broughton). Her father was Henry Powles, known as Harry Ball. He was a musician who became master of ceremonies at the Theatre Royal, Gloucester and later the St George's Hall in Nottingham.
With her father's encouragement, Powles first appeared on stage at the age of three and, by six, she was appearing to sing songs dressed as a man. She began her professional career in 1869 and was to be on the stage until 1920. Her first character of note was "Pocket Sims Reeves", spoofing the act of the then-famous opera singer Sims Reeves by performing his songs such as "The Anchor's Weighed". She would later perform male roles exclusively, saying that "I felt that I could express myself better if I were dressed as a boy."
At the time, British music hall entertainment was increasingly popular and Powles' fame grew as she became older. By 1872, her father had quit his job to manage her career full-time and she was supporting her family. In 1874, she did her first season in London, performing as the Great Little Tilley at three venues every night. Edward Villiers, then manager at the Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth, was concerned by the gender ambiguity of the performance name and suggested a change. Harry Ball decided upon Vesta Tilley. "Vesta" referred to both the Latin word for virgin and Swan Vesta, a brand of safety matches; "Tilley" was a diminutive of her name Matilda. She was billed as Vesta Tilley for the first time in April 1878, when performing at the Royal Music Hall in Holborn, London.
## Stardom
Tilley's success continued into the 1880s and she was able to command ever higher fees for her performances. As a male impersonator, she typically performed as a dandy or a fop, a famous character being "Burlington Bertie" although she also played other roles such as policemen and clergymen.
By the 1890s, she was known as "the London Idol" and adored by her fans. Her father had died in 1888 and two years later she married Walter de Frece, a theatre impresario who owned music halls across Great Britain. Frece became her new manager and also began to write her songs. She toured extensively in Britain and also played the vaudeville circuit in the United States on six separate visits. She had become the highest-earning woman in England. One theatre in the US offered her a salary of \$600 per week.
Tilley was known for her painstaking attention to detail in preparing for her roles: she wore her hair tightly plaited and hidden under a wig; she took to wearing men's underwear so her appearance looked believable, since contemporary women's underclothing would have distorted her shape. Her performances were always family-friendly, unlike other acts. She had found her niche, performing as a male impersonator and working-class men adored her mockery of the upper classes. From the 1870s onwards, women also went to music halls and they revelled in Tilley's independence. By 1912, music hall entertainments had become so famous that a Royal Command Performance was organised. Tilley sang a favourite song, "The Piccadilly Johnny with the Little Glass Eye" wearing trousers as part of her act. Queen Mary was scandalised to see a woman's legs and hid her face behind a programme.
Alongside other stars such as Dan Leno and Ada Reeve, Tilley made some of the first sound recordings in England in 1898. She also played the principal boy in a number of pantomimes. At the age of 13, she played Robinson Crusoe at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth. She was best known for her titular role in Dick Whittington, which she played many times. She often performed in male roles in pantomimes such as Beauty and the Beast and Sinbad the Sailor, and occasionally played female parts, such as the Queen of Hearts at the Theatre Royal, Brighton.
## Wartime work
By the time the First World War began, Tilley's career was slowing down and the changing situation provided a chance for it to develop further. She and her husband ran military recruitment drives and she sang at charity events. Tilley dressed in khaki fatigues and performed numbers written by her husband such as "Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Soldier", "The Army of Today's All Right", "Six Days' Leave", and "Your King and Country Want You" (also known as "We Don't Want to Lose You but We Think You Ought to Go"). She was nicknamed "England’s greatest recruiting sergeant" since young men were sometimes asked to join the army during her show. Over the course of a week in Hackney, she enlisted so many people they became known as "The Vesta Tilley Platoon".
However, Tilley was also prepared to question the carnage of war. In "I'm Glad I've Got a Bit of a Blighty One", she sang about a soldier who was delighted to have been wounded in battle because it would allow him to go back to England (Blighty).
> > When I think about my dugout Where I dare not stick my mug out I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one!
## Retirement
After the war, music halls declined in popularity. Walter de Frece was knighted in the 1919 King's Birthday Honours List for his services to the war effort, with Tilley becoming Lady de Frece. De Frece decided to run for Parliament and Tilley chose to end her stage career. Her farewell tour took a year to complete, between 1919 and 1920. All proceeds were given to a local children's hospital. She made her final appearance at the Coliseum Theatre, London on Saturday 5 June 1920 (at the age of 56). In its review, The Times called it a "wonderful night" and commented that at the end she was "gradually being submerged under the continuous stream of bouquets".
Walter de Frece became a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), first for Ashton-under-Lyne and later for Blackpool. In 1923, Tilley was presented at the royal court as Lady de Frece. Her husband served as an MP until 1931 and then the couple moved to Monte Carlo for their retirement. Her autobiography, Recollections of Vesta Tilley, was published in 1934. After her husband died in 1935, Vesta Tilley continued to live in Monte Carlo.
Tilley died in St James's, London whilst visiting on 16 September 1952, aged 88. Her body was buried alongside her husband, at Putney Vale Cemetery. Her life story was commemorated in the 1957 film After the Ball. |
3,849,070 | New Britain campaign | 1,169,715,748 | World War II campaign between Allied and Imperial Japanese forces | [
"1943 in Papua New Guinea",
"1944 in Papua New Guinea",
"1945 in Papua New Guinea",
"Battles and operations of World War II involving Australia",
"Battles and operations of World War II involving Papua New Guinea",
"Battles and operations of World War II involving the United States",
"Conflicts in 1943",
"Conflicts in 1944",
"Conflicts in 1945",
"South West Pacific theatre of World War II",
"United States Marine Corps in World War II"
]
| The New Britain campaign was a World War II campaign fought between Allied and Imperial Japanese forces. The campaign was initiated by the Allies in late 1943 as part of a major offensive which aimed to neutralise the important Japanese base at Rabaul, the capital of New Britain, and was conducted in two phases between December 1943 and the end of the war in August 1945.
Initial fighting on New Britain took place around the western end of the island in December 1943 and January 1944, with US forces landing and securing bases around Arawe and Cape Gloucester. This was followed by a further landing in March 1944 around Talasea, after which little fighting took place between the ground forces on the island. In October 1944, the Australian 5th Division took over from the US troops and undertook a Landing at Jacquinot Bay the following month, before beginning a limited offensive to secure a defensive line across the island between Wide Bay and Open Bay behind which they contained the numerically superior Japanese forces for the remainder of the war. The Japanese regarded the New Britain Campaign as a delaying action, and kept their forces concentrated around Rabaul in expectation of a ground assault which never came.
The operations on New Britain are considered by historians to have been a success for the Allied forces. However, some have questioned the necessity of the campaign. In addition, Australian historians have been critical of the limited air and naval support allocated to support operations on the island between October 1944 and the end of the war.
## Background
### Geography
New Britain is a crescent-shaped island north east of the mainland of New Guinea. It is approximately 595 kilometres (370 mi) long, and its width varies from around 30 kilometres (19 mi) to 100 kilometres (62 mi); this makes it the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago. The interior of New Britain is rugged, with a range of volcanic mountains over 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) high running for most of its length. The island's coast is indented by a large number of bays.
The island has a tropical climate. At the time of World War II the mountains were covered by a rainforest of tall trees. The coastal plains which ring most of the island were covered in dense jungle. Most of the beaches on New Britain were backed by forested swamps, and a large number of rivers and streams ran from the mountains to the sea. All of these characteristics greatly complicated the movement of military units on New Britain. The number of sites suitable for amphibious landings was also constrained by the coral reefs which lay off most of the island's coastline.
The island's population in 1940 was estimated as over 101,000 New Guineans and 4,674 Europeans and Asians. Rabaul, located on the north-east coast of New Britain, was the main settlement on the island and the largest in the Bismarcks. The town had served as the capital of the Australian-administered Territory of New Guinea since Australian forces had captured the region from Germany during 1914.
### Japanese occupation
Japanese forces captured New Britain in January 1942 as part of efforts to secure Rabaul, quickly overwhelming the small Australian garrison during the Battle of Rabaul. This invasion was undertaken to both prevent Allied forces from using Rabaul to attack the important Japanese base at Truk in the central Pacific, and to capture the town so that it could be used to support potential further Japanese offensives in the region. While hundreds of Australian soldiers and airmen managed to escape and were evacuated between February and May, around 900 became prisoners of war and were treated harshly. The 500 European civilians captured by the Japanese were interned. On 1 July 1942, 849 POWs and 208 civilian men who had been captured on New Britain were killed when the Montevideo Maru was torpedoed by an American submarine en route to Japan. Most of the remaining European internees were transported to the Solomon Islands where they died due to poor conditions.
The Japanese authorities adopted the Australian system of administering the island through village chiefs, and many villages shifted their loyalties to the Japanese to survive or to gain an advantage against other groups. The few chiefs who refused to cooperate with the Japanese were severely punished, with several being killed. While the European women and children had been evacuated to Australia prior to the war, Asian people had not been assisted to leave. The Chinese-ethnic community feared that it would be massacred by Japanese forces, as had happened elsewhere in the Pacific, but this did not occur. However, men were forced to work as labourers and some women were raped and, in several cases forced to become "comfort women".
Following the invasion, the Japanese established a large base at Rabaul. The facilities located near the town were attacked by Allied air units from early 1942, but these operations were generally unsuccessful. By mid-1943, a network of four airfields had been constructed at Rabaul which could accommodate 265 fighters and 166 bombers in protective revetments. More aircraft could also be accommodated in unprotected parking areas. Aircraft based at these facilities operated against Allied forces in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The town was also developed into a major port, with extensive dock and ship repair facilities. Large stockpiles of supplies were stored in warehouses and open air dumps in and around Rabaul. Few other Japanese facilities were constructed on New Britain, though a forward airfield was developed at Gasmata on the island's south coast. Both the Japanese and Australians maintained small parties of coastwatchers at other locations on New Britain; the Australians were civilians who had volunteered to remain on the island following the invasion.
During 1943 small parties of Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) personnel, which comprised both Australian and New Guinean troops, were landed on New Britain. The AIB units sought to gather intelligence, re-assert Australian sovereignty and rescue downed Allied airmen. The Japanese attempted to hunt down the Allied coastwatchers and AIB patrols, and committed atrocities against civilians who assisted them. The AIB also trained and equipped New Guineans to serve as guerrillas, which led to a successful low-intensity campaign against the Japanese garrison. However, it also sparked tribal warfare with the guerrillas attacking villages they believed to have collaborated with the Japanese.
### Opposing forces
By 1943, there were more than 100,000 Japanese military and civilian personnel on New Britain and a smaller nearby island, New Ireland. These were centred on the headquarters of the Eighth Area Army, under the command of General Hitoshi Imamura: the 17th Division (11,429 personnel at the end of the war); the 38th Division (13,108); the 39th Brigade (5,073); the 65th Brigade (2,729); the 14th Regiment (2,444); the 34th Regiment (1,879) and the 35th Regiment (1,967). Together, these formations amounted to a force equivalent to four divisions. Naval troops provided the equivalent of another division. By the end of the war, these Japanese forces were restricted to Rabaul and the surrounding Gazelle Peninsula. These forces lacked naval and air support, and were increasingly isolated and eventually cut-off from resupply due to Allied interdiction efforts, which meant that the garrison was largely left to its own devices. Indeed, direct communications between Rabaul and Japan were severed in February 1943 and not reestablished until after the war.
In contrast, United States, Australian and New Guinean forces, assisted by local civilians, were always a division-level command or smaller; the US "Director" Task Force which secured Arawe was effectively a regimental combat team based on the 112th Cavalry Regiment. It was later followed by the 1st Marine Division before it handed over to the 40th Infantry Division, which in turn handed over to the Australian 5th Division. This was due partly to a miscalculation of the size of the Japanese forces holding the island, as well as broader Allied strategy, which dictated a limited operation for New Britain, focused initially upon seizing and defending suitable locations for airbases, and then containment of the larger Japanese force.
## Preliminary operations
From mid-1942 Allied plans for the Pacific had a strong focus on capturing or neutralising Rabaul. In July 1942 the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered a two-pronged offensive against Rabaul. The forces assigned to the South Pacific Area were directed to capture the Solomon Islands, starting with Guadalcanal. Simultaneously, the units assigned to the South West Pacific Area, commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, were to secure Lae and Salamaua on the north coast of New Guinea. Once these operations were complete, forces from both commands would land on New Britain and capture Rabaul. This plan proved premature, however, as MacArthur lacked the forces needed to execute his elements of it. The Japanese offensive towards Port Moresby, which was defeated after months of heavy fighting in the Kokoda Track campaign, Battle of Milne Bay and Battle of Buna–Gona, also disrupted the Allied plans but left them in control of the territory needed to mount their own offensives.
The Allies re-cast their plans in early 1943. Following a major conference, on 28 March the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a new plan for reducing Rabaul, which was designated Operation Cartwheel. Under this plan, MacArthur's forces were to establish airfields on two islands off the coast of New Guinea, capture the Huon Peninsula region of the mainland and land in western New Britain. The South Pacific Area was to continue its advance through the Solomon Islands towards Rabaul, culminating with a landing on Bougainville Island. While the initial plans for Operation Cartwheel directed MacArthur to capture Rabaul, in June 1943 the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided that this was unnecessary as the Japanese base there could be neutralized by blockade and aerial bombardment. MacArthur initially opposed this change in plans, but it was endorsed by the British and United States Combined Chiefs of Staff during the Quebec Conference in August.
The United States Fifth Air Force, the main American air unit assigned to the South West Pacific Area, began a campaign against Rabaul in October 1943. The goal of the attacks was to prevent the Japanese from using Rabaul as an air or naval base and to provide support for the planned landing on Bougainville scheduled for 1 November, as well as landings in western New Britain planned for December. The first raid took place on 12 October, and involved 349 aircraft. Further attacks were made whenever weather conditions were suitable during October and early November. On 5 November, two United States Navy aircraft carriers also attacked the town and its harbour. Following this attack the Imperial Japanese Navy ceased using Rabaul as a fleet base. The campaign against Rabaul was intensified from November when air units operating from airfields on recently captured islands in the Solomons joined the attacks.
## Invasion of western New Britain
### Opposing plans
On 22 September 1943 MacArthur's General Headquarters issued orders for the invasion of New Britain, which was designated Operation Dexterity. These directed the US Sixth Army (which at the time was typically designated 'Alamo Force') to land forces in the Cape Gloucester region of western New Britain and at Gasmata to secure all of New Britain west of the line between Gasmata and Talasea on the north coast. MacArthur's air commander, Lieutenant General George Kenney, opposed this operation as he believed that it would take too long to develop airfields at Cape Gloucester given the rapid pace of the Allied advances in the New Guinea region, and existing airfields were adequate to support the attacks on Rabaul and planned landings at other locations. However, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, the commander of Alamo Force, and MacArthur's naval commanders believed that it was necessary to invade New Britain to gain control of the strategic Vitiaz Strait through which it was planned to send convoys carrying Allied forces to locations in western New Guinea. However, the planned landing at Gasmata was cancelled in November due to concerns over the Japanese reinforcing the region and its proximity to the airfields at Rabaul, as well as the terrain being judged too swampy. Instead, on 21 November it was decided to capture the Arawe area on the south-west coast of New Britain to establish a base for PT boats and hopefully divert Japanese attention away from the main landing at Cape Gloucester. After taking into account the availability of shipping and air cover, the landing at Arawe was scheduled for 15 December and that at Cape Gloucester for the 26th of that month.
Alamo Force was responsible for developing plans for Operation Dexterity, with work on this having commenced in August 1943. Intelligence to inform these plans was sourced from Marine and Alamo Scout patrols which were landed in New Britain between September and December, as well as from aerial photography. The US 1st Marine Division was the main formation selected for the Cape Gloucester landing; combined with artillery, transport, construction and logistics units this force was designated the Backhander Task Force. The force selected for Arawe was built around the 112th Cavalry Regiment, which had been dismounted and was serving as infantry. The cavalry regiment was augmented with artillery and engineer units, with the overall force being designated the Director Task Force.
The Japanese Imperial General Headquarters assessed the strategic situation in the Southwest Pacific in late September 1943, and concluded that the Allies would attempt to break through the northern Solomon Islands and Bismarck Archipelago in the coming months en route to Japan's inner perimeter in the western and central Pacific. Accordingly, reinforcements were dispatched to strategic locations in the area in an attempt to slow the Allied advance. Strong forces were retained at Rabaul, however, as it was believed that the Allies would attempt to capture the town. At the time, Japanese positions in western New Britain were limited to airfields at Cape Gloucester on the island's western tip and several small way stations which provided small boats travelling between Rabaul and New Guinea with shelter from Allied aerial attacks. As New Britain lay well to the east of the "Absolute National Defence Zone" which had been adopted by the Japanese military on 15 September, the overall goal for the forces there was to delay any Allied advances to buy time to improve the defences of more strategically important regions.
During October the commander of the Eighth Area Army, Imamura, judged that the Allies next move would probably be an invasion of western New Britain. In response, he decided to dispatch further units to the area to reinforce its garrison, which was based around the under-strength 65th Brigade and designated Matsuda Force after its commander, Major General Iwao Matsuda. The 17th Division was selected to provide troops for this purpose; the main body of this unit arrived in Rabaul from China on 4 and 5 October, having suffered around 1,400 casualties due to submarine and air attacks while en route to New Britain. The commander of the 17th Division, Lieutenant General Yasushi Sakai was appointed the new commander of the Japanese forces in western New Britain, but the division's battalions were spread across this region, southern New Britain and Bougainville.
### Arawe
For the Arawe operation, the Director Task Force, under the command of Brigadier General Julian Cunningham, concentrated on Goodenough Island where they carried out training prior to embarking on 13 December 1943. In the weeks prior to the operation, Allied aircraft had carried out heavy attacks across New Britain, but the area around the landing beaches was purposefully left alone until the day prior to the landing in order not to alert the Japanese. The ships carrying the invasion force arrived off the Arawe Peninsula, near Cape Merkus, around 03:00 on 15 December. Two small advanced elements set off almost immediately under the cover of darkness with orders to destroy a radio transmitter on Pilelo Island to the south-east and to sever the track leading towards the peninsula around Umtingalu village. The subsidiary landing around Umtingalu met with heavy resistance and was subsequently repulsed, while the landing on Pilelo proved more successful with the cavalrymen quickly overwhelming a small Japanese force before securing their objective.
Meanwhile, after a deal of confusion while the troops embarked in their landing craft, the main assault began after 06:25, supported by a heavy naval and aerial bombardment. Opposition ashore was limited as there were very few Japanese in the vicinity, although the first wave experienced machine-gun fire that was quickly dealt with. Japanese aircraft from Rabaul sortied over the landing beach, but were chased away by US fighters flying combat air patrols. Further confusion resulted in a delay in bringing the second wave in, while the final three waves got mixed up and landed at the same time. Nevertheless, the US cavalrymen quickly secured a beachhead and by the afternoon they had secured the Amalut Plantation and established a strong defensive position across the base of the Arawe Peninsula. In the days that followed Japanese reinforcements arrived and they subsequently launched a counterattack, but the Americans also brought in reinforcements, including tanks, and the counterattack was repelled. In the aftermath, the Japanese withdrew further inland towards a nearby airfield and the fighting around Arawe petered out.
### Cape Gloucester
The landing at Cape Gloucester took place on 26 December 1943, following the diversionary action around Arawe, and a series of practice landings around Cape Sudest a few days earlier. The 1st Marine Division, under the command of Major General William H. Rupertus was selected for the attack. For the landing, two beaches were chosen to the east of the airfields at Cape Gloucester, which was the main goal of the operation. A subsidiary landing site was also chosen on the opposite side of the cape to the west of the airfields. Troops from the 7th Marines embarked from Oro Bay. Escorted by US and Australian warships from Task Force 74, en route they were reinforced by the 1st Marines and artillery from the 11th Marines. A heavy aerial bombardment was directed against Cape Gloucester's garrison in the weeks before the landing which destroyed many of the fixed defences and affected the soldiers' morale. The strikes continued on 26 December prior to the assault, resulting in heavy smoke which partially obscured the beaches. The American landing was successful, with counter-attacks by Japanese forces on 26 December being defeated. The next day the 1st Marine Regiment advanced west, towards the airfields. A Japanese blocking position was reduced that afternoon, but the American advance was halted while reinforcements were landed. It resumed on 29 December, with the airfields being captured. During the first two weeks of January 1944 the Marines advanced south from their beachhead to locate and defeat the Japanese force they believed was in the area. This led to some heavy fighting, with the Japanese 141st Infantry Regiment attempting to defend positions located on high ground. The Marines eventually secured the area on 16 January.
With the successful landing, the Allies effectively gained control of the sea lanes of communication to the Bismarck Sea, having secured lodgements on either side of the Vitiaz Strait, after earlier capturing Finschhafen. In January 1944, the Allies sought to press their advantage further, launching another Dexterity operation on the New Guinea coast with a landing at Saidor as the Huon Peninsula was cleared by Australian and US forces. In response, the Japanese high command at Rabaul ordered their forces that were withdrawing from the Huon Peninsula to bypass Saidor, and they subsequently began withdrawing towards Madang.
In mid-January, Sakai requested permission to withdraw his command from western New Britain, and this was granted by Imamura on the 21st of the month. The Japanese forces subsequently sought to disengage from the Americans, and move towards the Talasea area. Marine patrols pursued the Japanese, and a large number of small engagements were fought in the centre of the island and along its north coast.
### Talasea
In the months following the operations to secure Arawe and Cape Gloucester, there was only limited fighting on New Britain as Japanese forces largely chose to avoid combat during this period and continued their withdrawal towards Rabaul. US forces secured Rooke Island in February 1944, but by then the island's garrison had already been withdrawn. The following month, a further landing was undertaken at Talasea, on the Willaumez Peninsula. Conceived as a follow-up operation to cut off the withdrawing Japanese, the operation involved a regimental combat team formed primarily from the 5th Marines landing on the Willaumez Peninsula, on the western side of a narrow isthmus near the Volupai Plantation. Following the initial landing, the Marines advanced east towards the emergency landing strip at Talasea on the opposite coast. A small group of Japanese defenders held up the US troops and prevented them from advancing quickly enough to cut off the withdrawal of the main Japanese force falling back from Cape Gloucester.
The Allied air attacks on Rabaul were further intensified following the completion of airfields on Bougainville during January 1944. All of the town was destroyed, along with a large number of aircraft and ships. The Japanese Army lost relatively little equipment though, as its stockpiles had been moved into volcanic caves during November. Due to the shipping losses, the Japanese stopped sending any further surface vessels to the town from February. The Japanese air units stationed at Rabaul made their last attempt to intercept an Allied raid on the area on 19 February. Following this, the air raids which continued to the end of the war were contested only by anti-aircraft gunfire. As a result of its prolonged bombardment, the town ceased to be a base from which the Japanese could contest the Allied advance. However, it remained very well defended by a garrison of around 98,000 men and hundreds of artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Extensive fortifications were constructed around the Gazelle Peninsula, where rugged terrain would have also favoured the defenders. On 14 March 1944 the Imperial General Headquarters directed the Eighth Area Army to "hold the area around Rabaul for as long as possible" to divert Allied forces away from other regions.
In April 1944, once Arawe and Cape Gloucester had been secured, the US 40th Infantry Division under Major General Rapp Brush arrived to relieve the Marines and cavalrymen that had landed in December 1943. After this, a period of relative inactivity followed as the US and Japanese forces occupied opposite ends of the island, while guerilla actions were fought in the centre by Australian-led forces of the AIB. Patrols from the AIB were subsequently successful in pushing back Japanese outposts to Ulamona on the north coast, and to Kamandran in the south. In mid-1944, the headquarters of the Eighth Area Army re-assessed Allied intentions on New Britain. While up to this time it had been believed that the Allies were planning a major assault on Rabaul, the advance of Allied forces towards the Philippines was interpreted to mean that this was no longer likely. Instead, the Japanese judged that the Allies would advance slowly across New Britain towards the town and attack it only if their campaign towards Japan became bogged down or concluded, or if the size of Australian forces on the island was increased.
## Australian operations
### Transfer to Australian responsibility
In October 1944, the decision was made to transfer the US 40th Infantry Division to fight in the Philippines, with responsibility for New Britain passing to the Australians in line with the Australian government's desire to use their own troops to recapture the Australian territory the Japanese had taken earlier in the war. The Australian 5th Division, commanded by Major General Alan Ramsay, was chosen for this operation, having concentrated around Madang in May 1944 following operations to secure the Huon Peninsula.
Allied intelligence at the time had underestimated Japanese strength on the island, believing it to be held by around 38,000 men. While this was incorrect by a factor of two, Allied assessments of Japanese intentions were more accurate, with planners believing that Imamura's force would adopt a defensive posture, remaining largely inside the fortifications that had been established around Rabaul. In fact Japanese combat strength was approximately 69,000 men, including 53,000 army troops and 16,000 sailors, and while they were mainly located in the Gazelle Peninsula in the north around Rabaul, there were watching-stations established as far forward as Awul. Due to the garrison's increasing isolation many were involved in growing rice and gardening. With American enclaves at Talasea–Cape Hoskins, Arawe and Cape Gloucester, the two sides were geographically separated and observing a tacit truce. Allied bombing had heavily reduced Japanese air and naval forces to the extent that there were only two operational aircraft left, and the only vessels that remained were 150 barges that could move small amounts of supplies or troops around the coast.
Ramsay's force was ordered to carry out a containment operation designed to isolate the Japanese garrison on the Gazelle Peninsula. In doing so, Ramsay was ordered to keep the pressure on the Japanese while avoiding committing large-scale forces. Nevertheless, it was decided that the Australians would carry out a limited offensive, consisting largely of patrol actions, with the goal of advancing beyond the western tip of the island where the US garrison had remained. To achieve this, the Australian commanders decided to establish two bases: one around Jacquinot Bay on the southern coast, with a supporting base on the north coast around Cape Hoskins.
### Central New Britain
In early October 1944, the 36th Infantry Battalion was landed at Cape Hoskins to begin taking over from the US garrison. Early the next month, the remaining elements of the Australian 6th Infantry Brigade landed at Jacquinot Bay. In the weeks that followed, large amounts of stores and equipment were landed, along with support personnel and labourers to begin construction on facilities including roads, an airstrip, dock facilities, and a general hospital. This work would last until May 1945. Two squadrons of Royal New Zealand Air Force Corsair fighter bombers were later flown in to support Allied operations on the island, and US landing craft from the 594th Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment provided support until the Australian Landing Craft Company arrived in February 1945.
Due to limited shipping resources, the transfer of the 5th Division was delayed significantly and was not completed until April 1945. Nevertheless, in December, the Australian advance began with the goal of moving along the northern and southern coasts towards the Gazelle Peninsula to capture a line between Wide Bay and Open Bay, along which to contain the larger Japanese force, which remained largely static around the Rabaul fortress, with only about 1,600 troops deployed in the forward areas. This saw a series of amphibious landings, river crossings and small-scale actions. The 36th Infantry Battalion began expanding their foothold around Cape Hoskins in early December pushing forward towards Bialla via barge, where two companies established a forward base from where they began patrolling east. After establishing that the Japanese had withdrawn behind the Pandi River, a new base was established around Ea Ea, with the troops again being moved forward by barge. The 1st New Guinea Infantry Battalion arrived to reinforce them in January 1945. After this, the Australians on the north coast pushed their line towards Open Bay, establishing an outpost around Baia and patrolling the Mavelo Plantation, during which several minor skirmishes were fought.
Meanwhile, on the southern coast, the main advance towards Wide Bay had begun in late December. This involved establishing a forward base around Milim in mid-February 1945 by the 14th/32nd Infantry Battalion, which was moved by barge via Sampun. On 15 February, Kamandran was captured following a brief fight during which a patrol from the 1st New Guinea Infantry Battalion carried out a successful ambush. At this point, Japanese resistance on the southern coast began to grow and in the final phase of the advance, the Australians began advancing on foot around Henry Reid Bay, to secure the Waitavalo–Tol area, which was held by a Japanese force around battalion strength.
After this, a series of engagements took place over a six-week period to reduce the main Japanese position around Mount Sugi, commencing with the 19th Infantry Battalion's assault across the Wulwut River on 5 March. The position around Mount Sugi, which stretched across a number of ridges to the west of the Wulwut, was strongly defended with mortars, machine guns and pillboxes, and heavy rain also frustrated Australian attempts to reduce the Japanese stronghold. Fierce fighting followed, culminating with the 14th/32nd's attack on Bacon Hill on 18 March. Following the capture of Waitavalo–Tol area in March and April, the Australians exploited towards Jammer Bay and sent patrols to link up their northern and southern drives. They also brought in reinforcements, first from the 13th Infantry Brigade and then the 4th, as the offensive part of their campaign effectively came to an end. In the months that followed, the Australians mounted a series of patrols aimed at maintaining the line around the neck of the Gazelle Peninsula to prevent any attempt by the Japanese to break out from Rabaul. This lasted until the end of the war in August 1945. The 2/2nd Commando Squadron conducted a patrol which penetrated close to Rabaul, and judged that the terrain was so rough it would not be possible for large Japanese units to move over it to attack the Australian forces.
A series of command changes had occurred around this time. In April, Major General Horace Robertson took over command from Ramsay, while Major General Kenneth Eather assumed control in early August.
## Aftermath
Rabaul was secured by the 29th/46th Infantry Battalion, which formed part of the 4th Infantry Brigade, on 6 September 1945, at which time over 8,000 former prisoners of war were liberated from Japanese camps on the island. Australian losses during the fighting on New Britain between October 1944 and the end of the war were limited, amounting to 53 killed and 140 wounded. A further 21 died from non-battle injuries or illnesses. Losses amongst the US 1st Marine Division amounted to 310 killed and 1,083 wounded. In addition, casualties for all Allied units during the fighting around Arawe came to 118 killed and 352 wounded, with four missing. Total Japanese losses in New Britain and the other islands in the Bismarck Archipelago are estimated at around 30,000 dead, mostly from disease and starvation.
In the aftermath of the campaign, there are mixed opinions among historians as to whether the US landings around Arawe, and even around Cape Gloucester were necessary. While according to Henry Shaw and Douglas Kane, authors of the Marine Corps official history, the landing around Arawe arguably made the landing at Cape Gloucester easier, US naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison argues that the landing at Arawe was of "small value" pointing out that it was never developed into a naval base and that potentially the resources and manpower could have been employed elsewhere. US Army historian John Miller also concluded that the operations to secure Arawe and Cape Gloucester "were probably not essential to the reduction of Rabaul or the approach to the Philippines", while there were some benefits to the offensive in western New Britain and comparatively few casualties.
In summarising the Australian involvement in the campaign, Gavin Long, the Australian official historian, wrote that it was inadequately resourced, particularly in terms of air and sea power, with the latter delaying the concentration of the 5th Division until very late in the campaign. Regardless, Long writes that the Australian force, which was relatively inexperienced and matched against a Japanese force of around five divisions, achieved a remarkable result in the circumstances. Lachlan Grant also reaches a similar conclusion, highlighting the limited casualties that were sustained in the campaign in comparison to those in other locations such as Aitape–Wewak. Retired General John Coates judged that "in many respects Australian operations on New Britain had been a classic containment campaign", but contrasted the insufficient air and naval support for them with the excesses of both which had been allocated to the Borneo Campaign. Peter Charlton also regarded the Australian operations as successful, but was critical of both the decision to deploy the 5th Division against a much more powerful Japanese force and the limited support provided for the campaign.
The defensive tactics of the Japanese commander, Imamura, were likely a factor in ensuring the successful containment by the much smaller Australian force. According to Japanese historian Kengoro Tanaka, Imamura had been under orders to preserve his strength until mutual action could be achieved with the Imperial Japanese Navy and had as such, chosen to deploy only a small portion of his troops forward of the fortress of Rabaul. Eustace Keogh concurs with this assessment, arguing that any offensive would have lacked strategic purpose without sufficient naval and air support, which at the time was unavailable to the Japanese. Gregory Blake has written that the extremely rugged terrain made a large Japanese offensive impossible.
## See also
- Attack! The Battle of New Britain: a documentary/propaganda film produced by the US military in 1944. |
1,695,967 | Action of 3 July 1810 | 1,150,947,165 | Minor naval engagement during the Napoleonic Wars | [
"Conflicts in 1810",
"July 1810 events",
"Naval battles involving France",
"Naval battles involving the British East India Company",
"Naval battles involving the United Kingdom",
"Naval battles of the Napoleonic Wars"
]
| The action of 3 July 1810 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, in which a French frigate squadron under Guy-Victor Duperré attacked and defeated a convoy of Honourable East India Company East Indiamen near the Comoros Islands. During the engagement the British convoy resisted strongly and suffered heavy casualties but two ships were eventually forced to surrender. These were the British flagship Windham, which held off the French squadron to allow the surviving ship Astell to escape, and Ceylon. The engagement was the third successful French attack on an Indian Ocean convoy in just over a year, the French frigates being part of a squadron operating from the Île de France under Commodore Jacques Hamelin.
Although a British frigate squadron under Josias Rowley was under orders to eliminate the French raiders, Rowley was distracted by the planned invasion of Île Bonaparte, which began the following week. Combined with limited British resources in the region, this allowed the French frigates significant freedom to attack British interests across the Ocean. The attack on Île Bonaparte was however part of a wider British strategy to seize and capture French raiding bases, and the success of the operation severely limited future French operations as Hamelin's squadron was required for the defence of Île de France. As a result, this was the last successful attack on a British merchant convoy in the Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars.
## Background
Since the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, French privateers and naval frigates operating from the fortified island bases of Île de France and Île Bonaparte had attacked British shipping in the Indian Ocean. The huge distances involved, restrictions on supplies and the presence of Royal Navy warships and heavily armed East Indiamen had prevented these relatively weak French ships from attacking the convoys that transported millions of pounds worth of goods from British India and the Far East to the United Kingdom. When one French squadron under Admiral Linois had tried to seize a convoy in 1805, it had been driven off by the aggressive tactics of the merchant captains.
In late 1808, the French Navy despatched five frigates to the Indian Ocean to rendezvous at Île de France under the command of Commodore Jacques Hamelin. Although only four frigates eventually reached the French island, these were new vessels carrying 40 heavy guns each under orders to attack British shipping in the Bay of Bengal, in particular the large East Indiamen of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC). The first frigate to do so was Caroline, which attacked a Europe-bound convoy in the action of 31 May 1809. Capturing two East Indiamen carrying over £500,000 worth of silk, Caroline brought her prizes back to the fortified port of Saint Paul on Île Bonaparte.
The British commander at the Cape of Good Hope, Albemarle Bertie, had also been planning an operation in the Indian Ocean during 1809 and assembled a squadron under Commodore Josias Rowley with orders to blockade the French islands, probe their defences and capture them if practical. Rowley found that his small squadron was unable to engage the French frigates and that the nearest British military base, Madras in British India, was much too far away to be practical for staging amphibious operations. To remedy the latter problem, Rowley seized the small French island of Rodriguez with a force of British and Indian soldiers and garrisoned it as a supply base for his ships and as a military reserve to use in landings on the French islands. The first such operation was the Raid on Saint Paul in September 1809, in which the town of Saint Paul was captured, Caroline and her prizes seized; Île Bourbon's commander Nicolas Des Bruslys was driven to suicide.
## Continued raiding
Despite the British attack on Saint Paul, French frigates continued to operate in the Indian Ocean, Hamelin personally leading a cruise in the Bay of Bengal during the autumn. His ships seized a number of small merchantmen and in the action of 18 November 1809 he personally defeated and captured three large East Indiamen in convoy. Before his squadron and their prizes returned to Île de France in late December, they had also captured the British brig HMS Victor and the large Portuguese frigate Minerva. During the winter few ships were at sea, as the risk of being caught in a seasonal hurricane was considered too severe to operate between December and March. Rowley correspondingly withdrew most of his forces to the Cape of Good Hope, leaving a handful of smaller ships to watch the French islands. Hamelin too kept his forces in harbour at Île de France, replenishing his ships and recruiting sailors from the large pool of unemployed men in Port Napoleon.
On 14 March, before Rowley could return to his blockade, Hamelin ordered a squadron to sea. This force consisted of the large frigate Bellone, the captured Minerva now renamed Minerve and the captured brig Victor. The force was led by Guy-Victor Duperré on Bellone, with Pierre Bouvet in Minerve as his second in command. Avoiding the remaining frigates of the British blockade, Duperré's ships escaped unnoticed and began cruising in the Bay of Bengal, capturing a few small vessels but making no serious impression on British trade in the region. By 1 June, Duperré had moved to the Western Indian Ocean, sailing off Madagascar in the hope of sighting British ships from Cape Town. Due to the extended period at sea, his ships were in a poor state of repair and much of the following month was spent conducting repairs at isolated beaches.
## Battle
At 06:00 on 3 July, Duperré's squadron was cruising off the small island of Mayotta when sails were sighted 36 nautical miles (67 km) to the north east. Giving chase immediately, Duprée discovered that his quarry was a convoy of three large East Indiamen, Ceylon, Windham, under Captain Stewart, and Astell, commanded by Henry Meriton in Ceylon. Meriton was a highly experienced HEIC captain, who had twice been involved in successfully defending his convoy from French raiders: firstly at the action of 4 August 1800, when his ship Exeter had actually forced the surrender of the Médée, and then at the Battle of Pulo Aura in 1804. The convoy had departed from Cape Town on 13 June with five ships, but two had to turn back after Euphrates struck a rock and began to take in water. The others continued their journey to Madras via the Mozambique Channel. One of the East Indiamen, Windham, her captain John Stewart and many of her crew had been engaged and captured by Hamelin on 22 November 1809 in the Bay of Bengal and recaptured a month later by HMS Magicienne off Île de France. While Duperré's three ships mounted 108 guns and carried fully trained naval crews, the HEIC ships had approximately 75 cannon between them and only a handful of their sailors were trained to military standards. Primarily crewed by lascar seamen, who had proven unreliable in the previous convoy actions, the merchant ships' advantages lay in their large size and the 250 soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot that were aboard the ships. These troops were on passage to India and would be able to provide musket fire and repel boarders should the French attempt to board.
Confident that his squadron outclassed his opponent, Duperré ordered his ships to chase the East Indiamen, who, at Stewart's suggestion, attempted to close with the shore where the wind and waves would not be as strong and they could better resist the French attack. By 09:30 however the Astell was forced to reduce sail or risk snapping her topmasts. This slowed the British convoy, Windham and Ceylon slowing too to protect Astell. Realising that he could not outrun Duperré, Meriton decided to turn his ships about and engage the French frigates. At 11:30, Bellone closed the gap between the squadron and convoy to just 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) and Meriton ordered his ships to form an improvised battle line to meet the French attack.
The French attacked at 14:15, Minerve approaching the British line and opening fire on the central ship Ceylon. In the intervening time, the British battleline had become disorganised, with Astell too far to the rear to properly support the other ships. With the British line wavering, Minerve and Victor closed with the convoy and began to exchange fire with the three merchant ships in a general action, during which Robert Hay, captain of Astell was seriously wounded. At 16:00, Bouvet in Minerve pulled ahead of the struggling convoy and turned as if to ram and board Windham. Hoping to use the soldiers aboard to drive off the French ship, Captain Stewart turned to meet her. The damage done to Windham was however so severe that she was unable to make the turn correctly and Minerve passed just ahead of her, raking Windham and causing severe damage, the soldiers on Windham responding with musket fire.
As Minerve turned back towards the British convoy with the intention of cutting off the rearmost ships, Astell passed her more damaged companions to become the first ship in line. This left Windham, now at the rear, to face Minerve alone. Fortunately for Stewart, Minerve lost two topmasts as she turned to face his ship and had to pull away from the British to effect repairs. An hour and a half later, at 18:30, Bellone joined the action, attacking Windham directly. Victor supported Bellone and accompanied the flagship as she moved ahead to attack Ceylon and Astell. By 19:00, with Ceylon damaged so severely that she could no longer effectively sail or fight, third officer Tristam Fleming hauled the ship out of the battle line and ordered his crew to cease firing: Meriton and his second officer Thomas Oldham had both been seriously wounded by grape shot.
With Ceylon no longer engaged, Duperré pulled ahead to engage Astell but found that Stewart had brought his battered Windham between the French frigate and the third East Indiaman. In the growing darkness, Stewart attempted to hail Astell to propose boarding Bellone together, but the remaining officers either ignored or did not hear the suggestion as Astell extinguished all her lights and made all sail to escape the action, receiving a final broadside from Bellone as she pulled away. Alone, Stewart continued to engage the French ships to enable Astell to make her escape. At 19:20 the repaired Minerve returned and took possession of Ceylon, and at 19:45 Stewart surrendered for the second time in less than a year: his ship badly damaged and casualties mounting among his crew and passengers.
## Aftermath
Astell was the only HEIC ship to escape, disappearing in the darkness and later reaching a safe port from which despatches were sent to London recounting the action. On the basis of these accounts, the crew and officers of Astell were rewarded with £2,000 from the company directors to be shared among them. Casualties in the British convoy had been heavy, Windham losing six killed and 18 wounded, Ceylon six killed and 21 wounded (including Meriton and Oldham) and Astell eight killed and 37 wounded (including Hay). In all, 20 British sailors and soldiers were killed and 76 wounded during the engagement, a figure which was matched by the French losses of 22 killed and 38 wounded: four killed and six wounded on Bellone, 17 killed and 29 wounded on Minerve and one killed and three wounded on Victor. The prizes were very severely damaged and Duperré was forced to take his squadron to an isolated beach on Anjouan until 17 July to effect repairs, before returning to Île de France. Command of Ceylon, renamed Ceylan was awarded to Lieutenant Vincent Moulac, of Minerve, and that of Windham, to ensign d'Arod.
Duperré did not meet any British ships on his journey back to the French island, as most of the British blockade squadron were engaged in the aftermath of the Invasion of Île Bonaparte, conducted during July by Commodore Rowley. With the British distracted by this amphibious operation, it was simple for Duperré to reach Grand Port on the south east coast of Île de France in spite of the small blockade squadron under Captain Samuel Pym. This narrow and well-protected anchorage was considered to be the best place to refit the battered French squadron, but in August it came under attack by a British squadron in the Battle of Grand Port. This action was a disaster for the British as their ships became grounded in the unfamiliar shoals of the harbour and four frigates were lost under fire from shore batteries and Duperré's squadron. |
171,562 | American History X | 1,173,703,931 | 1998 American crime drama film by Tony Kaye | [
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"1998 films",
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]
| American History X is a 1998 American crime drama film directed by Tony Kaye (in his feature directorial debut) and written by David McKenna. The film stars Edward Norton and Edward Furlong as two brothers from Los Angeles who are involved in the white power skinhead and neo-Nazi movements. The older brother (Norton) serves three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, is rehabilitated during this time, and then tries to prevent his brother (Furlong) from being indoctrinated further. The supporting cast includes Fairuza Balk, Stacy Keach, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks, Ethan Suplee and Beverly D'Angelo.
McKenna wrote the script based on his own childhood and experiences of growing up in San Diego. He sold the script to New Line Cinema, which was impressed by the writing. American History X was Kaye's first directorial role in a feature film. Budgeted at \$20 million, filming took place in 1997. Before the film's release, Kaye and the film studio were in disagreements about the final cut of the film, which Norton had played a pivotal role in conceiving. The final version was longer than Kaye intended, which resulted in him publicly disowning the film, thus negatively affecting his directing career.
Distributed by New Line Cinema, the film was released in the United States on October 30, 1998, grossing \$23.9 million, against a \$20 million budget. American History X was critically praised, with Norton and Furlong's performances and the film's message drawing acclaim. Norton received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The film has also been used for educational purposes in the United States and in other countries. A follow-up, African History Y, with Kaye returning as director and starring Djimon Hounsou, was in active development as of 2020.
## Plot
High school student Danny Vinyard antagonizes his Jewish history teacher Murray by choosing to write a civil rights essay on Mein Kampf. As a result, African-American principal and outreach worker Dr. Bob Sweeney gives Danny an ultimatum - study history directly under him through current events, which he calls "American History X", or be expelled. Danny's first assignment is to write a paper on his older brother Derek, a past student of Sweeney's and former neo-Nazi leader due to be released from prison that day.
Years earlier, Danny and Derek's father, a firefighter, was shot and killed by a black narcotics dealer while putting out a fire at their home. Immediately after his death, Derek erupts in a racially motivated tirade in a televised interview. High-profile neo-Nazi Cameron Alexander becomes Derek's mentor and they form their own violent white supremacist gang called the Disciples of Christ (D.O.C.) in Venice Beach. A skilled basketball player, Derek defeats several Crips members, winning control of the local ball courts. Later, Derek organizes an attack on an Asian-owned supermarket employing Blacks and immigrants.
Derek's mother Doris invites Murray, her boyfriend, to dinner where an argument about Rodney King and the 1992 Los Angeles riots ensues. Derek assaults his sister Davina and openly berates Murray, causing Doris to banish Derek from the home. That night, the same group of Crips that Derek had beaten in the basketball game attempt to steal his truck. When Danny alerts Derek to the crime, Derek shoots two of the men, killing one and wounding the other, before curb stomping the wounded man to death in front of Danny. He is arrested and sentenced to three years in the California Institution for Men for voluntary manslaughter.
In prison, Derek joins the Aryan Brotherhood and befriends a black inmate named Lamont. Derek becomes disillusioned by prison gang politics, disapproving of the gang's dealings with non-white gangs and involvement in narcotics dealing, believing that they are only using the philosophy of white supremacy out of convenience. He loses his belief further when his friends in the D.O.C. never visit him in prison. He ultimately abandons the Aryan Brotherhood, who beat and rape him in the shower in retaliation. Derek is visited in the hospital wing by Sweeney, with whom he pleads for help to get out of prison. Sweeney rebukes Derek and reveals his own racist past, and warns that Danny has become involved with the D.O.C. to follow in Derek's footsteps. After recovering and leaving the hospital wing, Derek ignores the Aryan Brotherhood while Lamont warns that he may be targeted by African-American gangs now that he is no longer under the Aryan Brotherhood's protection. An attack never comes, and Derek spends the remainder of his sentence alone. When he is released, Derek thanks Lamont, whom he realizes intervened on his behalf.
Returning home, Derek finds Danny emulating him, sporting a D.O.C. tattoo and becoming a skinhead. Derek tries to persuade him to leave the gang, but Danny feels betrayed. Derek's best friend Seth, also a D.O.C. member, frequently disrespects Derek's mother and sister while grooming Danny for the group; Seth and Danny are closely controlled by Cameron. During a party at the D.O.C. compound, Derek confronts Cameron and calls him out for using him only to abandon him for three years; declaring his departure from the group and refusal to allow them to use Danny the same way, he brutally beats Cameron when the man mocks him. Seth and the others, including Derek's ex-girlfriend Stacey, turn against Derek. Seth holds Derek at gunpoint, but Derek easily disarms him and holds everyone at gunpoint before fleeing with his brother.
Afterwards, Derek tells Danny about his experience in prison, which seems to prompt a change in Danny. The pair return home and remove racist posters from their shared bedroom. The next morning, Danny completes his paper, reflecting on his reasons for adopting neo-Nazi values from Derek, who most likely adopted such views from their father, in a flashback at dinner showing racial views, particularly against Dr. Sweeney. Derek walks Danny to school, stopping at a diner for breakfast. Sweeney and a police officer inform Derek that Seth and Cameron were attacked the night before and are in an intensive care unit. Derek denies having any knowledge or involvement and reluctantly agrees to inspect the people he denounced. In the boys' bathroom, Danny is killed by a black student that he had confronted the day before. Derek runs to the school and, finding Danny's body, mournfully cradles him while blaming himself for influencing Danny's views and actions. In a voiceover, Danny reads the final lines of his paper for Dr. Sweeney, quoting the final stanza of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address.
## Cast
## Production
### Development
Screenwriter David McKenna wrote the screenplay for American History X and sold the rights to New Line Cinema when he was 26. The inspiration for the story came from the punk-rock scene of McKenna's childhood, where he often witnessed violent behavior. "I saw a lot of bigotry growing up, and it made me think about writing something about the world of hate-mongers. The point I tried to make in the script is that a person is not born a racist. It is learned through [the] environment and the people that surround you. The question that intrigued me is: why do people hate and how does one go about changing that? My premise was that hate starts in the family". In order to make the characters as realistic as possible, McKenna interviewed and observed the behavior of skinheads during the writing process. He said "I had seen documentaries that just didn't ring true to me, and I wanted to write an accurate portrayal of how good kids from good families can get so terribly lost".
Producer John Morrissey, who read the script three years prior, was impressed by the script's intense characters and dialogue. Michael De Luca, then-production president of New Line Cinema, said "I was intrigued by its intensity, conviction and brutal honesty. There was a brilliant character study woven into the screenplay, and I knew we had something special if we did it correctly". In 1996, the producers first approached Dennis Hopper to direct the film. Hopper turned down the offer and Tony Kaye was then approached to direct. Kaye, who had been De Luca's preferred choice from the beginning, accepted and made his directorial debut in a feature film on American History X. He took the contract to a synagogue, "I signed it in front of the rabbi. I thought it would make it good", Kaye said. After the film was released, De Luca stated "It's everything I had hoped for. The performances are explosive and frightening, and the film dramatically demonstrates both the subtle and overt roots of racism while also showing the possibility for redemption".
### Casting
Joaquin Phoenix was offered the role of Derek Vinyard, but he was not interested. After holding casting calls, Kaye was unable to find a suitable actor for the lead role, but casting director Valerie McCaffrey suggested Edward Norton. Kaye initially objected, feeling that Norton lacked the "weight or presence", but he eventually conceded. According to executive producer Steve Tisch, Norton's passion for the project was "contagious", and he even agreed to a pay cut of more than \$500,000 from his usual \$1 million fee, to be cast in the lead. McCaffrey also cast Edward Furlong for the role of Danny Vinyard. To prepare for the role, Norton increased his calorie intake and spent hours in the gym to gain 25 pounds (11 kg) of muscle.
### Filming
Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and Venice Beach, lasting for several months and finishing in May 1997. Kaye served as cinematographer and camera operator, and would often silently walk around the set, scouting for camera angles or visuals. During filming, Kaye established a casual environment for the cast and crew. He welcomed visitors on set, including singer Courtney Love, Norton's girlfriend at the time, and British historian John Richardson. Kaye would arrive for work in a Lincoln Town Car with a chauffeur, and a license plate that read "JEWISH". He carried four cell phones and a fax machine, and during the Passover holidays, Kaye had boxes of matzo delivered to the set. He also discovered at the time a newsletter published by a British political group, the National Front, which said he was a prominent Jew who supposedly controlled Britain's media.
Both Furlong and Ethan Suplee found taking on their roles with hateful views to be uncomfortable. Furlong said "It's pretty intense, having to say this incredibly hateful stuff". The actors had "white power" tattoos painted on their arms, which Suplee forgot to remove one day after filming, and was confronted by a man in a convenience store. Norton recalls "Doing that film created the strangest distortion of perception on me ... the degree to which that film and the magic of camera and art and black and white photography ... made a lot of people think that I was a larger and tougher person than I am". The flashback scenes were edited to be in black-and-white, whereas the present-day scenes were edited to be in color.
### Music
Kaye hired British composer Anne Dudley to score the film, and wanted the music to be "big and elegiac". She employed a full orchestra and a boys' choir, and decided against using hip-hop sounds. She said, "The neo-Nazi faction is personified in the music by a boys choir – what could be a more Aryan sound? ... A calming string orchestra instead provides a much more expressive and timeless palette".
## Release
Kaye's original cut of the finished film had a run time of 95 minutes, which was delivered on time and within budget. Although it generated a positive response from test screenings, New Line Cinema insisted on further edits to the film. Kaye was mortified, saying "I'm fully aware that I'm a first-time director, but I need the same autonomy and respect that Stanley Kubrick gets". Soon afterwards, Norton was involved with editing alongside Kaye, which was a difficult experience for the pair. At one point, Kaye punched a wall which resulted in stitches to his hand.
In June 1998, the film studio test-screened a second cut of the film which included changes made by Norton. The studio tried to persuade Kaye to release Norton's cut, but he objected. Although the differences between the two cuts are disputed, Kaye objected to an additional 18 minutes of footage, and they disagreed with the length of certain scenes such as a family argument, Norton's anti-immigration speech, and a flashback where Norton's father is criticizing a teacher. Subsequently, the studio compromised and gave Kaye an extra eight weeks to edit and submit a new cut of the film.
During this period, Kaye took a number of combative actions. He spent \$100,000 on cryptic advertisements in the Hollywood press that quoted John Lennon and Abraham Lincoln, and condemned the behavior of Norton and the studio. At one point, Kaye brought a priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk to a meeting with producers while videotaping the entire encounter. When the company offered him an additional eight weeks to re-cut the film, Kaye said he had a "radical" new vision in mind, which he did not know when he would finish. He collaborated with Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott on new narration for the film.
American History X was due to premiere at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival, but Kaye requested that organizer Piers Handling withdraw the film. On July 28, 1998, after the eight week deadline, Kaye had nothing new to show and the studio announced that it would release Norton's cut. Kaye attempted to remove his name from the film credits, applying for various pseudonyms, including "Humpty Dumpty", a request that the Directors Guild of America (DGA) refused. Kaye subsequently filed a \$200 million lawsuit against DGA and New Line Cinema, although the case was dismissed in 2000. Kaye disowned the film, describing the released version, which was 24 minutes longer than his own cut, as a "total abuse of creativity" and "crammed with shots of everyone crying in each other's arms". Kaye's behavior caused Hollywood to view him as unemployable, and he did not watch the film until June 2007. He later admitted that "My ego got in the way. That was entirely my fault. [...] Whenever I can, I take the opportunity to apologize". He did not direct another film until 2006's Lake of Fire.
### Home media
The film was released by New Line Home Video on DVD on April 6, 1999, and on VHS on August 24 of the same year. The film was later released on Blu-ray on April 7, 2009, including seven minutes of deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
## Reception
### Box office
American History X premiered in Los Angeles on October 28, 1998, and on the same week in New York. It received a wider release in the United States on October 30. The film grossed \$156,076 in 17 theaters during its opening weekend. The film went on to gross \$6,719,864 from 513 theaters in the United States, for a worldwide total of \$23,875,127.
### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, American History X has an approval rating of 83% based on 87 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "American History X doesn't contend with its subject matter as fully as it could, but Edward Norton's performance gives this hard-hitting drama crucial weight." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted score of 62 out of 100 based on 32 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A" on scale of A to F.
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, gave American History X four out of four stars, describing it as "a shockingly powerful screed against racism that also manages to be so well performed and directed that it is entertaining as well", adding it was "also effective at demonstrating how hate is taught from one generation to another". He said Norton was an "immediate front-runner" for an Academy Award. Todd McCarthy, writing for Variety, gave the film a positive review stating "This jolting, superbly acted film will draw serious-minded upscale viewers interested in cutting-edge fare". He particularly praised Norton's performance, saying "His Derek mesmerizes even as he repels, and the actor fully exposes the human being behind the tough poses and attitudinizing". Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Though its story elements are all too easily reduced to a simple outline, American History X has enough fiery acting and provocative bombast to make its impact felt. For one thing, its willingness to take on ugly political realities gives it a substantial raison d'être. For another, it has been directed with a mixture of handsome photo-realism and visceral punch".
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, but was critical of the underdeveloped areas, stating "the movie never convincingly charts Derek's path to race hatred". Ebert concluded "This is a good and powerful film. If I am dissatisfied, it is because it contains the promise of being more than it is". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called the film "riveting", and praised the narrative structure despite "thinness of the script".
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle expressed disappointment with the picture. LaSalle felt that while it succeeded in portraying Derek's descent into neo-Nazism, it failed to portray his renouncement of his past beliefs, "We had to watch him think his way in. We should see him think his way out". LaSalle also noted that "In some places the dialogue is surprisingly stilted. Far worse, the ending is a misfire". However, he complimented Norton's performance. Stephen Hunter, writing for The Washington Post, was highly critical of the film and gave it a negative review, calling it "an old melodramatic formula hidden under pretentious TV-commercial-slick photography". Michael O'Sullivan wrote "There are moments when Anne Dudley's string-laden score overpowers the stark simplicity of the film's message and other times when the moral of brotherly love is hammered a bit heavily", but conceded "the blunt and brutal American History X is ultimately only as imperfect as we ourselves are".
### Accolades
Edward Norton was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Derek Vinyard, but lost to Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful. Norton's loss was included on Empire'''s list of "22 Incredibly Shocking Oscars Injustices".
### Legacy
In 1999, Amnesty International USA used American History X for an educational campaign, screening the film in colleges and in nationwide events for raising awareness on human rights. Zara Toussaint, of Amnesty International in France, organized screenings in her country followed by debates. "The reactions [to the film] were varied. Some people thought that this was only an extreme case, that this kind of group was very marginal and that there could be no equivalent in France", she said. In response to the French screening, Sébastien Homer of L'Humanité wrote, "Police violence, the Rodney King affair, unsanitary prisons, ill-treatment, rejection of asylum seekers, the United States has still not assimilated what human rights, freedom, equality meant". In September 1999, Empire magazine ranked the film 311th in a list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. In 2008, Norton's performance was ranked by Total Film as the 72nd greatest film performance of all time. Although director Kaye did not watch the film until 2007, he has acknowledged that it has become "quite a little classic in its own befuddled way". In 2012, he said that he was "very proud of what we all achieved".
For its 20th anniversary, Christopher Hooton writing for The Independent opined that the film "feels more essential now that it ever has". Clayton Schuster of Vice drew comparisons between the film and both the racial rhetoric of Donald Trump and real life atrocities; the murders of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church in 2015, a far-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, and a year later, a mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. He argues that these violent acts are no different to the hate represented in the movie, adding, "White supremacy has existed for centuries. It's lurked on the fringes of American power since the birth of this nation". He added "there is at least one notable difference ... The movie portrays skinheads as visually different ... They're suited up in boots with red laces, heads gleaming from a fresh shave, and tatted with Nazi insignia and racist slogans. White supremacists today have largely adopted a policy of fitting into society rather than standing out". Writing for Esquire magazine in 2018, Justin Kirkland stated that he believed that "Perhaps the reason that American History X still feels so relevant two decades after its release is because we haven't done enough for it not to be ... I'm afraid we're going to be writing about American History X forever. I'm afraid of what will happen if we don't".
## See also
- Betrayed
- The Believer
- Imperium
- Green Room
- This Is England
- Romper Stomper
- BlacKkKlansman
- NSU German History X''
- List of American films of 1998
- Radical right (United States)
- Racism in the United States
- American militia movement
- White supremacist terrorism in the United States |
6,793,045 | M-65 (Michigan highway) | 1,167,101,039 | State highway in Michigan, United States | [
"State highways in Michigan",
"Transportation in Alcona County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Alpena County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Arenac County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Iosco County, Michigan",
"Transportation in Presque Isle County, Michigan"
]
| M-65 is a 103.176-mile-long (166.046 km) state trunkline highway in the US state of Michigan. The highway runs between termini on US Highway 23 (US 23) near Omer and Rogers City in the northeastern Lower Peninsula of the state. M-65 runs inland through several small communities in the region, passing through forests and fields along its course. M-65 crosses several watercourses, including the Au Sable River where it runs along the River Road National Scenic Byway. The region also includes the Huron National Forest and the Mackinaw State Forest areas.
The original M-65 was created by 1919 on a discontinuous series of roads between the Ohio state line and Flint; the two sections were later joined together before the highway was replaced by US 23 in 1926. The current M-65 was created in 1930 in Iosco County. When US 23 near Omer was moved in 1932, M-65 was extended southward to encompass a roadway formerly part of US 23. A second segment in Alpena County was added to M-65 later in the 1930s. A second extension at the end of that decade added another former US 23 segment to the highway. The two sections of M-65 were connected in the late 1940s, and the highway was completely paved by the early 1960s. The National Forest Scenic Byway and National Scenic Byway designations were added in 1988 and 2005 respectively.
## Route description
M-65 begins at an intersection with US 23 (Huron Road) near the town of Omer. The highway runs north along Hale Road through a mixed forest and agricultural area inland of the Saginaw Bay in Arenac County. As the road passes through the community of Twining, it crosses a branch of the Lake State Railway. South of Whittemore, the trunkline crosses a tributary of the Au Gres River. M-65 follows Bullock Street through Whittemore, running near the Whittemore Speedway in town. North of town, the highway crosses the main channel of the Au Gres River before it intersects M-55 in a rural area of Iosco County about 15 miles (24 km) west of Tawas City. From there, the road continues due north through fields until reaching the edge of Huron National Forest in the northern part of the county.
Just north of the community of Hale the road enters the Huron National Forest near Loon Lake. The trunkline takes a turn to the east as it passes along the Au Sable River. The River Road National Scenic Byway starts on M-65 at Rollways Road, and the highway generally follows the river as it passes by a former logging community which is commemorated by Lumberman's Monument. At the intersection with River Road, M-65 turns north to cross the Au Sable, and the byway designation continues east along River Road to follow the river to Oscoda. The M-65 bridge over the Au Sable is just downstream of the Five Channels Dam, crossing high above the water below. The highway turns northwesterly through forest land to cross into Alcona County. North of the county line, the trunkline follows Baker and State roads near Vaughn and Hunters lakes. M-65 meets the western terminus of county road F-30 in the community of Glennie. The highway also crosses the South Branch of the Pine River.
North of Glennie, the highway passes Clear Lake as it continues through rural Alcona County. Near the West Branch of the Pine River, M-65 merges with M-72. The two trunklines run concurrently curving to the northwest past the eastern terminus of county road F-32 into Curran. North of town, they separate as M-72 turns westward and M-65 continues north, exiting the Huron National Forest. The highway jogs along the Alcona–Alpena County line and crosses the Beaver Creek in the process. The trunkline runs to the east of Beaver Lake as it runs north through mixed forest and fields toward the community of Lachine. Southeast of that town, M-65 turns eastward along M-32 for a short distance before turning north into town. North of Lachine, the highway crosses the Thunder Bay River near the community of Long Rapids. As M-65 runs through the northern portion of Alpena County, it runs through the Mackinaw State Forest. The highway passes through the community of Posen in eastern Presque Isle County. The road continues due north to its terminus at an intersection with US 23; the junction is inland from Lake Huron near Big and Little Trout lakes southeast of Rogers City.
M-65 is maintained by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) like all other state highways. As a part of these responsibilities, the department tracks the volume of traffic using the roads under its jurisdiction. They use a metric called average annual daily traffic (AADT), which is a statistical calculation of the average daily number of vehicles on a segment of roadway. In 2009, MDOT's surveys calculated that the highest volume of traffic along M-65 was 6,699 cars north of the M-55 junction; the highest commercial AADT was 310 trucks along the River Road National Scenic Byway segment north to the F-30 junction in Glennie. The lowest traffic counts were the 947 cars and 107 trucks near the northern terminus in Presque Isle County. The section of M-65 concurrent with M-32 has been listed as a part of the National Highway System, a network of roads important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility.
## History
### Previous routing
On July 1, 1919, the M-65 designation was used on two, discontinuous roads in the southern part of the Lower Peninsula. The southern segment ran from the Ohio state line north to the Dundee area in Monroe County; the northern section ran between Ann Arbor and Flint by way of Brighton and Fenton. The gap between the two segments was eliminated by the middle of 1926. When the United States Numbered Highway System was created on November 11, 1926, the original M-65 was redesignated as part of US 23.
### Current routing
In 1930, the first segment of the current routing of M-65 was designated. At the time, the road ran from an intersection with US 23 and M-55 near Whittemore and ran north to Hale. US 23 was moved from its inland routing to follow a shoreline alignment along Saginaw Bay around 1932. The former route through Twining and Whittemore became an extension of M-65 as a part of these changes. By 1936, the highway was lengthened northwards to end in Glennie; a second segment was also added that ran north from the Alcona–Alpena county line to Lachine. Around the end of the decade, US 23's routing was moved in another location to follow the lakeshore; this time the highway was rerouted between Alpena and Rogers City. M-65 was extended northwards from Lachine through Posen to terminate at M-91 downtown Rogers City. By 1945, this northernmost segment downtown was redesignated Business US 23, and M-65 was truncated to its junction with US 23 southeast of town.
In 1947 or early 1948, the Michigan State Highway Department (MSHD) closed the gap between the northern and southern segments of M-65 by adding two "earth" roadways: one between Glennie and M-72 near Curran and a second between Curran and the Alcona–Alpena county line. By the next year, the northern end of the highway near Posen was moved to eliminate several zig-zagging segments of roadway from the routing; M-65 ran due north to terminate at US 23 after the change. In the middle of 1953, the section of M-65/M-72 in Alcona County was straightened and paved. The MSHD realigned M-65 from a series of zig-zagging roads to a single set of curves along the Alcona–Alpena county line in late 1961. At the time this project was completed, all of M-65 was paved.
On December 20, 1988, the National Forest Service designated the River Road National Forest Scenic Byway along a section of M-65 in Iosco County. A second designation was added on September 22, 2005, when the Federal Highway Administration listed the roadway as the River Road National Scenic Byway.
Beginning in 1999, MDOT spent substantial sums of money over a five-year program to upgrade M-65 and US 23 by refurbishing and replacing bridges and adding more passing lanes. During the same timeframe, the community of Hale embarked on a project to beautify the length of M-65 in town. The project cost \$877,929 and installed park benches, new lighting, sidewalks and plantings along the highway. Funding for the venture came from the federal government and MDOT.
In particular, MDOT restored the old truss bridge over the Au Sable River in Iosco County, and then built a new parallel and upgraded bridge next to it. The latter straightened and leveled the roadway, so that it no longer dips deep into the river valley. This change improved the safety of the highway in the area. The new bridge was opened to traffic on October 13, 2004, and the original bridge was left in place for recreational uses. The original structure is a Parker truss bridge with two 120-foot (37 m) spans that was built in 1930. Its total length of 320 feet (98 m) makes it one of the longest of its type in Michigan.
## Major intersections
## See also |
5,125,319 | New York State Route 120A | 1,159,357,261 | Highway in New York and Connecticut | [
"Greenwich, Connecticut",
"Port Chester, New York",
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Fairfield County, Connecticut",
"Transportation in Westchester County, New York"
]
| New York State Route 120A (NY 120A) is a state highway in southern Westchester County, New York, in the United States. It serves as an alternate route to the southern half of NY 120 running along the New York–Connecticut state line. The southern terminus of the route is at NY 120 in Harrison. Its northern terminus is at NY 120 in North Castle. Most of the 8.55-mile (13.76 km) route straddles the New York–Connecticut state line, and part of the route is physically located in Connecticut. However, this part of the highway is not recognized by Connecticut as "Route 120A", and is considered to be part of NY 120A by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT).
## Route description
NY 120A begins at an intersection with NY 120 next to I-287 (the Cross-Westchester Expressway) in the village of Harrison. Although the route is signed north–south, it initially heads east along Westchester Avenue. East of the freeway overpass, NY 120 leaves to the northwest while NY 120A continues eastward on the four-lane Westchester Avenue. It serves residential areas until it crosses into Rye Brook, where the street makes a turn to the southeast and soon enters more commercialized neighborhoods. In the center of Rye Brook, the route meets Ridge Street (unsigned County Route 54 or CR 54). The businesses give way to homes east of the junction, and NY 120A passes into the village of Port Chester just three blocks from Ridge Street near an intersection with Bowman Avenue (CR 104).
Inside the village limits, maintenance of NY 120A shifts from the state to Westchester County, which inventories the route as CR 112. Continuing on, the road narrows to two lanes ahead of Port Chester's central business district, where NY 120A passes the Port Chester Public Library and the village's post office ahead of a junction with Pearl Street three blocks west of U.S. Route 1 and two blocks west of the Metro-North Railroad. Here, NY 120A turns off Westchester Avenue and onto North Pearl Street, becoming a village-maintained route in the process. The route's northeastward run on North Pearl Street is brief, however, as NY 120A turns northwest onto King Street after just two blocks.
As the route heads away from Pearl Street and Port Chester's commercial center, the blocks of businesses are gradually replaced with the residential neighborhoods that comprise most of northern Port Chester. About 0.8 miles (1.3 km) north of Pearl Street, NY 120A passes Lyon Park and reverts to a state-maintained road at an intersection with Putnam Avenue (unsigned NY 982C). Continuing on, the highway serves King Street School before crossing from Port Chester to Rye Brook several blocks later. In the latter village, the route slowly bends northward toward the Connecticut state line. It eventually reaches the boundary, at which point NY 120A begins to run northwestward along the state line, with the southbound lane in New York and the northbound lane in Connecticut. A short distance later, the route connects to the Hutchinson River Parkway and its Connecticut continuation, the Merritt Parkway (Route 15), by way of a modified cloverleaf interchange.
Not far from the interchange, the highway bends northward to fully enter Connecticut. Although the road is located outside of New York, it is maintained by NYSDOT and considered by the DOT to be part of NY 120A. In Connecticut, NY 120A travels generally northwestward through the town of Greenwich, intersecting several streets of local importance, including Greenwich's locally maintained continuation of Anderson Hill Road (CR 18). The foray into Connecticut ends soon afterward, and the route proceeds to straddle the state line for another 0.7 miles (1.1 km). Along this stretch, the route passes a series of commercial buildings in an otherwise residential area. Another New York-maintained stretch in Greenwich, Connecticut, soon follows as the route veers north to bypass the grounds of Westchester County Airport. As the route heads past the airport, it meets Rye Lake Road, Greenwich's connection to both the airport and Airport Road (CR 135).
Past Rye Lake Road, NY 120A serves the Griffith E. Harris Golf Club and several mansions on its way back to the New York–Connecticut state line. Just north of the airport, NY 120A turns westward onto Gateway Lane, a small east–west street leading back into New York and the town of North Castle. Gateway Lane and NY 120A both end just inside the state line at an intersection with NY 120. Here, NY 120 changes names from Purchase Street to King Street as the route continues NY 120A's course along the state line.
## History
The portion of Westchester Avenue from Purchase Street in Harrison to North Pearl Street in Port Chester was originally designated as part of NY 119 in the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York. By the following year, a spur route connecting NY 119 to NY 120 in North Castle was assigned the NY 120A designation. It began at Westchester Avenue and went north to the Connecticut state line via Ridge Street, where it turned northwest to follow King Street to NY 120. The section of King Street between Ridge Street and Port Chester was designated as NY 120B by 1932.
NY 120A was truncated c. 1938 to consist only of the Ridge Street portion of its alignment while NY 120B was extended northwest along King Street to NY 120 in North Castle and southward along NY 119 and Ridge Street to a terminus at NY 120 in Rye. The NY 120B designation was eliminated by the following year, at which time NY 120A was reextended along King Street to North Castle and realigned east of Ridge Street to follow old NY 120B into Port Chester. NY 119 was truncated on its east end to NY 22 in White Plains in October 1960 while NY 120 was rerouted to follow what had been NY 119A south to Rye along Purchase Street. The former routing of NY 119 and NY 120 from Purchase Street to downtown Port Chester became an extension of NY 120A.
On September 1, 1980, ownership and maintenance of the 0.5-mile (0.80 km) section of NY 120A leading southeast from the northwestern crossing into Connecticut was transferred from Westchester County to the state of New York as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. The road was one of 10 highways exchanged during the swap. That same day, the routing of NY 120A in Port Chester was modified slightly to follow North Pearl Street between Westchester Avenue and King Street.
## Major intersections
## See also
- List of county routes in Westchester County, New York |
1,723,308 | Anthony Parker | 1,173,410,212 | American basketball player (born 1975) | [
"1975 births",
"20th-century African-American sportspeople",
"21st-century African-American sportspeople",
"African-American basketball players",
"American expatriate basketball people in Canada",
"American expatriate basketball people in Israel",
"American expatriate basketball people in Italy",
"American men's basketball players",
"Basketball players from DuPage County, Illinois",
"Bradley Braves men's basketball players",
"Cleveland Cavaliers players",
"Israeli Basketball Premier League players",
"Living people",
"Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C. players",
"New Jersey Nets draft picks",
"Orlando Magic players",
"Pallacanestro Virtus Roma players",
"Philadelphia 76ers players",
"Quad City Thunder players",
"Shooting guards",
"Sportspeople from Naperville, Illinois",
"Toronto Raptors players"
]
| Anthony Michael Parker (born June 19, 1975) is a professional basketball executive who is the general manager of the Orlando Magic and American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as well as in Italy and Israel. He is one of the most beloved and successful players in Maccabi Tel Aviv history.
Prior to graduating from Bradley University with a major in liberal arts, he entered the 1997 NBA draft and played briefly in the NBA before plying his trade in Europe. There, Parker spent five seasons with the Israeli Super League basketball club Maccabi Tel Aviv and one season with the Italian Serie A club Lottomatica Roma. With Maccabi he won five Israeli Super League national championships, five Israeli National Cups, three European titles (two EuroLeague Basketball titles, in 2004 and 2005, and the FIBA SuproLeague title in 2001), and was voted two consecutive times EuroLeague MVP. He was also named the 2004 Israeli Basketball Premier League MVP.
After returning to the NBA as a free agent in 2006, Parker was the Toronto Raptors' starting shooting guard. In his first season with the Raptors, Parker helped the team clinch their first-ever division title, first NBA playoffs berth in five years, and best regular-season record in franchise history. He helped the Raptors reach the playoffs again in the 2007–08 season, before becoming a free agent in 2009.
On June 27, 2012, Anthony Parker retired after playing nine seasons in the NBA, five seasons in Israel, and one season in Italy. He then became a scout for the Orlando Magic from 2012 to 2017. In 2017, he became the general manager of the Lakeland Magic, the Orlando Magic's NBA G League developmental team. In 2021, he was moved to Orlando as an assistant general manager. In 2023, he was promoted to General Manager of the Magic.
## Biography
### Early basketball career
Parker started out playing high school basketball at Naperville Central High School. He then played college basketball at Bradley University where he established himself as a top player, averaging 18.9 points per game (ppg) and shooting 42% from the three-point line in his third season, earning the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Most Valuable Player and All-MVC first team honors in the same season. His outstanding performances for the Braves ensured that he became one of 15 players honored in Bradley's All-Century basketball team named in 2003. Academically, Parker also excelled. He majored in chemistry before switching to liberal arts and sciences in his senior year, and earned two Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr. Scholarships while at Bradley.
Parker entered the 1997 NBA draft after four years at Bradley and was selected 21st overall by the New Jersey Nets, but he was immediately traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in a multi-player trade. In his two seasons with the 76ers, Parker was largely plagued by injury and played in only 39 regular season games, averaging just over five minutes a game and totaling 74 points and 26 rebounds. He was subsequently traded together with Harvey Grant to the Orlando Magic for Billy Owens before the 1999–2000 season. Parker again struggled at Orlando, playing only 16 games with modest averages of 3.6 ppg and 1.7 rebounds per game (rpg) before being released in January 2000. He finished the remainder of the season with the Quad City Thunder of the Continental Basketball Association where he averaged 11.5 points in 26 games.
### European career
Disappointed in his failure to make a breakthrough in the NBA, Parker turned to Europe to resurrect his basketball career, intending to return to the NBA after a good season with a European club. Eventually, he moved to Israel in the 2000–01 season, where he was signed by the Israeli EuroLeague powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv. Initially, Parker and his wife were intimidated by the occasional bomb attacks in the city, but they soon settled in and Parker was able to focus on his basketball career.
Within his first season with his new club, he became one of their most pivotal players. Parker was signed to fill the void left by Doron Sheffer's retirement at the shooting guard position, but ended up featuring as both a scorer and play-maker for Maccabi. He immediately brought to the team his ability to score, rebound, block shots, and even entertain the crowds with slam dunks. In Parker's inaugural season, Maccabi won the Israeli domestic championship and the Israeli National Cup, as well as the FIBA SuproLeague Cup.
He continued his fine form for the club in the 2001–02 season, averaging 16.4 points per game and 5.2 rebounds per game as Maccabi again won both domestic titles and even reached the Euroleague 2001–02 Final Four.
Parker left Israel in 2002, and in January 2003 moved to Italy, where he signed with Virtus Roma, playing in 27 Italian Serie A league games and averaging 14.5 points per game and 5.6 rebounds per game.
However, half a year later Parker longed a return to Israel, a country he had grown to love. Back with Maccabi, he helped his team accomplish two more Triple Crowns by winning the Israeli domestic championship, the Israeli National Cup, and the EuroLeague championship in both 2004 and 2005. In the process, he was named the Israeli Basketball Super League MVP and the EuroLeague Final Four MVP of the Euroleague 2003–04 season, as well as the EuroLeague MVP and first-team All-EuroLeague in the Euroleague 2004–05 season.
The 2004–05 season also proved to be a watershed season for Parker, as he averaged career-highs of 18.0 points per game, 5.3 rebounds per game, and 3.6 assists per game.
In his final season with Maccabi, he led the team to another domestic double, but in the Euroleague 2005–06 season's championship game, Maccabi was defeated 73–69 by CSKA Moscow. For his efforts, Parker was named EuroLeague MVP and first team All-EuroLeague for the second consecutive time. After six years of success in Europe however, Parker dreamed of returning to the NBA. Overall, he averaged 13.6 points per game, 4.8 rebounds per game and 1.8 steals per game in his Israeli league career, while averaging 15.8 points per game, 5.7 rebounds per game and 1.6 steals per game in the EuroLeague. He made the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors list in 2008, and the EuroLeague 2000–10 All-Decade Team in 2010.
Parker's experience playing in Israel left a positive impression upon him. He went on to wear jersey number 18 for both Toronto and Cleveland, explaining that: "I played in Israel before I came back to the NBA, and I had such a great time... two of my sons were born while I was playing overseas and one was actually born in Israel. And I just had such a great experience that I wanted to take something from that experience. The number 18, in Judaism, it means 'chai'... and it's the symbol for life and good fortune in Judaism. And I thought that was something to take away from Israel and let them know I'm still representing them."
### Return to the NBA
#### Toronto Raptors
In October 2005, during a pre-season friendly representing Maccabi against the Toronto Raptors organized by then Israeli Consul-General Cobie Brosh, Parker hit the game-winning shot with less than a second remaining to lead Maccabi to a 105–103 win at the Air Canada Centre. This gave the Raptors fans and management a glimpse of his abilities and in July 2006, Parker was officially signed by Raptors General Manager Bryan Colangelo as a free agent as part of a massive revamp of the 2006–07 Toronto team. He was signed for approximately \$12 million (USD) over three years, joining recent European veteran acquisitions Jorge Garbajosa and José Calderón on the team. Adopting a \#18 jersey, Parker quickly established himself as the starting shooting guard for Toronto and a well-respected three-point shooter in the NBA, ranking fourth in the league for three-point field goal percentage by the end of the regular season. Overall, in his first season with Toronto, he averaged 12.4 ppg, 3.9 rpg, and 2.1 apg, leading his team in three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage. Parker's defensive and offensive versatility were credited as instrumental in helping the Raptors clinch their first-ever division title, first NBA playoffs berth in five years, as well as best regular-season record in franchise history.
In the first round of the 2007 NBA Playoffs, Parker was chosen to defend New Jersey Net and former Toronto favorite Vince Carter. Parker was effective in shutting down Carter, restricting him to 13-for-43 shooting in the first two games. However, the Raptors were eliminated by the Nets after Game 6.
On April 4, 2007, the NBA also announced that Parker had been selected by a five-member panel of former players as the divisional winner of 2006–07 NBA Sportsmanship Award. The annual award reflects the ideals of sportsmanship in amateur and professional basketball.
In the 2007–08 season, Parker remained—despite the signing of Miami's Jason Kapono—the starting shooting guard for the Raptors, with rookie Jamario Moon completing the wing positions. In a season that was fraught with lengthy injuries to a number of his teammates (such as T.J. Ford and Chris Bosh), he managed to play in all 82 regular season games and ensured that Toronto made the 2008 NBA Playoffs, albeit as the sixth seed. However, the Raptors were eliminated in the first round by the Orlando Magic in five games. Parker was later named by ESPN as one of the best Euroleague players to have graced the NBA.
At the end of the 2007–08 season, he ranked 7th in NBA's all-time leaders in three-point field goal percentage.
Parker played a variety of roles in the following season. First, Kapono was temporarily moved to the starting shooting guard spot after the Raptors fired head coach Sam Mitchell. When Calderón was injured, Parker had to fill in as the starting point guard. After struggling in December, he hit good form in January and helped the Raptors inch towards a better record after the team went 16–28. Although Parker eventually regained his starting spot, Toronto fell further behind the playoff race as a result of changing rosters and inconsistent performances, dropping to 21–34 just before the All-Star break. The shooting guard's offensive output was also erratic throughout the season, and the Raptors all but fell out of the playoffs picture by March. The Raptors eventually concluded the regular season with only 33 wins, with Parker suffering a significant drop in his numbers (shooting percentage and points per game). His future remained uncertain as he was due to become a free agent, but he expressed a desire to return to Toronto for the next season. With Toronto selecting shooting guard DeMar DeRozan in the 2009 NBA draft, that uncertainty was compounded.
#### Cleveland Cavaliers
On July 13, 2009, Parker signed a two-year, \$6 million deal with the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that had reached the 2007 NBA Finals and 2009 Conference Finals. Cleveland General Manager Danny Ferry said of Parker: "Anthony will be a solid addition to our roster. He is a very good, intelligent all-around basketball player. Our coaching staff will especially appreciate the good shooting and solid defense that Anthony brings to our team." In a bid to ensure that James had his best shot of winning a title before he could potentially become a free agent after the season, Cleveland also acquired Shaquille O'Neal and subsequently, Antawn Jamison, both of whom were veteran superstars. The new-look Cleveland concluded the regular season with a league-high 61 wins, with Parker starting all 81 games that he played in. In the first round of the playoffs, they defeated Chicago in five games. Cleveland faced the 2008 champions Boston in the next round, and despite expectations to prevail over the aging Celtics, Cleveland lost the series 4–2. Parker started all 11 of Cleveland's playoff games.
During the 2010 NBA offseason, LeBron James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas left Cleveland for the Miami Heat, which led several other veterans to also leave the team. The departures would thrust Parker, Antawn Jamison and Anderson Varejão into the spotlight as the veteran leaders for the young team. While Cleveland only managed a conference-worst 19–63 season, they were able to upset LeBron James' heavily favored Miami Heat on March 29, 2011 in a game where Parker grabbed eight rebounds and scored 20 points.
On June 27, 2012, Parker announced his retirement.
### National team career
Parker had a brief stint with the junior United States men's national basketball team, as a college player. He was a member of the Under-22 team alongside future NBA All-Stars Tim Duncan and Paul Pierce. The team defeated host and co-favorite Puerto Rico, twice in the FIBA Americas Under-21 Championship, and captured the gold medal in 1996, en route to qualifying for the 1997 FIBA Under-21 World Cup. In the gold medal game, Parker scored a game-high 19 points, in a win against Canada.
### Executive career
Parker was the scout of the Orlando Magic following his retirement in 2012 and fulfilled that role until 2017, when he was promoted to become the G League general manager. He served in that role until 2021 when he became an assistant general manager back with the Orlando team. On July 5th the Magic officially announced that they have promoted Parker as the next General manager replacing John Hammond who was promoted to Senior Advisor to the President of Basketball Operations.
## Personal life
Parker was born in Naperville, Illinois. His father played college basketball at the University of Iowa, while his mother was a cheerleader. Parker's younger siblings also played basketball; his brother Marcus played basketball in high school, while his sister Candace plays in the WNBA and was the number one pick of the 2008 draft. Early in his professional basketball career, Parker married Tamy, and they had their first child in 2002. Parker is Christian.
## Career statistics
### NBA
#### Regular season
\|- \| align="left" \| 1997–98 \| align="left" \| Philadelphia \| 37 \|\| 0 \|\| 5.3 \|\| .397 \|\| .321 \|\| .650 \|\| .7 \|\| .5 \|\| .3 \|\| .1 \|\| 1.9 \|- \| align="left" \| 1998–99 \| align="left" \| Philadelphia \| 2 \|\| 0 \|\| 1.5 \|\| 1.000 \|\| .000 \|\| .000 \|\| .0 \|\| .0 \|\| .0 \|\| .0 \|\| 1.0 \|- \| align="left" \| 1999–00 \| align="left" \| Orlando \| 16 \|\| 0 \|\| 11.6 \|\| .421 \|\| .071 \|\| .727 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .6 \|\| .5 \|\| .3 \|\| 3.6 \|- \| align="left" \| 2006–07 \| align="left" \| Toronto \| 73 \|\| 73 \|\| 33.4 \|\| .477 \|\| .441 \|\| .835 \|\| 3.9 \|\| 2.1 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .2 \|\| 12.4 \|- \| align="left" \| 2007–08 \| align="left" \| Toronto \| style="background:#cfecec;"\| 82\* \|\| style="background:#cfecec;"\| 82\* \|\| 32.1 \|\| .476 \|\| .438 \|\| .816 \|\| 4.1 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .2 \|\| 12.5 \|- \| align="left" \| 2008–09 \| align="left" \| Toronto \| 80 \|\| 71 \|\| 33.0 \|\| .426 \|\| .390 \|\| .834 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 3.4 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .2 \|\| 10.7 \|- \| align="left" \| 2009–10 \| align="left" \| Cleveland \| 81 \|\| 81 \|\| 27.5 \|\| .434 \|\| .414 \|\| .789 \|\| 2.9 \|\| 1.9 \|\| .8 \|\| .2 \|\| 7.3 \|- \| align="left" \| 2010–11 \| align="left" \| Cleveland \| 72 \|\| 65 \|\| 29.0 \|\| .399 \|\| .379 \|\| .779 \|\| 3.0 \|\| 3.0 \|\| .9 \|\| .1 \|\| 8.3 \|- \| align="left" \| 2011–12 \| align="left" \| Cleveland \| 51 \|\| 51 \|\| 25.1 \|\| .433 \|\| .362 \|\| .625 \|\| 2.7 \|\| 2.4 \|\| .7 \|\| .1 \|\| 7.2 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"\| Career \| 494 \|\| 423 \|\| 27.8 \|\| .444 \|\| .404 \|\| .794 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 2.3 \|\| .9 \|\| .2 \|\| 9.1
#### Playoffs
\|- \| align="left" \| 2007 \| align="left" \| Toronto \| 6 \|\| 6 \|\| 40.0 \|\| .419 \|\| .400 \|\| .795 \|\| 5.3 \|\| 1.0 \|\| 1.5 \|\| .3 \|\| 15.2 \|- \| align="left" \| 2008 \| align="left" \| Toronto \| 5 \|\| 5 \|\| 39.2 \|\| .408 \|\| .294 \|\| .857 \|\| 6.0 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .8 \|\| .4 \|\| 11.4 \|- \| align="left" \| 2010 \| align="left" \| Cleveland \| 11 \|\| 11 \|\| 30.1 \|\| .436 \|\| .455 \|\| .733 \|\| 2.4 \|\| 1.3 \|\| .8 \|\| .3 \|\| 8.3 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"\| Career \| 22 \|\| 22 \|\| 34.8 \|\| .434 \|\| .407 \|\| .794 \|\| 4.0 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 1.0 \|\| .3 \|\| 10.9
#### Career highs
- Points: 27 vs. Chicago 04/08/07
- Rebounds: 11 @ Indiana 02/25/08
- Assists: 9 3 times
- Steals: 4 8 times
- Blocks: 2 11 times
### FIBA SuproLeague
\|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#AFE6BA;"\| 2000–01† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Maccabi \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 31.5 \|\| .476 \|\| .364 \|\| .775 \|\| 5.3 \|\| 2.2 \|\| 1.4 \|\| 0.5 \|\| 14.7
### EuroLeague
\|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 2001–02 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Maccabi \| 20 \|\| 19 \|\| 34.6 \|\| .504 \|\| .339 \|\| .726 \|\| 5.2 \|\| 1.6 \|\| 1.6 \|\| .3 \|\| 16.4 \|\| 17.5 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#AFE6BA;"\| 2003–04† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Maccabi \| 21 \|\| 21 \|\| 35.1 \|\| .542 \|\| .490 \|\| .870 \|\| 5.8 \|\| 3.5 \|\| 1.2 \|\| .4 \|\| 16.0 \|\| 22.2 \|- \| style="text-align:left;background:#AFE6BA;"\| 2004–05† \| style="text-align:left;"\| Maccabi \| 24 \|\| 24 \|\| 34.7 \|\| .545 \|\| .476 \|\| .856 \|\| 5.3 \|\| 3.6 \|\| 2.0 \|\| .6 \|\| 18.0 \|\| style="background:#CFECEC;"\| 24.9 \|- \| style="text-align:left;"\| 2005–06 \| style="text-align:left;"\| Maccabi \| 25 \|\| 25 \|\| 35.5 \|\| .522 \|\| .365 \|\| .787 \|\| 6.9 \|\| 3.8 \|\| 1.7 \|\| .2 \|\| 14.8 \|\| style="background:#CFECEC;"\| 20.5 \|- class="sortbottom" \| style="text-align:left;"\| Career \| style="text-align:left;"\| \| 90 \|\| 89 \|\| 35.0 \|\| .528 \|\| .411 \|\| .818 \|\| 5.8 \|\| 3.2 \|\| 1.6 \|\| .4 \|\| 16.3 \|\| 21.4 |
31,922,334 | Tragedy of Otranto | 1,159,160,703 | 1997 naval disaster off the coast of Albania | [
"1997 disasters in Albania",
"1997 in Albania",
"Albanian Civil War",
"Albania–Italy relations",
"Illegal immigration to Italy",
"March 1997 events in Europe",
"Maritime incidents in 1997",
"Maritime incidents in Albania",
"Migrant boat disasters in the Mediterranean Sea",
"Otranto",
"Ships sunk in collisions",
"Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea"
]
| The Tragedy of Otranto took place on 28 March 1997 when the Albanian ship Kateri i Radës sank in a collision with the Italian corvette Sibilla (F 558) in the Strait of Otranto and at least 84 Albanians, aged 3 months to 69 years, lost their lives. The emigrants had been part of a large migration of Albanians to Italy during the 1997 Albanian civil unrest, that began after the collapse of several large-scale pyramid schemes. To prevent the unauthorized entry of migrants into Italy, the Italian Navy set up a procedure to board Albanian vessels whenever encountered, implementing a de facto blockade.
In proceeding to carry out a boarding, the Italian vessel Sibilla collided with Kateri i Radës and capsized it, resulting in the Albanian deaths. The captains of both ships were held responsible for "shipwreck and multiple manslaughter". The event raised questions over the extent of power a state may exercise to protect itself from unauthorized entry. Arguments were presented that a state must limit coercive actions disproportionate to the risk of unauthorized entry. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees criticized the Italian blockade as illegal since it had been established solely through an intergovernmental agreement with Albania.
## Background
After years of enforced isolation and a ban on international travel, with shoot-to-kill orders on the border, thousands of Albanians began migrating to Italy and Greece in late 1990, when communism in Albania started to fall. Two large waves of people came to Italy, first in March and then in August 1991. The first wave was sparked by a rumor that Italy was giving visas, and thousands of people commandeered boats of all sizes at the port of Durrës. By then, about 20,000 Albanians had reached Italy, most of them in Brindisi. Much of the Italian media portrayed the situation as "barbarians" invading Italian soil. Italian opinion-makers voiced concerns regarding the alleged "Islamic danger" of the migration. Others saw a connection between the Ottoman invasion of Otranto (1480–1481) across the 40 miles (64 km) wide Strait of Otranto and contemporary migration.
In 1997, a crisis erupted in Albania after the collapse of several massive pyramid schemes, which resulted in social deterioration and violence in the country. An imposition of a curfew and a state of emergency on 2 March provoked a popular rebellion, causing concern in Italy, which feared another large-scale migration flow. Albanian migration to Italy peaked in the latter half of March, bringing tremendous pressure to Italian accommodation centers and provoking a strong reaction in Italian public opinion. Italy had been operating under a bilateral agreement with Albania to board Albanian vessels whenever encountered starting on 3 April 1997 and Albanian would-be migrants going to Italy would be sent back to Albania, in exchange for Italian financial, police, and humanitarian assistance to the country. A military Operation White Flags was established in the international waters of the Strait and implemented a de facto naval blockade.
## Sinking
The incident happened on 28 March 1997 in the Strait of Otranto when the Minerva-class corvette Sibilia of the Italian Navy collided with the Albanian ship Kateri i Radës, which had left from the Albanian port city of Vlorë with 142 people on board. The Sibilla sought to stop and inspect the ship suspected of containing irregular migrants. The vessel instead ended up colliding with the ship and sinking it. According to Italian authorities, there was no intention to cause the collision. The Zefiro first approached and identified the Kateri i Radës as a motorboat with approximately 30 civilians on board. The motorboat continued toward Italy even though a stop order was issued by the Zefiro. This happened around 4:30 PM, near the Albanian island Sazan. Sibilia then took over the operation and during its maneuvers, the Italian ship caused the Kateri i Radës to turn which resulted in subsequent deaths. After the Albanian ship was capsized, the Sibilia allegedly left and came back approximately 20 minutes later. The bodies of at least 52 who lost their lives were recovered. The total number of dead may be as high as 83. The survivors were taken to the Apulian port of Brindisi, where they arrived at 2:45 AM. They were then put on a bus and taken to an immigration center to be identified. On 29 and 30 March 1997, news of the disaster made it to the first page of major Italian newspapers, relating the sense of the gravity of the incident, which reported it as either a collision or a ramming. 31 March was a day of mourning in Albania.
On 28 March, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1101, which established a multinational protection force in Albania to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The force, known as Operation Alba, was led by the Italians and included 6,500 soldiers from eight other countries. The unspoken reason for the intervention was to stem the flow of refugees.
## Legal proceedings
The accident raised questions about the extent of power that the state may use to protect itself from unauthorized entry. Although undisputed that the sinking was unintentional, controversy exists over whether it resulted from dangerous maneuvering, which was disproportionate in relation to the ship's stopping. Authors argue that the state must limit coercive actions disproportionate to the risk of intrusion. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees criticized the Italian blockade as "illegal" since Italy established it only through a bilateral, intergovernmental agreement with Albania.
The Xhavara et al. v. Italy and Albania case was held inadmissible because of non-exhaustible national remedies. The European Court of Human Rights, which held the case, assumed jurisdiction relying on the bilateral agreement between Albania and Italy. The ship was recovered 35 miles (56 km) from the Italian coast, no more than 10 miles (16 km) to 15 miles (24 km) from the Albanian coast within Albanian territorial waters. The court held Italy responsible for the incident since it was considered to have exercised jurisdiction. Italy was also held responsible for investigating the deaths, a requirement deemed fulfilled by the public manslaughter proceedings held against the captain of the Italian vessel. By the end of eight years of proceedings, the Court of Brindisi convicted the Italian and Albanian captains together of "shipwreck and multiple manslaughter" with the first to three years in prison and the second to four. Responsibility for the "accident" was attributed to both and was relegated to the individual level. The larger chain of command, legal framework, discourses, and established practices which resulted in the sinking have not been judicially investigated.
## Remembrance
The tragedy became part of the Albanian folk song repertoire relating to the migration of Albanians abroad. The leading figures of this practice were local intellectuals called rapsods related the mythistory of kurbet before World War II with the migration. They use metaphors and performance devices taken from oral folk poetry and death laments, which react to the migrations to fix them in the community's memory. This became a tool for responding to the loss of life for the tragedy of Otranto and other tragic events.
Parts of Kateri i Radës were transported to a concrete platform in the port of Otranto as a monument to the tragedy. The project cost €150 thousand and was entrusted to the Greek sculptor Costas Varotsos. Before the project, what was left of the ship lay in a corner of the port of Brindisi. The project was titled L'Approdo. Opera all'Umanità Migrante (The Landing. A work dedicated to Migrating Humanity). Photographers Arta Ngucaj and Arben Beqiraj published photographs of the ship on the Albanian-Italian newspaper Shqiptari i Italisë. The families of the dead requested for the relics of Kateri i Radës to be placed in Albania after Italian media reported that it was to be used as a monument.
## See also
- 1997 Albanian civil unrest
- Operation Alba
- Albanian diaspora
- Karaburun tragedy |
33,572,843 | The Place Beyond the Pines | 1,172,928,657 | 2012 film | [
"2010s American films",
"2010s English-language films",
"2012 crime drama films",
"2012 films",
"2012 independent films",
"American crime drama films",
"Films about dysfunctional families",
"Films directed by Derek Cianfrance",
"Films produced by Sidney Kimmel",
"Films set in 1993",
"Films set in 1994",
"Films set in 2012",
"Films set in New York (state)",
"Films set in the 1990s",
"Films set in the 2010s",
"Films shot in New York (state)",
"Motorcycling films",
"Schenectady, New York",
"Sidney Kimmel Entertainment films"
]
| The Place Beyond the Pines is a 2012 American epic crime drama film directed by Derek Cianfrance with a screenplay by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius Marder from a story by Cianfrance and Coccio. The film tells three linear stories: Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider who supports his family through a life of crime; Avery (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious policeman who confronts his corrupt police department; and two troubled teenagers (Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan) who explore the aftermath of Luke and Avery's actions fifteen years later. The supporting cast includes Eva Mendes, with Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin, and Ray Liotta.
Cianfrance was inspired to write The Place Beyond the Pines based on his experiences as a father. Coccio and Marder, who shared similar interests in film and media, helped write the script. Cianfrance envisioned the main themes to be about fathers and sons, masculine identity and legacy. The film reunites Cianfrance and Gosling, who had previously worked together in 2010's Blue Valentine. The role of Luke was written for Gosling, as he expressed an interest in playing a bank robber. Filming took place in Schenectady, New York, during the summer of 2011.
The Place Beyond the Pines premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a United States theatrical release on March 29, 2013. Focus Features purchased the distribution rights after being impressed by the film screening. It received a generally positive response from critics and moderate success at the box office. The soundtrack was composed by Mike Patton and included music by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and Ennio Morricone.
## Plot
In 1997, Luke Glanton is a motorcycle stuntman with a traveling carnival. In Schenectady, he meets his ex-lover Romina Gutierrez, who is now with another man, Kofi Kancam. Luke discovers that he unknowingly fathered Romina's baby Jason the previous year. He leaves the carnival to stay near mother and son.
Luke begins working part-time for mechanic Robin Van Der Hook. When he asks for more work Robin reveals his past as a bank robber and suggests they commit robberies together. Luke robs the banks at gunpoint and gets away on his motorcycle which he rides into a van driven by Robin.
Luke and Romina have sex in his caravan and he spends time with her and Jason. He lets himself into Romina and Kofi's house and attempts to assemble a cot for Jason. When Kofi demands he leave Luke strikes him with a wrench and is arrested. Robin bails him out of jail and Luke says he wants to provide for Jason's future. Robin refuses to do any more robberies and the pair fall out. Robin dismantles Luke's motorcycle, so Luke robs Robin and buys a new bike with the money.
Luke bungles a bank robbery and is pursued by police on foot. He enters a stranger's home and phones Romina to ask her not to tell Jason about him. Novice police officer Avery Cross enters the room and shoots Luke in the stomach. He fires back, hitting Avery in the leg, then falls out of the window to his death.
Avery, a married man with a baby son, is hailed as a hero. He is remorseful but tells police investigators that Luke shot first. A group of corrupt officers coerce Avery to join them in seizing the stolen money from Romina's home.
Avery later tries to return his cut to Romina, who rejects it. He attempts to hand the money over to the chief of police, who rebuffs him. Avery secretly records other illegal practices in the department and uses the recordings to obtain a position as assistant district attorney.
Fifteen years later in 2012, Avery is running for Attorney General of New York. His rebellious, drug-using teenage son A.J. has been living with Avery's ex-wife, Jennifer, but now moves in with his father and transfers to Schenectady High School, befriending the now-teenage Jason. Neither boy knows the history between their fathers.
When the teens are arrested for felony drug possession, Avery recognizes Jason's name and gets Jason's charge dropped to a misdemeanor. He orders A.J. to stay away from him.
Kofi tells Jason his birth father's name, which allows him to discover Luke's past. Jason visits Robin, who tells him about Luke and their robberies. A.J. pressures Jason to steal OxyContin for a party. At the party, Jason discovers that A.J.'s father, Avery, is the man who killed his father, Luke. Jason is hospitalized after a violent confrontation with A.J., and buys a gun when he is released.
Jason goes to the Cross family home, assaults A.J., and takes Avery hostage. He forces Avery to drive into the woods where Avery breaks down and apologizes. Jason leaves him unharmed but takes his wallet. Inside it, Jason finds a photo of himself with his parents, which Avery had stolen from the evidence locker.
Some time later, Avery becomes New York attorney general and celebrates with A.J. at his side. Romina receives an envelope addressed to "Mom", with the old photograph inside. Jason buys a motorcycle and rides away.
## Cast
## Production
### Development
Cianfrance's inspiration for the story first started when he saw Abel Gance's 1927 silent film Napoleon, which uses a triptych (three-screen) technique to play out multiple stories at once. In 2007, the birth of Cianfrance's second son reignited the idea, and he started to think about being a father again and the responsibilities involved. "That got me to thinking about the fire I felt inside me, which had been with me for as long as I could remember. It helped me to do many things. But it was also, many times, a destructive and painful force", he said. He stated it was important for him, as an artist, to do something personal and challenging. He also read the works of Jack London, including the novel The Call of the Wild, and became intrigued with the idea of legacy and what our ancestors had to do for survival. Shortly, Cianfrance met Ben Coccio, who shared a similar interest of books and films, and they began writing the screenplay. The third screenwriter, Darius Marder, joined the project four months before principal photography began.
Meanwhile, Cianfrance was still working on the film Blue Valentine (2010), which stars Ryan Gosling. In 2007, Gosling told him about a fantasy which involved "robbing a bank, on a motorcycle, and then making a very specific getaway." Cianfrance told Gosling, "You've got to be kidding me, I'm writing that movie right now." The pair shared numerous identical ideas, and knew that The Place Beyond the Pines would be another opportunity to work together again. Cianfrance envisioned the story to be about fathers and sons, masculine identity, "reinvention or transformation of the self for a man over a period". He added, "It's about legacy—what we're born with and what we pass on. It's about the choices we make and how those choices echo throughout generations. It's a classic tale of the sins of the father being visited upon the son".
While Cianfrance is not a fan of violence in film, he is drawn to displaying the narrative of it and "how a gun could come in" and affect peoples' lives. The first draft of the script ran over 160 pages, which required much refinement from the three writers. Once filming began, they had produced 37 versions of the script. Coccio came up with the title from the Iroquoios translation of Schenectady—"the place beyond the pines". The city is where Coccio spent his childhood, and Cianfrance frequently visits. The writers sent the final script to Sidney Kimmel Entertainment; they financed the film and gave the director and crew "a lot of trust, space and time".
### Casting
While the role of Luke Glanton was created for Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper was offered the role of Avery Cross, due to him and Gosling having a similar type of charisma, and both bringing a "different energy" to the screen. Cooper was hesitant signing on for the role, but Cianfrance adapted the script for Cooper, and told him that he would not make the film without him. Cianfrance considered a number of actresses for the role of Romina Gutierrez, but he wanted to cast Eva Mendes from the beginning. "She has such a magnetic screen presence [...] I saw the deep, thoughtful, warm, generous, unpredictable person inside Eva", he said.
The role of Peter Deluca was written for Ray Liotta, who starred in one of Cianfrance's favorite films, Goodfellas (1990). Over 500 boys auditioned for the roles of Jason Glanton and A. J. Cross, with Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen being selected, respectively. Cianfrance recalls that in the boys' first audition together, their discussion about favorite actors produced a "conflict", and he thought this chemistry would translate well on screen. Greta Gerwig was reported to join the cast as Jennifer Cross, but the part went to Rose Byrne instead.
### Filming
Principal photography began in the summer of 2011, lasted for 47 days and took place in Schenectady, New York. Filming locations included real places, such as banks, police stations, a hospital, high school and town fair. Cianfrance said it was important that real places were used for "sense of place and truth". While filming in these places, the extras were also real: bank tellers, police officers, hospital patients and staff, and students. Some of the cast, including Cooper and Ray Liotta, spent time with real police officers in Schenectady to learn about their roles. The production went smoothly except for when Hurricane Irene struck the city which flooded the equipment trucks. The crew took a canoe to the truck and rescued the film footage that was left behind, and continued filming the next day.
Cianfrance considered the cast to be collaborators, and encouraged them to improvise some of their dialogue to make it "alive" and "true". Remarking on his directing style, he said "I'm not a dictator on set, I don't force my actors to do things. I allow a democracy of ideas on set". He also demanded utmost commitment from the cast and crew, despite them not staying in luxury hotels or big trailers, and filming in places with bee hives and mosquito infestations. Gosling learned to ride a motorcycle for filming the action scenes, and trained with stuntman Rick Miller for two months. Gosling performed many of his own stunts; in one robbery scene, he rode in heavy traffic whilst being pursued by police, which required 22 takes to perfect. He also gained 40 pounds (18 kg) of muscle and worked with designer Ben Shields to design tattoos for his character's body.
Sean Bobbitt served as cinematographer, who preferred using handheld cameras and natural lighting. Cianfrance saw Bobbitt's experience as a war photographer as an advantage, and was impressed with his process and sense of composition, which proved useful for a scene in the beginning which featured a tracking shot towards the globe of death. Bobbitt initially stood inside the globe to capture footage of the motorcyclists, but a bike hit his head and he suffered a concussion. As a result, the director did not allow him inside again. Editing proved to be a challenge due to the amount of story to explore, and the rough cut of the film ran in excess of three hours. Cianfrance's close friends, Jim Helton and Ron Patane, served as editors which made the experience "bearable". The final cut of the film took nine months, seven days a week, and sixteen hours a day, to complete.
## Music
The score for The Place Beyond the Pines was composed by Mike Patton, who, according to Cianfrance, "understood the haunted qualities of the story". Cianfrance had been a fan of Patton's work since the early 1990s and described his work as "cinematic". The soundtrack album features a selection of music by various artists including Arvo Pärt, Bon Iver, Ennio Morricone, and Vladimir Ivanoff. The album was released by Sony's Milan Records on May 7, 2013.
## Release
The Place Beyond the Pines premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2012. Shortly, Focus Features announced their decision to acquire the distribution rights from Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. Focus CEO James Schamus and president Andrew Karpen said, "Derek Cianfrance has made a bold, epic, and emotionally generous saga, once again showing a master's hand in eliciting searingly beautiful performances from the actors with whom he collaborates."
### Box office
The film received a limited release in the United States on March 29, 2013, followed by a wide release on April 12, 2013. The Place Beyond the Pines grossed \$21.4 million in the United States and Canada, and \$25.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of \$47.1 million, against a budget of \$15 million.
### Home media
The Place Beyond the Pines was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 6, 2013. A limited edition steelbook was also released, which included audio commentary from the director, deleted and extended scenes, as well as behind-the-scenes footage.
### Critical reception
Writing for the IndieWire "Playlist" blog, Kevin Jagernauth praised the film as an "ambitious epic that is cut from some of the same thematic tissue as Cianfrance's previous film, but expands the scope into a wondrously widescreen tale of fathers, sons and the legacy of sins that are passed down through the generations". The Daily Telegraph critic, Robbie Collin, drew attention to the film's "lower-key and largely un-starry third act" that was criticized in early reviews. "In fact, it's the key to deciphering the entire film," he wrote. Collin drew parallels between Gosling's character and James Dean's Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and said Cianfrance's film was "great American cinema of the type we keep worrying we've already lost." Toronto Star's Peter Howell gave the film a positive review, writing "The Place Beyond the Pines flirts with exhaustion and threatens credulity with its extreme generational conflicts and use of coincidence. Cianfrance and his sterling cast keep it all together [...] There’s a palpable sense of teamwork that brings out the best in all of these players." Claudia Puig of USA Today complimented the film for its "insightful study of masculinity", visual style and engaging look at a multi-generational saga. Puig opined that it was one of 2013's boldest films.
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Betsy Sharkey described the film as "intimate" and praised the actors performances despite a bulky script. In his review for Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips gave the film 31⁄2 out of 4 stars; he thought the transition between the three stories gave the film humanistic quality. "The people in it really do seem like people, not pieces of plot", he wrote. However, he was critical of the last third of the film, which felt long, but credited the cinematography, music and editing for keeping the "momentum flowing subtly". David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter praised the acting, cinematography, atmosphere, and score, but criticized the film's narrative flow. Henry Barnes of The Guardian gave a mixed review, writing: "The Place Beyond the Pines is ambitious and epic, perhaps to a fault. It's a long, slow watch in the final act, a detour into the next generation that sees the sons of Luke and Avery pick away at their daddy issues together. Cianfrance signposts the ripple effects of crime with giant motorway billboards, then pootles along, following a storyline that drops off Mendes and Byrne before winding on to its obvious conclusion." Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzalez gave the film a negative review, and criticized the film's plot, themes, "self-importance", shallow characters, and melodramatic nature.
Top-ten lists
The film appeared in the following critics' top-ten lists:
- 5th — Randy Myers, The Mercury News
- 6th — Kristopher Tapley, HitFix
- 6th — Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
- 7th — Staff writers' vote, Total Film
- 9th — Den of Geek
- 9th — Kyle Smith, New York Post
- 10th — Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post
- 10th — Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times
- No order — Stephen Witty, The Star-Ledger
- No order — Claudia Puig, USA Today
### Accolades |
3,993,329 | USS Mahopac (1864) | 1,114,352,307 | Canonicus-class monitor | [
"1864 ships",
"American Civil War monitors of the United States",
"Canonicus-class monitors",
"Ships built in New Jersey",
"Ships of the Union Navy"
]
| USS Mahopac (1864) was a Canonicus-class monitor built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. The vessel was assigned to the James River Flotilla of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron upon completion in September 1864. The ship spent most of her time stationed up the James River where she could support operations against Richmond and defend against sorties by the Confederate ironclads of the James River Squadron. She engaged Confederate artillery batteries during the year and later participated in both the first and second battles of Fort Fisher, defending the approaches to Wilmington, North Carolina, in December 1864 – January 1865. Mahopac returned to the James River after the capture of Fort Fisher and remained there until Richmond, Virginia was occupied in early April.
A few days later, the monitor was transferred to Washington, D. C. and decommissioned in June and recommissioned in early 1866 for service on the East Coast and in the Caribbean. Mahopac generally remained active until 1889 when she was permanently placed in reserve. She was sold for scrap in 1902.
## Description and construction
The ship was 225 feet (68.6 m) long overall, had a beam of 43 feet 3 inches (13.2 m) and had a maximum draft of 13 feet 6 inches (4.1 m). She had a tonnage of 1,034 tons burthen and displaced 2,100 long tons (2,100 t). Her crew consisted of 100 officers and enlisted men.
Mahopac was powered by a two-cylinder horizontal vibrating-lever steam engine that drove one propeller using steam generated by two Stimers horizontal fire-tube boilers. The 320-indicated-horsepower (240 kW) engine gave the ship a top speed of 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph). She carried 140–150 long tons (140–150 t) of coal. Mahopac's main armament consisted of two smoothbore, muzzle-loading, 15-inch (381 mm) Dahlgren guns mounted in a single gun turret. Each gun weighed approximately 43,000 pounds (20,000 kg). They could fire a 350-pound (158.8 kg) shell up to a range of 2,100 yards (1,900 m) at an elevation of +7°.
The exposed sides of the hull were protected by five layers of one-inch (25 mm) wrought iron plates, backed by wood. The armor of the gun turret and the pilot house consisted of ten layers of one-inch plates. The ship's deck was protected by armor 1.5 inches (38 mm) thick. A 5-by-15-inch (130 by 380 mm) soft iron band was fitted around the base of the turret to prevent shells and fragments from jamming the turret as had happened to earlier monitors during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor in April 1863. The base of the funnel was protected to a height of six feet (1.8 m) by eight inches (203 mm) of armor. A "rifle screen" of 1⁄2-inch (13 mm) armor three feet (0.9 m) high was installed on the top of the turret to protect the crew against Confederate snipers based on a suggestion by Commander Tunis A. M. Craven, captain of her sister ship Tecumseh.
The contract for Mahopac, named after Lake Mahopac in New York, was awarded to Secor & Co.; the ship was laid down in 1862 by the primary subcontractor Joseph Colwell at his Jersey City, New Jersey shipyard. She was launched on 17 May 1864 and commissioned on 22 September 1864 with Commander William A. Parker in command. The ship's construction was delayed by multiple changes ordered while she was being built that reflected battle experience with earlier monitors. This included the rebuilding of the turrets and pilot houses to increase their armor thickness from 8 inches (203 mm) to 10 inches and to replace the bolts that secured their armor plates together with rivets to prevent them from being knocked loose by the shock of impact from shells striking the turret. Other changes included deepening the hull by 18 inches (457 mm) to increase the ship's buoyancy, moving the position of the turret to balance the ship's trim and replacing all of the ship's deck armor. The ship ultimately cost a total of \$701,624, although the builder appealed for recompense for additional costs caused by the government's delays and changes. The case was dismissed on 31 March 1919. No modifications are known to have been made after the ship's completion.
## Service
Mahopac was fitting out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard until 4 October 1864 when, towed by two tugboats, she departed for Hampton Roads, Virginia and arrived there on 6 October. The ship arrived at City Point, Virginia on 3 November for service with the James River Flotilla. She engaged a Confederate artillery battery at Howlett's Farm on 5 and 6 December together with her sisters Saugus and Canonicus. Mahopac was hit five times and lightly damaged; she fired 41 shells in return, of which only six had any effect on the Confederate forces.
Escorted by the sidewheel gunboat Santiago de Cuba, Mahopac, now commanded by Lieutenant Commander E. E. Potter, was ordered on 11 December to steam for Beaufort, South Carolina to prepare for the first bombardment of Fort Fisher on 24–25 December. Plagued by steering problems as the bombardment began, the ship open fire late on the first day of the battle and fired 41 shells. The one hit that she received that day damaged her steering gear. Mahopac participated in the second day of the battle and was not damaged. After Butler ordered his men re-embarked onto their transports on 26 December, the monitor was towed to Beaufort by the gunboat Fort Jackson.
Again towed by the Fort Jackson, Mahopac, now under the command of Lieutenant Commander A. W. Weaver, arrived back at Fort Fisher on 13 January 1865. Together with Canonicus and Saugus, the double-turreted monitor Onondaga and the armored frigate New Ironsides, she bombarded the fort for three days until it was captured by Union troops. On her second shot at the beginning of the battle, one of her 15-inch guns burst at the muzzle. Despite the loss of one gun, the ship fired 204 shells at the fort; she was hit several times in return, but suffered neither damage nor casualties.
Transferred to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Mahopac was ordered to Charleston, South Carolina on 17 January, towed by the gunboat Nereus. The ship remained there on picket duty until 8 March when she returned to Chesapeake Bay and rejoined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She contributed boats for clearing the James River of "torpedoes" after the Confederate ships were scuttled on the night of 2/3 April and Richmond occupied. On 5 April, Mahopac and Saugus were to ordered report to the Washington Navy Yard. She was decommissioned in June and laid up there.
Mahopac was recommissioned on 15 January 1866 and served on the East Coast. Renamed Castor on 15 June 1869, she resumed her original name on 10 August. The ship was placed in reserve on 11 March 1872 at Hampton Roads, but was recommissioned on 21 November 1873. The ship was based at Key West, Florida until 1876 when she was transferred to Port Royal, South Carolina. Mahopac was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia in July 1877 and then moored at Brandon, Virginia, and at City Point, before being placed in ordinary at Richmond from 1889 to 1895. The ship was transferred to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard at League Island in 1895. She was struck from the Navy List on 14 January 1902 and was sold on 25 March 1902. |
417,978 | Segata Sanshiro | 1,165,413,114 | Advertising character for the Sega Saturn | [
"Advertising characters",
"Fictional budō practitioners",
"Male characters in advertising",
"Mascots introduced in 1997",
"Sega Saturn",
"Sega characters",
"Video game marketing",
"Video game mascots"
]
| Segata Sanshiro (Japanese: せがた三四郎, Hepburn: Segata Sanshirō) is a character created by Sega to advertise the Sega Saturn in Japan between 1997 and 1998. He is a parody of Sugata Sanshirō, a legendary judo fighter from Akira Kurosawa's 1943 film Sanshiro Sugata. In television and radio advertisements, Segata Sanshiro is portrayed by actor Hiroshi Fujioka. He was positioned as a martial artist who commanded people to play Sega Saturn games.
The advertising campaign began in 1997, with the Saturn having a modest level of success in Japan at that point. Fujioka was impressed by Sega's ideas for the character and felt that Segata Sanshiro would send a strong message to children. Advertisements continued both on television and on radio until 1999. As a result of the advertisements, Segata Sanshiro's theme song became a CD single and he was made the main character of his own video game, Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi.
Segata Sanshiro has also had cameo appearances in video games, a comic book and a live concert. He has retained a cult following in Japan and has been credited with helping improve Saturn sales there. Western journalists have praised the appeal and advertising prowess of the character.
## Advertising campaign
Sega's advertising campaign with Segata Sanshiro began in the summer of 1997, more than two years after the Japanese release of the Sega Saturn. At that time, the Saturn was moderately successful in Japan. Hiroshi Fujioka, an actor famous for starring in Kamen Rider, was selected to play the role in advertisements. The character of Segata Sanshiro was a parody of Sugata Sanshirō, a legendary judo fighter from Akira Kurosawa's film Sanshiro Sugata. In part because Fujioka bore a vague resemblance to Susumu Fujita, the actor who portrayed Sugata Sanshirō, the parody was obvious to a Japanese public audience. Fujioka was also a skilled martial artist, experienced in multiple disciplines including karate, iaido, and judo, making him a close fit for the role. The character of Segata Sanshiro was positioned as a martial artist who commanded people to play Sega Saturn games. His name sounds similar to his catchphrase in Japanese, "Play Sega Saturn!" (セガサターン、シロ!, Sega Satān, shiro!), as well as "Sega Saturn, White" (セガサターン、白, Sega Satān, Shiro), a reference to the white color model of the Japanese Sega Saturn which followed the original gray version. According to Fujioka, he did give input on the character and contributed ideas. Fujioka was impressed by Sega's ideas for the character, stating "I thought it was good that they wanted to send a strong message to children in an age when young people had no direction."
The first television advertisement featuring Segata Sanshiro aired on November 28, 1997, promoting Sonic R. Television advertisements would continue from 1997 to 1999, and would feature Segata in real life scenarios related thematically with the game being advertised. In the advertisement for Burning Rangers, Segata rescued a woman inside a burning building, while the advertisement for Winter Heat featured him racing a speed skater on foot across ice. Other games advertised include Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, Saturn Bomberman Fight!!, The House of the Dead, and Dragon Force II.
In addition to television, Fujioka also recorded radio advertisements in support of the console. During production, Fujioka maintained a very serious focus on his performance of the character, even while doing tasks such as breaking ten roof tiles with his head or punching the buttons of a giant Saturn controller. In playing the role, Fujioka stated that he felt strongly he was doing work that would be a positive influence on society, and that he did actually enjoy Sega Saturn games and felt "they put out a message to the world."
As part of the television advertisements, Segata Sanshiro's theme song, "Sega Satān, shiro!", was played. The song was written by Koji Ando, composed and arranged by Fumio Okui, and performed by Ichiro Tomita. As Segata gained popularity, the theme song became popular enough to warrant the recording of a CD single. Fujioka recorded this version himself, having previously sang the theme song for Kamen Rider, "Let's Go!! Rider Kick", for its first thirteen episodes as well as a few singles between 1971 and 1985. In addition to the CD, Fujioka also made several appearances as Segata Sanshiro at promotional events. Segata's popularity also led to the release of a Saturn game, Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi, on October 29, 1998. At the end of 1998, the launch of Sega's next video game console, the Dreamcast, was approaching and Saturn development was slowing down. Segata Sanshiro was in one last advertisement, leaping from the roof of Sega's headquarters to save Sega employees from an incoming missile launched at the building. Segata then rode the missile into space, presumably being killed in the process.
In 2020, Sega began a campaign starring Segata Sanshiro's son, Sega Shiro, in celebration of the company's 60th anniversary. The character is played by Fujioka's son, Maito Fujioka. As part of the commercials, Shiro confronts a rival, "Sega Hatan Shiro", who is later revealed to be Segata Sanshiro in disguise.
## Later appearances
Despite the ending advertisement, Fujioka appeared as Segata at the official launch of the Dreamcast, as well as in a one-off appearance on Fuji TV at the end of 1999. The character would later appear in Issue 269 of Sonic the Hedgehog from Archie Comics, in which he faced Sonic the Hedgehog in a fighting tournament inspired by the game Sonic the Fighters. Segata Sanshiro also has an appearance in Rent A Hero No. 1, a Japanese game released on both the Dreamcast and Xbox. He serves as a martial arts instructor who can teach new moves to the main character. He makes a cameo appearance in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and is playable in Project X Zone 2 as a solo unit. Producer Kensuke Tsukanaka stated that it was a desire of Namco Bandai to include Segata Sanshiro in the latter game. Fujioka returned as Segata in 2013 at a live concert thrown by Sega, and spoke to the crowd with Sega advertising producer Koji Ando about making the Segata Sanshiro commercials.
## Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi
Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi (せがた三四郎 真剣遊戯) is a Sega Saturn video game based on the Segata Sanshiro advertisements. This game is a collection of minigames, with completing objectives in each one unlocking one of Segata's television commercials for view. In one such minigame, Segata acts as Santa Claus and delivers presents to children while avoiding obstacles, while another was a game in the style of Columns with combos earned helping to keep Segata from drowning. Completing all ten of the minigames earns a message from Segata, as well as a music video. Gamers' Republic Magazine gave the game an "F" rating, saying that the mini games are lame, and it would only be enjoyable if you got the game for free and enjoyed the character.
Retrospectively, Segata Sanshirō Shinken Yūgi is remembered for having captured the spirit of Segata Sanshiro and having a sense of humor consistent with the character, but criticized for its simplicity and lack of engaging play. According to Brian Crimmins of Hardcore Gaming 101, "Sanshiro’s antic may not have offered Sega enough to work on, but more importantly, the developer didn’t consider what role play can have in facilitating humor... this is exactly the case with Shinken Yūgi: despite how consistent the humor is, the quality of the games themselves varies wildly." Crimmins also commented, however, that Shinken Yūgi's best value was historical. When GamesTM interviewed Fujioka, they noted his reaction about the game indicated that he was happy that it was developed, but also aware that it was not of good quality.
## Legacy
The Sega Saturn sold 5.75 million units in Japan, surpassing the 3.58 million units of its predecessor, the Mega Drive, in the country. This amount of sales also surpassed Nintendo's sales of 5.54 million units of the competitor Nintendo 64 and competed closely with Sony's PlayStation. The Segata Sanshiro advertisements are given credit for helping to establish those sales, though Sega had failed to make the Saturn as successful in other regions. As a result of the campaign, Segata Sanshiro achieved a cult following in Japan.
Nintendo Power journalist Steve Thomason singled out Segata as the character he would most like to control in the Nintendo DSi game Photo Dojo. Thomason amended that "it's just a shame his greatest skill – throwing opponents to make them explode – couldn't be translated to the game". Luke Plunkett of Kotaku called Segata the "Greatest Video Game Ad Man Of Them All" due to his strong personality citing examples such as how he yelled at children. Otaku USA referred to Segata as "the man, the myth, the legend" and praised his return in a concert from 2013. GamesTM noted the appeal of commercials was his "hyper-dramatic reality in which Segata had scope to be active and heroic". Justin Towell of GamesRadar+ also liked the character but felt disappointed by how he stopped appearing in advertisements. Kevin Schiller of Game Revolution referred to Segata as one of the strongest points of Project X Zone 2.
In 2012, Steve Lycett, executive producer of Sumo Digital, encouraged a fan-made poll on the SEGA Forums to determine which three SEGA characters the fans would like to see in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed as DLC (Downloadable Content). Out of the 28 SEGA characters chosen by the forum, Ryo Hazuki had the majority vote ranking 1st, while Hatsune Miku ranked 2nd, and Segata Sanshiro ranked 3rd. In a review of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Martin Robinson of Eurogamer had expected to see Segata in the game given its multiple tributes to various Sega games. |
11,134,273 | 1991 Giro d'Italia | 1,133,022,007 | null | [
"1991 Giro d'Italia",
"1991 in Italian sport",
"1991 in road cycling",
"Giro d'Italia by year",
"June 1991 sports events in Europe",
"May 1991 sports events in Europe"
]
| The 1991 Giro d'Italia was the 74th edition of the race. It began on May 26 with a mass-start stage that began and ended in the Italian city of Olbia. The race came to a close in Milan on June 16. Twenty teams entered the race, which was won by the Italian Franco Chioccioli of the Del Tongo-MG Boys Maglificio team. Second and third respectively were the Italians Claudio Chiappucci and Massimiliano Lelli.
The race was first led by Frenchman Philippe Casado who won the first stage into Olbia. Casado lost the race leader's maglia rosa (English: pink jersey) after stage 2a that contained a mountainous course. Éric Boyer took the race lead from Chioccioli after winning the event's fourth stage. However, he lost the lead back to Chioccioli the following day. Chioccioli protected his lead and built upon his advantage by winning three stages of the race before the race's finish.
In the race's other classifications, Massimiliano Lelli of the Ari-Ceramiche Ariostea team finished as the best rider aged 25 or under in the general classification, finishing in third place overall; rider Claudio Chiappucci won the points classification, Iñaki Gastón of the CLAS–Cajastur team won the mountains classification, and CLAS–Cajastur rider Alberto Leanizbarrutia won the intergiro classification. Carrera Jeans-Tassoni finished as the winners of the team classification.
## Teams
Twenty teams were invited by the race organizers to participate in the 1991 edition of the Giro d'Italia, ten of which were based outside of Italy. Each team sent a squad of nine riders, which meant that the race started with a peloton of 180 cyclists. Italy (84), Spain (30), and France (18) all had more than 10 riders. Of these, 76 were riding the Giro d'Italia for the first time. The average age of riders was 27.03 years, ranging from 22–year–old Eleuterio Anguita () to 36–year–old Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle (). The team with the youngest average rider age was (25), while the oldest was (28). The presentation of the teams – where each team's roster and manager were introduced in front the media and local dignitaries – took place on 25 May. From the riders that began the race, 133 made it to the finish in Milan.
The teams entering the race were:
## Pre-race favorites
The starting peloton did include the previous year's winner Gianni Bugno. Claudio Chiappucci was believed to be in great form coming into the race. According to Paolo Viberti of El País, Bugno came in as the odds on favorite to win the race. Going into the race, it was widely believe that the winner would be either Chiappucci or Bugno. Despite being favored to win the race, Bugno entered the race with no victories to his name that season. American Greg LeMond told the press he planned to be more competitive at this Giro than he had in years past. Other favorites to win the race were Laurent Fignon, Pedro Delgado, and Marino Lejarreta. Mario Cipollini, despite a poor showing that Tour de Romandie, was viewed as the sprinter to watch for the estimated ten stages that could result in a bunch sprint. Notable absences included 1988 winner Andrew Hampsten, Dutch rider Erik Breukink, and Maurizio Fondriest.
## Route and stages
The route for the 1991 edition of the Giro d'Italia was revealed to the public on television by head organizer Vincenzo Torriani, on 1 December 1990. It contained three time trial events, all of which were individual. There were twelve stages containing thirty-nine categorized climbs, of which five had summit finishes: stage 12, to Monviso; stage 13, to Sestriere; stage 15, to Aprica; stage 16, to Selva di Val Gardena; and stage 17, to Passo Pordoi. The organizers chose to include one rest day, which was used to transfer the riders from Cagliari to Sorrento. When compared to the previous year's race, the race was 265 km (165 mi) shorter, contained one more rest day, and the same number of individual time trials and split-stages. The race covered 120 km (75 mi) in time trail stages. In addition, this race contained one more stage. The race started on the island of Sardinia for the first time in race history and stayed on the island for three days of racing.
Capodacqua of La Repubblica believed that the route favored a rider that could defend well and put in a good time during the uphill time trial. La Stampa writer Gianni Ranieri felt the two non-uphill time trials would favor Gianni Bugno, while the up-hill time trial could be a place where Claudio Chiappucci could gain time on the field. Pedro Delgado believed the race to be tougher than the Tour de France that same year. The Cima Coppi – the highest point in altitude the race reached – was scheduled to be the Stelvio Pass, but the pass was scrapped from the race and the Passo Pordoi – the next highest mountain – became the new Cima Coppi. The queen stage was thought to be twelfth leg from Savona to Pian del Re as the final climb was 18.5 km (11 mi) at an average gradient of 7.5%. The Pordoi Pass in the seventeenth stage was the highest climb and was crossed twice. A writer for l'Impartial wrote that shorter stages might contain more attacks and general classification impact, specifically the writer stated that the fifteenth stage would be an important stage as it climbed the Mortirolo Pass from the harder side, from Valteline.
## Race overview
During the first stage, Alberto Leanizbarrutia attacked on his own and led the race for 150 km (93 mi) before being caught by the chasing peloton within the final ten kilometers. It then came down to a bunch sprint finish that was so close that it required a photo to determine the winner, Philippe Casado. The next day of racing consisted of a mass-start stage in the morning and an individual time trial in the afternoon. Reigning winner Gianni Bugno won the trans-alpine morning stage ahead of other main contenders. This stage saw the race leader's maglia rosa (English: pink jersey) switch from Casado to Franco Chioccioli. Gianluca Pierobon of ZG Mobili team won the afternoon time trial by five seconds over Spaniard Marino Lejarreta. The following day of racing was the last on the island of Sardinia before the race was transferred to mainland Italy. The day of racing ended with a bunch sprint contested by Adriano Baffi, Mario Cipollini, and Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, of which Cipollini got the best and won.
The fourth leg of the event consisted of five laps on a set circuit of 35 km (22 mi). The stage saw several attacks on the final lap of the course with most being caught by the peloton. Éric Boyer attacked with fifteen kilometers to go in the stage and was able to establish a solid gap between himself and the peloton. Boyer went on to win the stage by twenty-three seconds over the chasing peloton, gaining enough time to earn the race lead. The following day saw the general classification contenders reach the final climb of the day, Mount Godi, together. Chioccioli attacked on the climb and only Lejarreta was able to mark his move. The two rode to the finish together as Boyer led the group of chasing riders to the finish fifty seconds later. Lejarreta won the stage and Chioccioli regained the race lead.
The sixth day of racing was marred by poor weather. General classification contenders Pedro Delgado and Laurent Fignon lost time due to crashing on the descent of Monte Terminillo, while Greg LeMond lost over two minutes. On the final climb of the day, Iñaki Gastón and Leonardo Sierra attacked with eight kilometers to go but were caught by the chasing riders. Gaston attacked again with a kilometer remaining, but was robbed of the stage win as Vladimir Poulnikov overtook him three meters before the finish. Cipollini won the event's seventh leg by means of a field sprint.
The following stage saw a group of nine riders form off the front of the peloton with under twenty kilometers remaining. Despite the best efforts of the chasing peloton, the breakaway group survived and saw Ari-Ceramiche Ariostea's Davide Cassani take the stage by edging out Mario Mantova. Massimo Ghirotto of team attacked with about fifty kilometers to go in the ninth stage. He rode solo and wound up winning the stage, while the general classification remained largely unchanged. The next stage was a 43 km (27 mi) individual time trial that was won by Bugno. He won by margin of eight seconds and moved up into second place overall, a second off the leader Chioccioli.
The eleventh stage was contested in rainy conditions on a winding course. After an unsuccessful breakaway attempt by fifteen riders, Maximilian Sciandri, LeMond, and Michele Coppolillo attacked and formed a group off the front. Sciandri and LeMond crossed the line in first and second, respectively, while Coppolillo was caught by the peloton in the closing meters of the stage. The next day saw the race's first mountain-top finish, to Monviso. The group of main contenders reached the final climb together, with 's Jean-François Bernard launching the first attack which saw him gain a maximum advantage of around thirty seconds. The next to make a serious effort was Lejarreta, who was followed by Chioccioli, Massimiliano Lelli, and Sierra, who attacked with ten kilometers left in the stage. The trio caught up to Bernard and rode as a group to the finish. Lelli took the stage as Chioccioli defended his lead. Bugno lost almost two minutes during the day.
The thirteenth leg of the race featured two ascents of the Alpine mountain Sestriere, the second of which served as the finish for the day. The day began with a breakaway of twelve that was caught before the final climb to Sestriere. The first rider to launch a serious attack on the climb was Pedro Delgado, who was quickly followed by Chioccioli, Lejaretta, Eduardo Chozas, and Chiappucci, meanwhile Bugno was unable to follow their wheels. Chozas managed to win the stage as the group of four finish within four seconds of each other. With twenty kilometers to go in the fourteenth leg, Franco Ballerini, Casado, Juan Martínez Oliver, and Brian Peterson formed a breakaway group. The group managed to stretch out an advantage of almost two minutes as they entered the closing kilometers. Ballerini took the stage victory after he and Casado had managed to distance themselves slightly from the two other breakaway riders. LeMond abandoned the race following the conclusion of the fourteenth stage. The next day, on the ascent of the Mortirolo, race leader Chioccioli attacked and formed a solo attack. He rode the remaining fifty kilometers on his own to the stage victory, with his lead expanding to at most two minutes thirty seconds. He managed to put over a minute into each of his rivals.
The sixteenth saw no major shifts in the general classification. The top five riders in the general classification formed a leading group on the final climb but there were no major moves to create time gaps. Lelli took the stage win after ahead of Bugno. The following day was the last in the Dolomites and saw the ascension of five major climbs, including the Cima Coppi Passo Pordoi. On the second climbing of Pordoi, Chioccioli attacked and rode to the top of the climb to win the stage by thirty-eight seconds. Lejaretta crashed on the day and lost over six and a half minutes, putting him out of contention for the podium and overall victory. Midway through the stage, Fignon abandoned the race. The eighteenth day of racing was a transition stage. Several attempts were made to form a breakaway group before a group of eight were successful in creating a gap. The group was caught with five hundred meters to go by the chasing peloton which was setting up for a field sprint. Silvio Martinello managed to outsprint the likes of Cipollini and Abdoujaparov to win the day.
The nineteenth leg featured only one categorized climb, which Iñaki Gastón won to seal his victory in the mountains classification. The stage saw no major time disparities in the general classification contenders as they finished together, with Bugno taking the stage win. The penultimate stage of the race was a 66 km (41 mi) individual time trial that contained one un-categorized climb within the route. Race leader Chioccioli took the course and at the first time check at 15.5 km (10 mi) he had already put thirty seconds into Bugno. He ended up winning the stage by fifty-seconds over Bugno, thereby extending his lead over the rest of his competitors. The final stage culminated with a bunch sprint that was won by Cipollini. Chioccioli had won the Giro d'Italia for the first time by almost four minutes over the second-place finisher Chiappucci.
Four riders achieved multiple stage victories: Cipollini (stages 3, 7, and 21), Bugno (stages 2a, 10, and 19), Lelli (stages 12 and 16), and Chioccioli (stages 15, 17, and 20). Stage wins were achieved by eight of the twenty competing squads, six of which won multiple stages. Del Tongo-MG Boys Maglificio collected a total of seven stage wins through three riders, Cipollini, Ballerini (stage 14), and Chioccioli. Carrera Jeans-Tassoni earned three stage wins through Poulnikov (stage 6), Ghirotto (stage 9), and Sciandri (stage 11). Ari-Ceramiche Ariostea achieved the same feat through Cassani (stage 8) and Lelli. Chateau d'Ax-Gatorade garnered three stage victories through Bugno. Z amassed a total of two stage victories through Casado (stage 1) and Boyer (stage 4). ONCE gained two stage victories through Lejaretta (stage 5) and Chozas (stage 13). ZG Mobili and Gis Gelati-Ballan each won a single stage at the Giro, the first through Pierobon (stage 2b) and the second through Martinello (stage 18).
## Classification leadership
Five different jerseys were worn during the 1991 Giro d'Italia. The leader of the general classification – calculated by adding the stage finish times of each rider, and allowing time bonuses for the first three finishers on mass-start stages – wore a pink jersey. This classification is the most important of the race, and its winner is considered as the winner of the Giro. The time bonuses for the 1991 Giro were twelve seconds for first, eight seconds for second, and four seconds for third place on the stage. The winner of the general classification received 1.7 million francs.
For the points classification, which awarded a purple (or cyclamen) jersey to its leader, cyclists were given points for finishing a stage in the top 15; additional points could also be won in intermediate sprints. The green jersey was awarded to the mountains classification leader. In this ranking, points were won by reaching the summit of a climb ahead of other cyclists. Each climb was ranked as either first, second or third category, with more points available for higher category climbs. The Cima Coppi, the race's highest point of elevation, awarded more points than the other first category climbs. The Cima Coppi for this Giro was the Passo Pordoi. It was crossed twice by the riders, for the first climbing of the mountain, Italian Franco Vona was the first over the climb, while Franco Chioccioli was first over the second passing. The white jersey was worn by the leader of young rider classification, a ranking decided the same way as the general classification, but only riders born after 1 January 1967 were eligible for it.
The intergiro classification was marked by a blue jersey. The calculation for the intergiro is similar to that of the general classification, in each stage there is a midway point that the riders pass through a point and where their time is stopped. As the race goes on, their times compiled and the person with the lowest time is the leader of the intergiro classification and wears the blue jersey. Although no jersey was awarded, there was also one classification for the teams, in which the stage finish times of the best three cyclists per team were added; the leading team was the one with the lowest total time.
The rows in the following table correspond to the jerseys awarded after that stage was run.
## Final standings
### General classification
### Points classification
### Mountains classification
### Young rider classification
### Intergiro classification
### Team classification |
64,460,460 | Lake Alamosa | 1,149,314,411 | Former lake in Colorado, United States | [
"Alamosa County, Colorado",
"Former lakes of the United States"
]
| Lake Alamosa is a former lake in Colorado. It existed from the Pliocene to the middle Pleistocene in the San Luis Valley, fed by glacial meltwater from surrounding mountain ranges. Water levels waxed and waned with the glacial stages until at highstand the lake (high water level in the lake) reached an elevation of 2,335 meters (7,661 ft) and probably a surface of over 4,000 square kilometers (1,500 sq mi), but only sparse remains of the former waterbody are visible today. The existence of the lake was postulated in the early 19th century and eventually proven in the early 20th century.
The lake eventually overflowed into the Rio Grande river system during the middle Pleistocene. The overflow cut down a valley that eventually drained the lake, leaving only the San Luis Closed Basin as a remnant. The Alamosa Formation is a rock formation left by the lake. Groundwater resources are contained trapped between sediments left by the former lake.
## Description
The lake was in southern Colorado, at high altitude, covering most of the San Luis Valley/San Luis Basin north of the San Luis Hills. It reached an elevation of 2,335 meters (7,661 ft) at highstand. Westwards, Lake Alamosa spread to the San Juan Mountains close to Monte Vista to the west. Northwards, it almost reached the present-day location of Saguache. It was about 105 kilometers (65 mi) long in north-south direction and reached a maximum width of 48 kilometers (30 mi), making it one of North America's largest high elevation lakes, comparable only to the historic Lake Texcoco in Mexico. The surface area may have exceeded 4,000 square kilometers (1,500 sq mi) at highstand. It is likely that some water seeped out of the lake before its final overflow as groundwater.
Saddleback Mountain was an island in Lake Alamosa, and its northern side was swept by waves during storms owing to the lake's long fetch. Additional islands were located in its southern basin; today they are hills. The city of Alamosa and possibly also the town of Center, Colorado are located within the former lake's floor. San Luis Lake presently occupies a small basin in the former lake floor; the basin was previously occupied by a leftover of Lake Alamosa, Lake Sipapu.
Because of the old age of Lake Alamosa, shorelines and shoreline features are often buried or eroded; in many places former shorelines are only highlighted by changes in vegetation patterns or slope angle. Barrier bars, lagoons and spits formed in Lake Alamosa when it reached its highest stand. In particular, two spits at Saddleback Mountain are testimony to the existence of the former lake, and additional large spits formed close to Sierra del Ojito and at the Brownie Hills. Barrier bars dammed creeks which in turn formed lagoons; such lagoon-bar systems are found for example around Trinchera Creek. Wind-eroded rock structures occur along its former southeastern shore.
## Climate
During the glacial times of Lake Alamosa's existence, the basin was colder than today and possibly also drier. The lake was nourished by glacial meltwater coming from the San Juan, Sawatch, and Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Presently, the climate at Alamosa is cold and dry, with mean annual temperatures of 5 °C (41 °F) and mean annual precipitation of 180 millimeters per year (7.1 in/year).
## Geologic history
The San Luis Basin is the largest basin of the Rio Grande Rift and is bordered to the east by a fault. It constitutes an east-tilted half-graben that is subdivided by additional fault systems. Its southern reaches are covered by the volcanic Servilleta Formation. The valley forms the headwaters of the Rio Grande.
Lake Alamosa existed for about 3 million years, from the Pliocene to the middle Pleistocene. Rocks in the San Luis horst stretch across the entire Alamosa Basin and together with 4.8-3.7 million years old basaltic lava flows of the Taos Plateau blocked the basin from draining to the south. Tectonic uplift of the Jemez lineament, tectonic subsidence of the Lake Alamosa area and the emplacement of these lava flows may have obstructed former drainages, but evidence of prior southwards drainage has been found only recently. South of Lake Alamosa an even older lake, Lake Sunshine, occupied the Sunshine Valley during the Pliocene.
Many lakes in western North America are cyclical, becoming deep and large during stadials and shallow and small during interstadials. Lake Alamosa briefly reached elevations of 2,292–2,304 meters (7,520–7,559 ft) at Hansen Bluff four times during its history. According to modelling, ongoing sedimentation in the lake basin would have led to gradually increasing water levels during each stadial over time. Aside from climatic influences, the Bishop Tuff eruption of the Long Valley caldera in California and the Huckleberry Ridge eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera deposited tephra in Lake Alamosa. Sedimentation occurred in the basin floor, although slip along the Sangre de Cristo fault to the east created accumulation space.
### Overflow
It overflowed about 440,000 years ago, when it reached a highstand during oxygen isotope stage 12, one of the major glaciations of the Northern Hemisphere. This date is not firmly established, however, and the overflow might have occurred between 690,000 and 440,000 years ago or after 376,000 years ago. The glaciation was ending at that time, and meltwater from declining glaciers may have helped raise the water levels until the lake overflowed. Continuing uplift in the Southern Rocky Mountains may also have played a role.
Lake Alamosa overflowed through the Costilla Plain into New Mexico, in a gap between the Fairy Hills and the Brownie Hills. From there water would have flowed across the Costilla Plain and the Taos Plateau to join the Rio Grande and Red River west of Questa, New Mexico. Faulting had weakened rocks at the overflow threshold, thus facilitating erosion of the threshold. More than one channel may have been active as overflow path before the flow became focused on the present-day path of the Rio Grande. The water would have reached the Culebra Creek and eventually the Red River at La Junta Point; the Red River constituted the headwater of the Rio Grande during that time. The overflow of Lake Alamosa into the Rio Grande expanded its catchment by about 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 sq mi)-18,000 square kilometers (6,900 sq mi), adding the high, glaciated San Juan Mountains, the upper Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Sawatch Range to its watershed.
Water levels dropped quickly after the overflow began, preventing the formation of the repeated shorelines that are common at shrinking pluvial lakes where the decline in water levels is paced by evaporation. The decline probably was not as quick as during the Bonneville flood of Lake Bonneville, another example of a lake overflow event in North America, as the rocks at Lake Alamosa were more solid and there is no clear indication of a catastrophic overflow flood. Later research has indicated that the downcutting of the outlet may have continued for several hundred thousand years after the initial breach, and was accompanied by an integration of the Rio Grande all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. That the lake drained after groundwater sapping has also been postulated but is less likely.
### After the overflow
After the drainage of the lake the lakefloor was eroded by streams, which redeposited its sediments, and soils formed. The lake would have been replaced by dry lakes and anastomosing stream networks. Creeks cut into the lake floor, forming valleys that later filled with alluvium.
The Alamosa Formation, a geological formation, fills the basin of Lake Alamosa; it represents the deep water deposits of Lake Alamosa. Impermeable deposits of the lake such as the "blue clay" generate groundwater accumulations that are exploited for irrigation purposes. The Verdos Alluvium of the Denver Basin may correlate to certain deposits on the shores of Lake Alamosa.
While it was formerly thought that the Great Sand Dunes were formed from sediments on the floor of Lake Alamosa but later research indicated that these sediments probably played an only minor role. The development of the dunes however certainly post-dated the disappearance of Lake Alamosa as the lake would have impeded the transport of sand across the San Luis Valley.
## Research history
Decades before the region was settled and earlier than other geologic expeditions such as those of John Wesley Powell, in 1811-1812 Jacob Fowler recorded the following: The lake is named after the Alamosa Formation, which in turn received its name from Siebenthal 1910 who in that year postulated the existence of a former lake in the Alamosa Basin. In the same year proof of the existence of the lake was found in well logs.
Later, the geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden in 1875 wrote a more detailed account of the former lake, although he got some details wrong, and proposed the name "Coronado's lakes" for Lake Alamosa and another lake he believed to have existed in the Costilla Plain. It took almost a century after 1910 until a more detailed analysis of the deposits of the former lake - including identifying its former maximum elevation - was possible, however. Most information on the history of Lake Alamosa's water levels has been obtained at the "Bachus pit" gravel pit in Alamosa County, as elsewhere lake deposits have been altered. Both beach and deep-water deposits (from the highstand before overflow) are encountered there. |
7,273,610 | Nursehound | 1,170,204,657 | Species of shark | [
"Commercial fish",
"Fish described in 1758",
"Fish of Europe",
"Fish of the Mediterranean Sea",
"Marine fish of West Africa",
"Scyliorhinus",
"Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus"
]
| The nursehound (Scyliorhinus stellaris), also known as the large-spotted dogfish, greater spotted dogfish or bull huss, is a species of catshark, belonging to the family Scyliorhinidae, found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. It is generally found among rocks or algae at a depth of 20–60 m (66–197 ft). Growing up to 1.6 m (5.2 ft) long, the nursehound has a robust body with a broad, rounded head and two dorsal fins placed far back. It shares its range with the more common and closely related small-spotted catshark (S. canicula), which it resembles in appearance but can be distinguished from, in having larger spots and nasal skin flaps that do not extend to the mouth.
Nursehounds have nocturnal habits and generally hide inside small holes during the day, often associating with other members of its species. A benthic predator, it feeds on a range of bony fishes, smaller sharks, crustaceans, and cephalopods. Like other catsharks, the nursehound is oviparous in reproduction. Females deposit large, thick-walled egg cases, two at a time, from March to October, securing them to bunches of seaweed. The eggs take 7–12 months to hatch. Nursehounds are marketed as food in several European countries under various names, including "flake", "catfish", "rock eel", and "rock salmon". It was once also valued for its rough skin (called "rubskin"), which was used as an abrasive. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed the nursehound as Vulnerable, as its population in the Mediterranean Sea seems to have declined substantially from overfishing.
## Taxonomy
The first scientific description of the nursehound was published by Carl Linnaeus, in the 1758 tenth edition of Systema Naturae. He gave it the name Squalus stellaris, the specific epithet stellaris being Latin for "starry". No type specimen was designated. In 1973, Stewart Springer moved this species to the genus Scyliorhinus. The common name "nursehound" came from an old belief by English fishermen that this shark attends to its smaller relatives, while the name "huss" may have come from a distortion of the word "nurse" over time.
## Distribution and habitat
The nursehound is found in the northeastern Atlantic from southern Norway and Sweden to Senegal, including off the British Isles, throughout the Mediterranean Sea, and the Canary Islands. It may occur as far south as the mouth of the Congo River, though these West African records may represent misidentifications of the West African catshark (S. cervigoni). Its range seems to be rather patchy, particularly around offshore islands, where there are small local populations with limited exchange between them. The nursehound can be found from the intertidal zone to a depth of 400 m (1,300 ft), though it is most common between 20 m (66 ft) and 60–125 m (197–410 ft). This bottom-dwelling species prefers quiet water over rough or rocky terrain, including sites with algal cover. In the Mediterranean, it favors algae-covered coral.
## Description
The nursehound attains a length of 1.6 m (5.2 ft), though most measure less than 1.3 m (4.3 ft). This shark has a broad, rounded head and a stout body that tapers towards the tail. The eyes are oval in shape, with a thick fold of skin on the lower rim but no nictitating membrane. Unlike in the small-spotted catshark, the large flaps of skin beside the nares do not reach the mouth. In the upper jaw, there are 22–27 tooth rows on either side and 0–2 teeth at the symphysis (center); in the lower jaw, there are 18–21 tooth rows on either side and 2–4 teeth at the symphysis. The teeth are Y-shaped and smooth-edged; the anterior teeth have a single central cusp, while the posterior teeth have an additional pair of lateral cusplets. Towards the rear of the jaws, the teeth become progressively smaller and more angled, with proportionately larger lateral cusplets. The five pairs of gill slits are small, with the last two over the pectoral fin bases.
The two dorsal fins are placed far back on the body; the first is larger than the second and originates over the bases of the pelvic fins. The pectoral fins are large. In males, the inner margins of the pelvic fins are merged into an "apron" over the claspers. The caudal fin is broad and nearly horizontal, with an indistinct lower lobe. The skin is very rough, due to a covering of large, upright dermal denticles. The nursehound has small black dots covering its back and sides, interspersed with brown spots of varying shapes larger than the pupil, on a grayish or brownish background. The pattern is highly variable across individuals and ages; there may also be white spots, or the brown spots may be expanded so that almost the whole body is dark, or a series of faint "saddles" may be present. The underside is plain white.
## Biology and ecology
Primarily nocturnal, nursehounds spend the day inside small holes in rocks and swim into deeper water at night to hunt. Sometimes two sharks will squeeze into the same hole, and several individuals will seek out refuges within the same local area. In one tracking study, a single immature nursehound was observed to use five different refuges in succession over a period of 168 days, consistently returning to each one over a number of days before moving on. Nursehounds may occupy refuges to hide from predators, avoid harassment by mature conspecifics, and/or to facilitate thermoregulation. In captivity, these sharks are gregarious and tend to rest in groups, though the individuals comprising any particular group changes frequently. This species is less common than the small-spotted catshark.
The nursehound feeds on a variety of benthic organisms, including bony fishes such as mackerel, deepwater cardinalfishes, dragonets, gurnards, flatfishes, and herring, and smaller sharks such as the small-spotted catshark. It also consumes crustaceans, in particular crabs but also hermit crabs and large shrimp, and cephalopods. Given the opportunity, this shark will scavenge. Adults consume relatively more bony fish and cephalopods, and fewer crustaceans, than juveniles. Known parasites of this species include the monogeneans Hexabothrium appendiculatum and Leptocotyle major, the tapeworm Acanthobothrium coronatum, the trypanosome Trypanosoma scyllii, the isopod Ceratothoa oxyrrhynchaena, and the copepod Lernaeopoda galei. The netted dog whelk (Nassarius reticulatus) preys on the nursehound's eggs by piercing the case and extracting the yolk.
### Life history
Like other members of its family, the nursehound is oviparous. Known breeding grounds include the River Fal estuary and Wembury Bay in England, and a number of coastal sites around the Italian Peninsula, in particular the Santa Croce Bank in the Gulf of Naples. Adults move into shallow water in the spring or early summer, and mate only at night. The eggs are deposited in the shallows from March to October. Although a single female produces 77–109 oocytes per year, not all of these are ovulated and estimates of the actual number of eggs laid range from 9 to 41. The eggs mature and are released two at a time, one from each oviduct. Each egg is enclosed in a thick, dark brown case measuring 10–13 cm (3.9–5.1 in) long and 3.5 cm (1.4 in) wide. There are tendrils at the four corners, that allow the female to secure the egg cases to bunches of seaweed (usually Cystoseira spp. or Laminaria saccharina).
Eggs in the North Sea and the Atlantic take 10–12 months to hatch, while those from the southern Mediterranean take 7 months to hatch. The length at hatching is 16 cm (6.3 in) off Britain, and 10–12 cm (3.9–4.7 in) off France. Newly hatched sharks grow at a rate of 0.45–0.56 mm (0.018–0.022 in) per day, and have prominent saddle markings. Sexual maturity is attained at a length of 77–79 cm (30–31 in), which corresponds to an age of four years if hatchling growth rates remain constant. This species has a lifespan of at least 19 years.
## Human interactions
Nursehounds are generally harmless to humans. However, 19th-century British naturalist Jonathan Couch noted that "although not so formidable with its teeth as many other sharks, this fish is well able to defend itself from an enemy. When seized it throws its body round the arm that holds it, and by a contractile and reversed action of its body grates over the surface of its enemy with the rugged spines of its skin, like a rasp. There are few animals that can bear so severe an infliction, by which their surface is torn with lacerated wounds." This shark is displayed by many public aquariums and has been bred in captivity.
The rough skin (called "rubskin") of the nursehound was once used to polish wood and alabaster, to smooth arrows and barrels, and to raise the hairs of beaver hats as a replacement for pumice. Rubskin was so valued that a pound of it was worth a hundredweight of sandpaper. The liver was also used as a source of oil, and the carcasses cut up and used to bait crab traps. The meat of this species is marketed fresh or dried and salted, though it is considered "coarse" in some quarters. In the United Kingdom, it is one of the species sold under the names "flake", "catfish", "huss" "rock eel" or "rock salmon". In France, it is sold as grande roussette or saumonette, as after being skinned and beheaded it resembles salmon. This species is also sometimes processed into fishmeal, or its fins dried and exported to the Asian market. In European waters, commercial production of this species is led by France, followed by the UK and Portugal; it is caught using bottom trawls, gillnets, bottom set longlines, handlines and fixed bottom nets. In 2004, a total catch of 208 tons was reported from the northeastern Atlantic.
The impact of fishing activities on the nursehound is difficult to assess as species-specific data is generally lacking. This species is more susceptible to overfishing than the small-spotted catshark because of its larger size and fragmented distribution, which limits the recovery potential of depleted local stocks. There is evidence that its numbers have declined significantly in the Gulf of Lion, off Albania, and around the Balearic Islands. In the upper Tyrrhenian Sea, its numbers have fallen by over 99% since the 1970s. These declines have led the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to list the nursehound as Vulnerable. |
2,012,427 | Xavier Mertz | 1,127,435,702 | Swiss explorer, mountaineer, and skier | [
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| Xavier Guillaume Mertz (6 October 1882 – 8 January 1913) was a Swiss polar explorer, mountaineer, and skier who took part in the Far Eastern Party, a 1912–1913 component of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which claimed his life. Mertz Glacier on the George V Coast in East Antarctica is named after him.
While a student, Mertz became active as a skier, competing in national competitions, and as a mountaineer, climbing many of the highest peaks in the Alps. In early 1911, Mertz was hired by geologist and explorer Douglas Mawson for his Antarctic expedition. He was initially employed as a ski instructor, but in Antarctica, Mertz instead joined Belgrave Edward Ninnis in the care of the expedition's Greenland huskies.
In the summer of 1912–1913, Mertz and Ninnis were chosen by Mawson to accompany him on the Far Eastern Party, using the dogs to push rapidly from the expedition's base in Adélie Land towards Victoria Land. After Ninnis and a sledge carrying most of the food disappeared down a crevasse, 311 miles (500 km) from the expedition's main hut, Mertz and Mawson headed back west, gradually using the dogs to supplement their remaining food stocks.
About 100 miles (160 km) from safety, Mertz died, leaving Mawson to carry on alone. The cause of Mertz's death has never been firmly established; the commonly purported theory is hypervitaminosis A—an excessive intake of vitamin A—from consuming the livers of the Huskies. Other theories suggest he may have died from a combination of malnutrition, cold exposure, and psychological stresses.
## Early life
Xavier Mertz was born in Basel, the son of Emile Mertz, who owned a large engineering firm in the city. With the aim of working in the family business, which manufactured textile machinery, Mertz attended the University of Bern, where he studied patent law.
While in Bern, he became active as a mountaineer and skier. Mertz competed in several national competitions; in 1906 he was third in the Swiss cross-country skiing championship, and second in the German championship. In 1908, he won the Swiss ski jumping championship, with a distance of 31 metres (102 ft). As a mountaineer, he was particularly prolific in the Alps; he climbed Mont Blanc—the highest peak in the range—and claimed several first ascents of other mountains.
After he attained his degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Bern, Mertz studied science at the University of Lausanne; he specialised in glacier and mountain formations, for which he received his second doctorate.
## Australasian Antarctic expedition
In early 1911, Mertz went to London to meet with the Australian geologist and explorer Douglas Mawson. Mawson, who had served as physicist during Ernest Shackleton's 1908–1909 Nimrod expedition, was planning his own Antarctic expedition.
In his application letter, Mertz wrote that he hoped Mawson would be using skis, as "they have proved so good for the purpose & knowing that I am as good as any one on skys." While Mawson was intending to recruit only British subjects (chiefly Australians and New Zealanders), Mertz's qualifications prompted him to make an exception, and hire the Swiss as a ski instructor. First, however, he was given responsibility for the expedition's 48 dogs, aboard the expedition ship , bound for Hobart.
On the Aurora, Mertz met Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis, a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers. Like Mertz, Ninnis was responsible for the expedition's dogs; Aurora's captain, John King Davis, regarded the pair as "idlers". "I wish we had some one on board who could look after [the dogs]," he wrote in his diary, "it is a great shame that they should suffer from neglect." On 2 December 1911, after final preparations and loading were completed in Hobart, the Aurora sailed south; she stopped briefly at Macquarie Island, where a wireless relay base was established, and reached the site of the expedition's main base at Cape Denison in Adélie Land, on the Antarctic continent, in early January.
### Adélie Land
Over the following winter, preparations were made for the summer sledging. Because the conditions—constant, strong winds and an excessive slope by the hut—prevented Mertz from conducting skiing lessons as regularly as intended, he focussed instead on helping Ninnis to care for the dogs. On days when the weather was good they drove the dogs around outside the hut, teaching them to run in teams; when the winds returned the pair fitted and sewed harnesses for each dog, and prepared their sledging food. By this time Mertz and Ninnis developed a close friendship, as the expedition's taxidermist Charles Laseron later wrote:
> The two [Mertz and Ninnis] had joined the Expedition together in London, and had been associated longer and in a more intimate manner than any other members of the Expedition. During the winter months we had all been drawn together, but between Mertz and Ninnis there existed a very deep bond. Mertz, in his warm-hearted impulsive way, had practically adopted Ninnis, and his affection was almost maternal. Ninnis, less demonstrative, reciprocated this to the full, and indeed it was hard to dissociate them in our thoughts. It was always 'Mertz and Ninnis' or 'Ninnis and Mertz', a composite entity, each the complement of the other.
In August, the preparations extended to laying depots; an early party established a depot 5.5 miles (8.9 km) to the south of the expedition's main hut—a grotto in the ice known as Aladdin's Cave—but returned without the dogs. Mertz and two others set off to rescue the dogs, but in heavy winds covered less than a mile in two hours, and returned to the hut. "If it depended only on me," Mertz wrote in his diary, after four days' more wind confined them to the hut, "we would be in our sleeping bags outside in the snow, and we would at least try to find the dogs. Mawson is definitely too cautious, and I wonder if he would show enough gumption during the sledging expedition." The following day Mertz was part of a party of three that made it to Aladdin's Cave to rescue the dogs; when strong winds confined them to the depot for three days they spent the time expanding the cave.
In September, Mertz, Ninnis, and Herbert Murphy formed a survey party, man-hauling to the south-east of Aladdin's cave. In strong winds, they travelled just 12.5 miles (20 km) in three days, before the temperature dropped to −34 °C (−29 °F) and the wind speed increased to 90 miles per hour (78 kn), confining them to the tent. When a gap in the wind allowed, they hurried back to the hut.
### Far Eastern Party
On 27 October 1912, Mawson outlined the summer sledging program. Mertz and Ninnis were assigned to Mawson's own party, which would use the dogs to push quickly to the east of the expedition's base in Commonwealth Bay, towards Victoria Land. The party departed Cape Denison on 10 November, heading first to Aladdin's Cave, and from there south-east towards a massive glacier encountered by Aurora on the outward journey. Mertz skied ahead, scouting and providing a lead for the dogs to chase; Mawson and Ninnis manoeuvred the two dog teams behind. They reached the glacier on 19 November; negotiating fields of crevasses, it was crossed in five days. The party made quick progress once on the plateau again, but they soon encountered another glacier, far larger than the first. Despite strong winds and poor light, Mertz, Mawson and Ninnis reached the far side on 30 November.
On 14 December, the party were more than 311 miles (501 km) from the Cape Denison hut. As Mertz skied ahead, singing songs from his student days, Ninnis, the largest sledge and the strongest dog team were lost when they broke through the snow lid of a crevasse. Together with the death of their companion, Mawson and Mertz were now severely compromised; on the remaining sledge they had just ten days' worth of food, and no food for the dogs. They immediately turned back west, gradually using the six remaining dogs to supplement their food supply; they ate all parts of the animals, including their livers.
They initially made good progress, but as they cleared the largest glacier Mertz began to feel ill; he had lost his waterproof overpants on Ninnis' sledge, and in the cold his wet clothes were unable to dry. On 30 December, a day Mawson recorded that his companion was "off colour", Mertz wrote that he was "really tired [and] shall write no more." Mertz's condition deteriorated over the following days—Mawson recorded he was "generally in a very bad condition. Skin coming off legs, etc"—and his illness severely slowed their progress. On 8 January, with the pair about 100 miles (160 km) from the hut, Mawson recorded:
> He [Mertz] is very weak, becomes more and more delirious, rarely being able to speak coherently. He will eat or drink nothing. At 8 pm he raves & breaks a tent pole. Continues to rave & call 'Oh Veh, Oh Veh' [O weh!, 'Oh dear!'] for hours. I hold him down, then he becomes more peaceful & I put him quietly in the bag. He dies peacefully at about 2 am on morning of 8th.
Mawson buried Mertz in his sleeping bag under rough-hewn blocks of snow, along with the remaining photographic plates and an explanatory note. Mawson staggered back into the Cape Denison hut a month later, missing the Aurora by a matter of hours; she had waited for Mertz, Mawson and Ninnis for three weeks until—concerned by the encroaching winter ice—Davis had sailed her out of Commonwealth Bay and back to Australia.
## Legacy
In November 1913, a month before the Aurora returned for the final time, Mawson and the six men remaining at Cape Denison erected a memorial cross for Mertz and Ninnis on Azimuth Hill to the north-west of the main hut. The cross, constructed from pieces of a broken radio mast, was accompanied by a plaque cut from wood from Mertz's bunk. The cross still stands, although the crossbar has required reattaching several times, and the plaque was replaced with a replica in 1986.
The first glacier the Far Eastern Party crossed on the outward journey—previously unnamed—was named by Mawson after Mertz, becoming the Mertz Glacier. At a speaking engagement upon his return to Australia, Mawson praised his dead comrades: "The survivors might have an opportunity of doing something more, but these men had done their all." At another, Mawson said that "Dr. Mertz was a Swiss by birth, but he was a man every Englishman would have liked to have called an Englishman ... He was a man of great feelings, generous—one of Nature's gentlemen." A telegram was sent on behalf of the Australian people to Emile Mertz, condoling him on his "great loss, but congratulating you on your son's imperishable fame."
The cause of Mertz's death is not certain; at the time, it was believed Mertz may have died of colitis. A 1969 study by Sir John Cleland and Ronald Vernon Southcott, of the University of Adelaide, concluded that the symptoms Mawson described—hair, skin and weight loss, depression, dysentery, and persistent skin infections—indicated the men had suffered hypervitaminosis A, an excessive intake of vitamin A. Vitamin A is found in unusually high quantities in the livers of Greenland huskies, of which both Mertz and Mawson consumed large amounts; indeed, as Mertz's condition deteriorated, Mawson may have given him more of the liver to eat, believing it to be more easily digested.
This theory is the most widely accepted, but there have been other theories. Phillip Law, former director of Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions, believed cold exposure could account for Mertz's symptoms. A 2005 article in The Medical Journal of Australia by Denise Carrington-Smith, noting certain sources indicating that Mertz was essentially a vegetarian, suggested that general malnutrition and the sudden change to a predominantly meat diet could have triggered Mertz's illness. Carrington-Smith adds a more hypothetical reason: "the psychological stresses related to the death of a close friend [Ninnis] and the deaths of the dogs he had cared for, as well as the need to kill and eat his remaining dogs".
## See also
- Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration |
36,924,794 | Bessas (magister militum) | 1,151,708,051 | Byzantine army officer | [
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| Bessas (Greek: Βέσσας, before 480 – after 554) was an Eastern Roman general of Gothic origin from Thrace, primarily known for his career in the wars of Justinian I (reigned 527–565). He distinguished himself against the Sassanid Persians in the Iberian War and under the command of Belisarius in the Gothic War, but after Belisarius' departure from Italy he failed to confront the resurgent Goths and was largely responsible for the loss of Rome in 546. Returning east in disgrace, despite his advanced age he was appointed as commander in the Lazic War. There he redeemed himself with the recapture of Petra, but his subsequent idleness led Justinian to dismiss him and exile him to Abasgia.
## Origin
According to the contemporary historian Procopius of Caesarea, Bessas was born in the 470s and hailed from a noble Gothic family long established in Thrace, belonging to those Goths who had not followed Theodoric the Great when he left in 488 to invade Italy, then held by Odoacer. Procopius remarks on his fluency in Gothic, but another contemporary writer, Jordanes, claims that he hailed from the settlement of Castra Martis, comprising Sarmatians, Cemandrians, and certain of the Huns (Getica 265). This evidence has been variously interpreted, with most modern commentators leaning towards a Gothic identity. Nevertheless, according to Patrick Amory, it is impossible from the sources at hand to draw any definite conclusion about his ethnicity. Amory maintains that Bessas was a typical example of the "blurry ethnographic identity" evidenced in 6th-century Balkan populations, especially among the military.
## Career in the east
Very little is known of Bessas' early life and career: he joined the imperial army in his youth and according to Procopius was already "experienced in war" by 503, when the Anastasian War with the Sassanid Persians broke out. He took part in the war as an officer, but nothing is known of his service there. On the other hand, he is probably to be identified with a comes of the same name who was addressed in a letter of the bishop Jacob of Serugh (d. 521). If this identification is valid, then Bessas was a (probably moderate) Monophysite.
Bessas reappears in 531, during the Iberian War against Persia, when he was appointed dux Mesopotamiae, with Martyropolis as his base. In this capacity, Bessas led 500 cavalry against the Persian force guarding the same frontier sector, comprising 700 infantry and cavalry under the generals Gadar and Yazdgerd. The Byzantines engaged the Persians in battle on the banks of the Tigris and routed them, killing Gadar and taking Yazdgerd captive. Bessas then raided the province of Arzanene and returned to Martyropolis. In retaliation for this Byzantine success, the Persian shah Kavadh I sent against Martyropolis a large army commanded by three senior generals, Bawi, Mihr-Mihroe and Chanaranges. The Persians besieged the city through the autumn, digging trenches and mines, but the garrison, under Bessas and Bouzes, held firm. Finally, the approach of winter, the arrival of large Byzantine forces at nearby Amida, and the news of the death of Kavadh forced the Persian commanders to raise the siege (in November or December). Soon after their withdrawal, a force of Sabir Huns, who the Persians had hired as mercenaries, invaded Roman territory and raided as far as Antioch, but Bessas caught one of their raiding parties and destroyed it, capturing 500 horses and much booty.
## Actions in Italy
In 535, Bessas was appointed as one of Belisarius' lieutenants (along with Constantine and Peranius) in the expedition against the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy. He accompanied Belisarius in the early stages of the campaign, from the recovery of Sicily to the siege of Naples, and was present at the latter's fall in November 536. From there the Byzantine army advanced on Rome, which it captured without a fight. Belisarius sent Constantine and Bessas to capture various outlying towns, but when he learned that the new Gothic king, Witiges, was marching on Rome, he recalled them. Bessas tarried for a while near the town of Narni, which controlled the direct route from the Gothic capital, Ravenna, over the Apennines to Rome, and there met and defeated the Gothic vanguard in a skirmish.
During the year-long siege of Rome by the Goths, Bessas commanded the troops at the Porta Praenestina gate and distinguished himself in a number of skirmishes. Nothing is known of his role in the subsequent events until 540, except that it was probably at about this time that he was raised to the rank of patricius. In early 538, Bessas had protected Belisarius when the general Constantine tried to kill him during a dispute, but by 540, when Belisarius was preparing to enter Ravenna under pretense of accepting the Gothic offer to become Emperor of the West, he clearly felt that Bessas could not be trusted, and sent him, along with other troublemaking generals such as John and Narses, to occupy remote locations in Italy.
Following the departure of Belisarius in mid-540, Bessas remained in Italy. Justinian did not appoint an overall commander to replace Belisarius, and as a result the various Byzantine generals left in Italy failed to co-ordinate their actions. Instead of subduing the last remnants of the Ostrogoths in northern Italy, they retreated to the safety of various fortified cities, allowing the Goths to gather around a new leader, Ildibad. Ildibad marched on Treviso and routed a Byzantine force under Vitalius, whereupon Bessas advanced with his troops to Piacenza. In late 541, after Totila had become king of the Goths, Bessas and the other Byzantine commanders assembled in Ravenna to co-ordinate their efforts, but the imperial troops were repulsed from Verona and defeated at Faventia by Totila's Goths. The Goths then invaded Tuscany and threatened Florence, held by the general Justin. Bessas, along with John and Cyprian, marched to Justin's aid. The Goths retreated before the Byzantine reinforcements, but as the latter pursued, the Goths fell upon them and drove them to flight. After this new defeat the Byzantine commanders dispersed again to various cities and abandoned each other to his fate. Bessas withdrew with his forces to Spoleto.
Nothing is known of his activities from then until early 545, by which time he was the garrison commander of Rome. Along with the general Conon he was responsible for the city's defence during the siege by Totila in 546. During the siege he restricted himself to passive defence, refusing to sally forth from the walls even when Belisarius, who had returned from the east and landed with reinforcements at the nearby Portus Romanus, ordered him to do so. As a result, Belisarius' attempts to succour the beleaguered city failed. Procopius heavily criticizes Bessas for his conduct during the siege. He neglected of the civilian population of the city and enriched himself by selling the starving populace the grain he had hoarded at exorbitant prices. The civilians were so exhausted by famine that when he finally allowed those who wanted to leave the city to do so, many simply died on the wayside, while others were killed by the Goths. Finally, he proved negligent in the conduct of the defence, and allowed security measures to grow lax: guards slept at their posts, and patrols were discontinued. This allowed four Isaurian soldiers to contact Totila, and on 17 December 546, the city was betrayed to the Goths. Bessas managed to escape with the greater part of the garrison, but the treasure that he had amassed was left behind for the Goths to enjoy. Following his dismal performance in Italy, Bessas was apparently recalled to Constantinople.
## Return to the eastern front and command in Lazica
Bessas re-appears in 550, following the failure of a large Byzantine army under the magister militum per Armeniam Dagisthaeus to capture the strategic fortress of Petra in the ongoing war with the Persians over Lazica (western Georgia). To general surprise—and considerable criticism, in view of his advanced age and failure at Rome—Justinian named Bessas as Dagisthaeus' successor and entrusted him with the conduct of the war in Lazica.
Bessas first sent an expeditionary force to suppress a rebellion among the Abasgians, who neighboured Lazica to the north, and had called upon Sasanian assistance. The expedition, under John Guzes, was successful, and the Abasgian leader Opsites was forced to flee across the Caucasus to the Sabir Huns. In spring 551, after a long siege and thanks largely to his own perseverance and bravery, the Byzantines and their Sabir allies (some 6,000 troops) captured Petra. A few Persians continued to resist from the citadel, but Bessas ordered it torched. Following his victory, he ordered the city walls razed to the ground.
If the capture of Petra redeemed Bessas in the eyes of his contemporaries, his subsequent actions tarnished it again: instead of following up his success and capture the mountain passes connecting Lazica with the Persian province of Iberia, he retired west to the Roman provinces of Pontica and busied himself with its administration. This inactivity allowed the Persians under Mihr-Mihroe to consolidate Persian control over the eastern part of Lazica. The Byzantine forces in Lazica withdrew west to the mouth of the Phasis, while the Lazi, including their king Gubazes and his family, sought refuge in the mountains. Despite enduring harsh conditions in the winter of 551–552, Gubazes rejected the peace offers conveyed by envoys from Mihr-Mihroe. In 552, the Persians received substantial reinforcements, but their attacks on the fortresses held by the Byzantines and the Lazi were repulsed.
Bessas reappears in the campaign of 554, when he was appointed joint commander in Lazica with Martin, Bouzes and Justin. They retreated before a Persian assault under Mihr-Mihroe against their bases in Telephis–Ollaria. Gubazes soon protested to Justinian about the incompetence of the Byzantine generals. Bessas was dismissed, his property was confiscated, and he was sent in exile among the Abasgians. Following his removal, Bessas was lost to history. |
9,314,592 | Zoe Carpenter | 1,173,214,800 | UK soap opera character, created 2006 | [
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"Television characters introduced in 2006"
]
| Zoe Carpenter is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Zoë Lister. The character first appeared on-screen on 1 September 2006, as one of three new students at Hollyoaks Community College. It was announced in 2009 that Lister had quit her role in order to pursue other projects; she subsequently left the series in January 2010. During Zoe's time in Hollyoaks she has been portrayed as a bubbly tomboy who often makes the wrong choices in life and has had a number of failed relationships. In March 2017, it was reported that Lister would be reprising the role and it was later confirmed that she would return for Amy Barnes' (Ashley Slanina-Davies) funeral. Her return aired on 24 April 2017.
Zoe has been involved in storylines including being stalked, entering a relationship with an older man, having sexual relations with her female best friend, being wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) and the being victim of a stabbing. Lister's portrayal saw her nominated for the "Sexiest Female" award at the 2008 British Soap Awards, and also attracted critical praise for her exit storyline.
## Development
### Casting
Actress and dancer Zoë Lister was cast in the role of Zoe. On 8 June 2009, media entertainment website Digital Spy revealed that Lister had quit the soap and would leave towards the end of the year. Speaking of her decision to quit, Lister stated: "It's scary but also very, very exciting. I think three years in a soap is enough to do and you get to a point where you either make a decision that this is what you do or you want to try something different." She also revealed that she had been planning to leave the series one year prior to announcement. Lister's decision to quit matched that of co-star Loui Batley (Sarah Barnes). Hollyoaks officially announced on 23 July 2009 that both Lister and Batley would leave towards the end of the year in a storyline that would see "A tragic curtain call for one of them", later revealing that either Sarah or Zoe would be killed off in a dramatic storyline. Lister also revealed in an interview with Heat magazine that she was "nervous", but "very excited" about leaving the show.
Almost a year after filming her final scenes, Lister explained that she felt her exit was the right choice, saying: "It felt it was time to go so I just ran with my instincts. Looking back, I was nervous but now I know I've done the right thing. I love theatre work. It gives me such a buzz. [Hollyoaks] was the break I'd been praying for. I threw myself into the part and enjoyed every minute of it. I had three superb years and it was brilliant."
### Characterisation
Zoe is a former student at Hollyoaks Community College, where she studied Film Studies. Channel 4 publicity describe Zoe as "the bubbly student" and make note of her many bad choices in life and failed relationships. Discussing these failed relationships, Lister commented during an interview in June 2009 that she believed her character was having a break from men in order to sort out her problems: "I think she's been in and out of so many relationships and her life is at a bit of a juncture; she probably needs to sort her head out, sort her career, knuckle down really and not get bogged down into a relationship because everything takes a backseat when you're in one."
Zoe is also portrayed as having a tomboy persona. Lister was asked about this "tomboy" personality during an interview with Maxim magazine, agreeing with the label and stating her character doesn't "glam up" as much as the other Hollyoaks characters. Maxim also noted the character was "pretty popular with the boys". Lister has also commented that her character is not a stereotypical dizzy blonde, reiterated her character's tomboy status and added that she is a "very street-smart type of woman."
### Early storylines
One of Zoe's first and main storylines was being stalked by fellow student Will Hackett (Oliver Farnworth). Lister later commented on the storyline, deciding it was her most memorable: "The most memorable for me was the one with my weird boyfriend Will who stalked me. Like I said, it was a bit weird, but I quite liked it as a storyline." During a fire safety promotion undertaken with co-star Lena Kaur, who plays Leila Roy, Lister referenced the storyline, commenting: "It's much easier to test your smoke alarm once a week and plan your escape from fire than it is to escape from a psycho!".
In early 2008 during an interview with Digital Spy, Lister expressed her feelings on the subject of lesbian storylines, stating: "I'd definitely do a lesbian love scene in Hollyoaks. That would be a really good story." It was later confirmed by Channel 4 that Lister's character would be involved in a sexual relationship with Sarah during the new late night series Hollyoaks Later. After the screening of the scenes, Lister explained: "It was quite nerve-wracking actually as I'm good friends with Loui — it's quite a strange thing to smooch a really good friend so we had to get over the giggles and think 'right, just do it!'" Also commenting on her worries about the scenes, she said: "I thought it was hilarious! I thought it'd be interesting, though. I was obviously quite worried about them. Loui [Batley] and I chatted a lot when we found out that it was going to be in the late-night eps and we were wondering 'oh no, what does this mean?!' But in the end, they weren't graphic or anything like that, so it was fine." She continued: "It was completely mental filming them. Loui and I just had a massive attack of the giggles. I think the crew were more embarrassed than we were! We were kind of ignored for the day."
Speaking to entertainment news website Digital Spy about Sarah and Zoe's relationship, Lister explained: "I don't think they do have feelings for each other in that way. Last year happened and Zoe put it down to history and experience — one of those things that teenagers get up to occasionally and she was quite happy to leave it there. They've got through a lot and their relationship is really quite special. There's a lot of love there but Zoe's not got anything sexual for Sarah — it's purely a deep friendship." Meanwhile, Batley said: "I think that for Sarah, Zoe's the best friend she's ever had — a lot of people in her life have let her down but Zoe's her rock. Even though they've had their fall-outs, she's always been there for her and she loves her as a friend. I think Zoe feels the same. But for Sarah it's something more — she completely relies on her and that turns into love for her as well."
### Imprisonment and exit
After the announcement of Lister's departure, it was that revealed Loui Batley, who played Sarah Barnes, would also leave the show in a tragic skydiving death, caused by a jealous Lydia Hart (Lydia Kelly). Before the skydiving plot aired, Lister explained the storyline during an interview with Sky TV, stating that at the time Lydia severed a parachute to end her own life, later deciding to cut Zoe's parachute so she could have Sarah to herself, further explaining that viewers were not permitted to know who would have parachute after they became mixed up in the storyline's dramatic twist. Speaking on how Zoe's relationship with Sarah causes Lydia to commit her actions, Lister stated:
Lister explained that she and her fellow cast members filmed on many locations, including army barracks. They filmed at Tatenhill Airfield, where staff had been told to remain secretive about the storyline. She also revealed that she was the only cast member out of her, Batley and Kelly who performed the aired skydiving for real. A Hollyoaks producer released two pictures of funeral wreaths, one reading 'Zoe' and the other 'Sarah', in order to confuse viewers further as to whom the victim would be. On-screen after the skydive and Sarah's subsequent death, Lydia framed Zoe for the murder she committed, leading to her arrest.
Speaking of Sarah's death and Zoe's false imprisonment, Lister stated: "She's in a very difficult place. She's lost her best friend and there's so much history there and she's finished her degree — well she didn't even finish her degree, she failed that — so she's in a limbo land anyway. She's working silly jobs and she's not in a very good place at all in any aspect of her life. Oh, and she's in prison on suspicion of murder..." When asked during another interview with Digital Spy about how the character is coping with being in prison, Lister stated: "Not very well! It's all completely overwhelming for her. She can't get her head around the fact that her best friend's dead and the fact that she's being accused of murdering her is ridiculous. She's worried that because it's got this far its ludicrous, so who's to say that she won't be sent down?"
When the character was ultimately found not guilty and was released, Lister stated in an interview with E4: "I think this is a great storyline, I've really enjoyed doing it. When Zoe's obviously released, it's like a whole new scenario for her because there are people who haven't really trusted her or believed in her. People that have really let her down, and plus the fact she hasn't got over Sarah [...] being killed yet either. She hasn't had the chance to deal with that, so that's really interesting, and she still wants Lydia to go down!" The character of Zoe then set out to expose Lydia as Sarah's killer. She befriended her, and even seduced her in order to gain a confession. During an interview about Zoe's new scheme, Lister said:
Lister continued, "It all gets really messy from here! Because Lydia's really deranged, Lydia starts thinking that because she loved Sarah and Sarah loved Zoe, if she gets with Zoe, that'll be the final piece in the puzzle and it'll all work out." She explained: "Lydia starts becoming obsessed with Zoe and to keep control, Zoe has to go with it. There's a point where Lydia kisses her! And then Mike walks in and kicks Zoe out."
Lydia discovered Zoe's true intentions for befriending her, and set out to take revenge. In a second interview with E4, Lister stated: "I was really surprised when I learned about Zoe's 'master plan' to get Lydia to confess because I think after everything that Zoe's been through [...] the last thing she wants to do is ever see Lydia again, let alone try and make friends with her! But that is her only way, so I think it's really interesting." She continued: "The fight and the chase stuff with Lydia in the graveyard was really good, we filmed it at night. I was dressed as Madonna. We were in a cemetery, it was brilliant!..."
The culmination of the plot saw Lydia stab Zoe. The storyline was described as a "brutal attack" and at the time producers refused to reveal if Zoe would survive. Describing the terror Lydia causes for Zoe, a spokesperson for the serial stated: "Zoe can’t believe it when Lydia admits the parachute was meant for her. As soon as she realises Lydia wanted her dead she tries to run. That’s when Lydia pulls out a knife and stabs her." This led to a fight between Lydia and Charlotte who arrives with Dave Colburn (Elliot James Langridge). They both fight to grab the knife while an unconscious Zoe bleeds, ultimately leading to the arrest of Lydia when the police arrive. She is later charged with the murder of Sarah and the attempted murder of Zoe. Several weeks after the character was stabbed, she was seen feeling as if no one wanted to be in her company. After three of her longtime friends snubbed her ideas to make a fresh start elsewhere, ultimately she was she went travelling with her former boyfriend Mike Barnes (Tony Hirst) and Gilly Roach (Anthony Quinlan).
## Storylines
### Backstory
Born in 1987 to Graham (Paul Clarkson) and Christine Carpenter (Race Davies), Zoe is the older sister of Archie Carpenter (Stephen Beard). During her time at secondary school, Zoe was overweight and self-conscious. She sought comfort in her teacher and fell in love. The pair began an affair, which was never discovered. While at school, Zoe also had a relationship with Joe Spencer (Matt Millburn), who had arrived in Hollyoaks as a student three years before her arrival.
### 2006–2010
Zoe arrives as a new student at the college, studying Film Studies. She eventually grows closer to her ex-boyfriend Joe. Zoe, Kris Fisher (Gerard McCarthy), Joe and Olivia Johnson (Rochelle Gadd) are in The Dog in the Pond public house when Sam Owen (Louis Tamone) sets it on fire. Zoe escapes but Joe and Olivia die. Zoe has a one-night stand with Zak Ramsey (Kent Riley). After rejecting the advances of Will Hackett (Oliver Farnworth) and entering a relationship with Will, Zoe is abused and manipulated by him. He stops Zoe from leaving to study in New York City, resorting to stealing her passport and breaking her hand. He spies on her via webcam, and drugs her, making it look like a suicide attempt. When Zoe discovers that Will has been spying on her, he ties her up on the college roof and confesses his love for her. Will eventually lets Zoe go and is arrested. A traumatised Zoe leaves to stay with her parents.
Zoe starts a relationship with Darren Osborne (Ashley Taylor Dawson). When Darren's stepmother, Frankie Osborne (Helen Pearson), fosters a seven-year-old child called Daisy, Zoe gets on well with her and is angry when Darren has her sent away. Zoe ends their relationship, although they go on to reconcile. Darren becomes addicted to gambling and begins to steal Zoe's money. Darren has sex with Jessica Harris (Jennifer Biddall) after they win at a casino. When Zoe discovers this, she ends their relationship again, though helps him through his gambling addiction.
Sarah Barnes (Loui Batley) invites Zoe to move in with her, however her father Mike Barnes (Tony Hirst) is angry to find Zoe using Sarah's sister Amy's (Ashley Slanina-Davies) bedroom. When Mike's wife, Kathy (Sarah Jane Buckley), begins to suspect an affair between Zoe and Mike, and throws all Zoe's clothes out into the street. Mike then asks Kathy to move out. He and Zoe sleep together, unknowingly recorded by Amy's boyfriend Ste Hay (Kieron Richardson), who exposes them. Sarah lashes out at Mike and Zoe. She flaunts her older boyfriend Roger Kiddle (Quentin Tibble) in Mike's face, which backfires when Roger makes a pass at Zoe and they become an official couple. Sarah is able to forgive Zoe, and comforts her when she has a pregnancy scare. Mike is very upset about the idea of Zoe being pregnant.
Zoe visits her old school with Sarah and Nancy Hayton (Jessica Fox), recalling her relationship with her former teacher. She and Sarah get drunk and sleep together, which they both regret and agree to keep quiet. Their one-night stand is later revealed, however, leaving Mike devastated. He throws them both out, before realising how much he loves Zoe and offering to take her back, only for her to refuse. When Archie destroys Zoe's film project, essential for her graduation, lecturer Adrian P. Kennedy (Richard Lawrence) gives her an extension. Zoe finds a script belonging to Mike which he wrote 20 years ago about his decision to give Sarah up for adoption. Zoe uses the script and films it, and Adrian screens it in the SU Bar. At the screening, Sarah discovers the planned adoption and is in turmoil. Mike goes to see Adrian to tell him of the plagiarism. Adrian says that if she sleeps with him, he will not tell the university. Zoe considers Adrian's offer but later claims she would rather be a failure than sleep with him, leading to him failing her project. Zoe then has a brief relationship with Natty (Danny Tennant).
Zoe goes on a parachute jump with Sarah, Fernando Fernandez (Jeronimo Best), Steph Cunningham (Carley Stenson) and Gilly Roach (Anthony Quinlan). Sarah's ex-girlfriend, Lydia Hart (Lydia Kelly) appears and is jealous of Sarah and Zoe's friendship. Lydia lies to Zoe, telling her that Sarah had attempted suicide after their affair the previous year, and warns her to stay away from Sarah. That night, Sarah and Zoe get drunk and return to their tent, where Sarah makes a pass at Zoe. Sarah reveals that whilst she had not intended to kiss her, Zoe was the only person she had ever been able to rely upon. Zoe and Sarah later discover Lydia's lies and Sarah decides to end their relationship for good during a discussion with Zoe. Lydia overhears the conversation and sabotages Zoe's parachute before the jump in an attempt to kill her. When the parachutes are mixed up by accident, Zoe's deploys successfully, but Sarah falls to her death. Upset, Zoe ends up sleeping with a grieving Mike for comfort. Lydia slits her wrists after planting the knife she had sabotaged the parachute with behind Zoe's bed. Zoe is then arrested in front of Mike under suspicion of Sarah's murder and is later charged.
Mike visits Zoe in prison, despite Lydia manipulating him, and Zoe is able to convince him that she was not to blame for Sarah's death. During her trial, Mike tells the court he believes his daughter committed suicide, and Zoe is found not guilty and is released. She then decides to expose Lydia as Sarah's killer. Zoe moves in with Mike and Lydia, and tells Lydia that her feelings towards her have changed. The pair share a kiss, just as Mike and Amy walk in. Mike then tells Zoe to leave. Lydia discovers that Zoe is using her, and plots revenge. On New Year's Eve, she gets Zoe to meet her in a church, so they can admit their "relationship" to Sarah. Zoe initially goes along with this, but then changes her mind, runs out and is knocked unconscious. Zoe is able to get a confession from Lydia, before running away again. She is startled to see Sarah's grave for the first time. Lydia finds Zoe and stabs her as Charlotte Lau (Amy Yamazaki), Dave Colburn (Elliot James Langridge) and Mike arrive. Mike then cradles Zoe as he calls an ambulance.
Zoe recovers, and after inspiration from Hannah Ashworth (Emma Rigby), she decides to go travelling, along with Kris and Zak. Kris and Zak change their minds, however, due to their friends Nancy and Michaela McQueen (Hollie-Jay Bowes). Zoe plans to leave herself, but as she packs her belongings to leave, Mike is convinced to join her. Zoe, Mike and Gilly say their goodbyes and leave the village. In August, six months after leaving the village, Zoe makes Zak and Kris Fisher (Gerard McCarthy) an offer to come to London and help her organise a party for a rich person.
In April 2017, Zoe returns to the village with Mike and Kathy for Amy's funeral. When Kathy arrives at Ryan Knight's (Duncan James) house, she argues with Mike over allowing Zoe to attend Amy's funeral.
## Reception
In 2008, Lister's role as Zoe saw her nominated for the "Sexiest Female" award at The British Soap Awards, however she lost to co-star Roxanne McKee. Lister was asked in an interview if she was disappointed to not win the award. She replied: "Not at all! It was lovely to be nominated, and also a bit hilarious, but beyond that, I wasn't desperate to win. I really wasn't bothered! I was more than happy that Roxanne [McKee] won it — and I guessed she might do anyway." When Zoe's affair with Mike Barnes (Tony Hirst) began, there was some controversy over the storyline, due to the age gap between the pair. However, Hirst stated: "I think the controversy has subsided somewhat. It's not an illicit affair, it's known about now. It was shocking to some people at the beginning but it wasn't by any means illegal. There were some complications but they are both grown-ups!" The parachute stunt won 'Spectacular Scene Of The Year' at the 2010 British Soap Awards. At the 2010 Inside Soap Awards the storyline gained nominations in the category of "Best Stunt". Kris Green of Digital Spy described the skydive as one of the best stunts he had seen in a long time, commenting that Zoe's reaction to Sarah's death made him shed a tear, and that the episode on a whole was "amazing". The parachute stunt won 'Spectacular Scene Of The Year' at the 2010 British Soap Awards. Asian News International included Sarah and Zoe second on their top ten "girl-on-girl kisses on TV" list.
Grace Dent of The Guardian commented on the realism of Zoe's storyline involving Adrian stating: "hapless Zoe failed her exams after refusing to shag dismal tutor Adrian. Predatory lecturers taking advantage of gullible women? Actually, that's a plot line I can get my head around. The problem with being an academic perv these days is that one day sooner or later, the truth will out." Lesbian culture website AfterEllen.com opined "she doesn't seem like the type of woman to give up without a fight" where Sarah and Mike are concerned. They also branded her storyline "scandalous" and said "It appears that in the UK, some television writers actually pay attention to what their actors want." This was in response to Lister suggesting the storyline. |
32,767,659 | Nakhichevan uezd | 1,170,363,144 | null | [
"Geographic history of Azerbaijan",
"History of Nakhchivan",
"Uezds of Erivan Governorate"
]
| The Nakhichevan uezd was a county (uezd) of the Erivan Governorate of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. It bordered the governorate's Sharur-Daralayaz uezd to the north, the Zangezur uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate to the east, and Iran to the south. The uezd's administrative center was the city of Nakhichevan (present-day Nakhchivan).
The county was mostly mountainous and devoid of industry beyond salt plantations. Before the Russian Revolution it was home to more than 81,200 Muslims who formed the majority of the population, and a significant minority of 54,200 Armenians who would later be massacred or displaced during the Armenian–Azerbaijani war of 1918–1920.
Originally formed from the Nakhichevan Khanate, the Nakhichevan uezd was part of the Armenian Oblast and later the governorate of Erivan. Shortly after the Bolshevik coup, the district fell under the control of the invading Ottoman army (and was briefly annexed by the Treaty of Batum) until the latter's withdrawal in late 1918—In the wake of the retreat, the district came under the control of local Muslims between 1919 and 1920, with brief periods of Armenian control in the middle of each year, ending with region's takeover by the 11th Army of Soviet Russia. Finally, the district was transformed into the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan and later partitioned with Armenia (forming parts of the latter's Syunik and Vayots Dzor provinces) whilst part of the Transcaucasian SFSR.
## History
### Background
The topography of the uezd was mainly mountainous with most of the lowland located along the Aras river. The highest peaks of the uezd (Kambil at 11,188 feet (3,410 m); Damara-dag at 11,090 feet (3,380 m); and Mount Kaputjukh at 12,855 feet (3,918 m)) were located along the Karabakh Range, which made up the eastern boundary with the Elizavetpol Governorate. Kyuki-dag at 10,282 feet (3,134 m) rose from the Sharur-Daralayaz uezd in the north. The left tributaries of the Aras (the Nakhichevan-chay, Alinja-chay, and Gilan-chay) flowed through the territory of the uezd. The population of the uezd was primarily engaged in cattle breeding and gardening, especially in the Ordubad area. There were practically no industrial plants or factories, but there were however salt plantations which produced approximately 250,000 pounds of salt per annum.
The subcounties (uchastoks) of the Nakhichevan uezd in 1913 were as follows:
### Russian rule and World War I
The Nakhichevan uezd, based in the city Nakhichevan, was originally one of the territorial administrative subunits of the Armenian Oblast in 1828–1840, created after its annexation into the Russian Empire in 1828 through the Treaty of Turkmenchay. The territory of the uezd roughly corresponded to the defunct Nakhichevan Khanate and was the site of large-scale Armenian repatriation from Iran, which was across the Aras river to the south.
In 1844, the Caucasus Viceroyalty was reestablished, in which the Nakhichevan uezd briefly formed part of the Tiflis Governorate before its transfer to the newly established Erivan Governorate in 1849. The new governorate in addition to Nakhichevan also included the uezds of Erivan, Alexandropol, Nor Bayazet and Ordubad, however, the latter was later abolished in 1868 and incorporated into the south of the Nakhichevan and Zangezur uezds, the latter continuing to border Nakhichevan from the east. Not long after, further administrative reforms resulted in the separation of the northern part of the Nakhichevan uezd corresponding to the present-day Sharur District of Azerbaijan and the Vayots Dzor Province of Armenia to form the Sharur-Daralayaz uezd in 1870—bordering Nakhichevan from the north.
On 3 March 1918, in accordance with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Russian SFSR ceded the Kars and Batum oblasts to the Ottoman Empire who had been unreconciled with its loss of those territories (which they referred to as Elviye-i Selase [tr]) since 1878. Despite the resistance of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic which had initially rejected the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the Ottoman Third Army was successful in occupying the oblasts, and going on to expand into the western districts of the Erivan and Tiflis governorates, including the Nakhichevan uezd. These additional territorial gains were confirmed through the Treaty of Batum with the individual South Caucasus republics.
### Republic of Aras
As stipulated in the Mudros Armistice, the Ottoman Empire was compelled to withdraw its armies from the Erivan and Tiflis governorates, thus withdrawing to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk boundaries. One of the commanders of the occupying army, Yukub Shevki, sponsored the creation of the Republic of Aras in the occupied Erivan districts, providing it with moral support, weapons, and instructors.
Following the conclusion of the 2-week Armeno-Georgian war, Armenia repositioned its forces to annex the Republic of Aras, however, their advance into the district was halted on 18 January 1919 by Captain F. E. Laughton who established a local British military governorship in the district. On 26 January 1919, the governorship was confirmed by the British military headquarters based in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi) as a means to prevent ethnic clashes between Armenian soldiers and local Muslims of up to "ten thousand well-armed men".
The British sympathy to the Aras Republic was later reversed when Major-General William M. Thomson became the highest-ranking officer in the South Caucasus—believing that Pan-Turkism was influential in the region, especially in consideration of the presence of Azerbaijani and Ottoman agents Samed Bey and Colonel Halil Bey, respectively. Thomson believed that they were scheming to "forge a bridge between the Ottoman Empire and Azerbaijan and ultimately between Nationalist Turkey and Soviet Russia." Following the British announcement of the dissolution of the governorship and the plans to annex the region to Armenia, Gevorg Varshamyan [hy] was selected to become the first governor of the district.
Armenia's formal annexation of Nakhichevan was officially declared on 3 May 1919, after which Armenian forces commanded by Drastamat Kanayan and accompanied by British representative General K. M. Davie advanced southward into the district along the railway. When the force had reached Davalu (present-day Ararat), Thomson ordered them to stop, believing that Armenia was encouraging the defiance of Zangezur in refusing to submit to British–Azerbaijani authority in a "severe breach of faith". The restriction Thomson had placed was later revoked after acting prime minister Alexander Khatisian met him in Tiflis to assure him that the Armenians of Zangezur were acting independently of the Armenian government. On 13 May 1919, when Armenian forces had advanced to Bashnorashen (present-day Sharur), Khatisian arrived in Nakhichevan and met the minister of war of the Aras Republic, Kalb Ali Khan Nakhichevansky [ru], after which the Aras Republic effectively capitulated.
### Anti-Armenian uprising
Despite the apparent defeat of the Ottoman Empire, agents of the Turkish National Movement were reported to be fostering rebellion amongst the Muslims of Nakhichevan, eventually culminating in a large-scale anti-Armenian uprising in July 1919. Fearing retaliation by the Volunteer Army, Azerbaijan did not openly intervene to assist the Nakhichevan rebels, however, on 14 July they provided covert assistance. On 20 July, a pogrom began against the Armenian inhabitants of the city of Nakhichevan—within a few days, the Armenian administration was completely ousted and its Armenian inhabitants expelled. As the uprising spread throughout the Nakhichevan uezd, Armenians in Jugha (present-day Gülüstan) were forced to escape across the Aras river into Iran. Some 6,000 Armenians from Nakhichevan living in the Ararat Valley managed to escape to Daralayaz, Nor Bayazet, and Zangezur (present-day Vayots Dzor, Gegharkunik and Syunik provinces, respectively). During the uprising, Halil Bey coordinated the destruction of 45 Armenian villages and the massacre of 10,000 of their inhabitants, including the destruction of the large Armenian town of Agulis (present-day Yuxarı Əylis) and its 1,400 inhabitants. In late 1919, Samed Bey complained to the Azerbaijani government about the presence of Iranian agents trying to bring refugees from Nakhichevan into Iran.
Some months after the Sovietization of Azerbaijan on 18 June 1920, Armenia issued an ultimatum to the rebels of Zangibasar (present-day Masis) some 15 kilometers southwest of Yerevan to submit to Armenian rule. Not expecting that the ultimatum would be answered, the Armenian army launched an offensive to recapture the rebelling districts on 19 June. In the fight for Zangibasar, Lieutenant Aram Kajaznuni, the son of the first prime minister of Armenia was killed, however, the Armenians won the battle on 21 June, with the local Muslims consisting mainly of Tatars fleeing to Aralikh (present-day Aralık) in the neighbouring Surmalu uezd to avoid retribution. After the battle, volunteer detachments consisting of Armenian refugees from the Aresh and Nukha uezds of Azerbaijan looted the abandoned homes.
The militarists in the Armenian government were strengthened by the success in Zangibasar, hence, they prepared to move against the rebels of Vedibasar (present-day southern Ararat Province) and Nakhichevan; the advance into the former began on 11 July and by the next day, Armenian forces had captured the district and reached the boundary of the Erivan and Sharur-Daralayaz uezds at the mountain pass known as Volchi vorota (Russian: Волчьи ворота, lit. 'Wolf gate') and the local Muslims fled into Sharur. On 14 July, the Armenian advance continued through Volchi vorota into the Sharur district, capturing it 2 days later whilst the locals fled across the Aras river into Iran. Before the Armenians could advance into the Nakhchevan uezd proper, the national council (Azerbaijani: milli şura) of Nakhichevan appealed for peace, however, the negotiations only served in delaying Armenia's advance, after which Şahtaxtı some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of the city of Nakhichevan was captured. By this time, the 11th Army of Soviet Russia (which had previously invaded Azerbaijan) occupied southern Nakhichevan with the aim of linking with Kemalist Turkey. Colonel V. Tarkhov, the commander of the "united troops of Soviet Russia and Red Turkey in Nakhichevan", addressed the Armenians in Shahtaght, proclaiming Soviet control over the rest of the district, thus putting an end to the Armenian campaign.
During the Turkish–Armenian War beginning in September 1920, Armenia for the third time in six years was invaded by Turkish forces; this time under the command of General Kâzım Karabekir. The outcome of the war was Armenia's formal loss of Nakhichevan as the district became an autonomous protectorate of Soviet Azerbaijan, as confirmed by the treaties of Kars and Moscow in 1921. The Nakhichevan uezd was combined with the Sharur subdistrict of the Sharur-Daralayaz uezd and organized into the Nakhichevan ASSR. The south-easternmost parts of the uezd, Karchevan and part of the Zaritap Municipality (part of the Syunik and Vayots Dzor provinces, respectively), were transferred to Soviet Armenia in 1929–1934 whilst within the Transcaucasian SFSR.
## Demographics
According to the Russian Empire Census, the Nakhichevan uezd had a population of 100,771 on , including 52,984 men and 47,787 women. The majority of the population indicated Tatar to be their mother tongue, with a significant Armenian speaking minority:
According to the 1917 publication of Kavkazskiy kalendar, the Nakhichevan uezd had a population of 136,859 on , including 74,081 men and 62,778 women, 133,343 of whom were the permanent population, and 3,516 were temporary residents:
## Settlements
According to the 1897 census, there were 67 settlements in the Nakhichevan uezd with a population over 500 inhabitants. The religious composition of the settlements was as follows: |
71,158,873 | Margaret Nygard | 1,169,330,268 | British educator and conservationist | [
"1925 births",
"1995 deaths",
"20th-century British educators",
"20th-century British women educators",
"British conservationists",
"British emigrants to the United States",
"British environmentalists",
"British women educators",
"British women environmentalists",
"Naturalized citizens of the United States",
"People from Nashik",
"University of British Columbia people",
"University of California, Berkeley alumni",
"University of Toronto alumni",
"Women conservationists"
]
| Margaret Nygard (25 January 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British-American environmentalist and conservationist. Born in British India to a civil servant, she was educated in both India and Britain. During the 1940 and 1941 bombing campaign against Britain, her school was relocated to British Columbia, Canada. Nygard studied English at the University of British Columbia and after her graduation in 1944 briefly became a teacher at the university. She went on to earn a master's degree and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1962, she and her family moved to Durham, North Carolina, and became aware of environmental threats to the Eno River. She founded the Eno River Association in 1965, becoming its first president. She naturalised as a United States citizen in 1993.
Spearheading the group, Nygard and the association pressed for the creation of the Eno River State Park, the City of Durham's West Point on the Eno, and the federally-owned Penny's Bend Nature Preserve, as well as a green belt linking local, state, and federal lands along the Eno River. Taking actions to increase awareness of conservation and stop developers, they defeated plans to build a dam and reservoir, to construct high rise dwellings and housing tracts, and to locate a sewerage system, a major highway, and a landfill along the river. On their own initiative, the Eno River Association, established ties with The Nature Conservancy, creating its the first conservancy project in the state. During her work to prevent development on the Eno River, Nygard discovered the negatives of the photographer Hugh Mangum in a barn and worked with his family to donate his work for preservation to Duke University.
Nygard was the first recipient of both the Bartlett L. Durham Award of the Durham Historic Preservation Society and the Alexander Calder Conservation Award of The Conservation Fund for her work in preserving the wetlands and wildlife along the Eno. The Eno River Association which she founded and led until her death has continued its work on the river, adding three additional parks and nature preserves to the green belt since her death. The model Nygard developed has been replicated by other organizations in their attempts to preserve river habitats. She was posthumously awarded one of North Carolina's highest civilian honors, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
## Early life and education
Margaret Jacqueline Cruden Rodger was born on 25 January 1925 in Nasik, Bombay Presidency, in British India to Eileen (née Owen) and Robert C. Rodger. Her father's family was originally from Ayr, Scotland, and he served during World War I in the Gallipoli campaign. After the war, he was posted in India where he served as a colonial police official. Rodger began her schooling in Goudhurst, Kent, and then attended private grammar school in India. After returning to England, she began her secondary schooling at Princess Helena College in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. During The Blitz, the German bombing campaign launched from 1940 through 1941 against the United Kingdom, bombs were often dropped near the school and a decision was made to relocate the students to Ottawa, Ontario, in 1941.
In Canada, Rodger attended Ottawa Ladies' College for a year and then spent another year at Victoria College in Toronto. Continuing her studies, she enrolled at University of British Columbia, where she met Holger Olof Victorson Nygard, a fellow student, who was from Bertby, in the Vörå municipality, of Ostrobothnia, Finland. They both graduated in May 1944 with first class honours in English language and literature. Six months later, they obtained permission from Chief Justice of British Columbia Wendell B. Farris to marry, over the objections of Rodger's parents. They had opposed the marriage because she was only nineteen and because they had never met Holger, as they were still in India.
## Career
### Early career (1944–1963)
After their marriage, the couple both became professors, teaching at the University of British Columbia for three years. In 1948, Nygard received a Regent's Fellowship to study at the University of California, Berkeley, and Holger was hired as a teaching assistant in the English Department. She earned her master's degree in 1949 and began work on her Ph.D. She was awarded a scholarship by the Canadian Federation of University Women in 1951 to study abroad in England, focusing on the works of James Anthony Froude. The couple returned to the United States in 1953, when Holger was offered an assistant professorship at the University of Kansas in Lawrence to teach English and folklore courses.
After four years in Kansas, the couple moved to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1957, where Holger taught as an assistant professor of English. During the years they were moving about the United States, the Nygards had four children — Jennifer, Stephen, Kerstin, and Erik — and Nygard completed her PhD from Berkeley, with her work on Froude in 1960. In 1962, Holger became a full professor at Duke University and the following year, the family settled on the Eno River. Nygard worked at Durham Technical Community College as an English teacher briefly. The couple were active in protests against the Vietnam War. A chemical spill from a traffic accident shortly after they moved killed a large number of fish in the river. Concerned for the environment, their activism shifted focus.
### Environmental activism (1963–1995)
In 1963, Nygard established a group of people to research the history of the surrounding river valley and in 1965, the Eno River Association was formed to address threats to the river. The association was operated out of Nygard's kitchen for over twenty years and she served as president for its first decade. One of the first threats was when the City of Durham accepted a plan in 1965 created by the Research Triangle's regional planning commission to dam the Eno River. Initial plans were to create a large recreational lake and to thwart a proposed housing development. In 1966, the city began to purchase land along the river for the projected dam and reservoir. At the same time, the city was making plans to attract industry on the promises of the reservoir. Nygard and other activists from the Eno River Association attended the 16 August 1966 Durham City Council meeting to protest the development.
Early efforts of the activists were not welcomed, and they were accused of trying to block modern progress by local media and business people. Collecting scientific data on the destruction of flora and fauna, she led the effort to convince media and politicians of the need to protect the Eno. After winning the backing of Pearson Stewart, head of the regional planning commission, in 1968 the proposed dam site was relocated to the Flat River. Nygard promoted a plan by the Eno River Association to purchase land along the river. Association members scoured the real estate section of local newspapers looking for plots to purchase and through a grassroots effort visited civic clubs and published articles to raise awareness for protecting the area.
In 1970, the Nygards appeared before the state Board of Conservation and Development, arguing in favour of a 10,000 acre protected stretch along the Eno – 8,000 acres near Hillsborough and 2,000 acres in the area surrounding Durham and through Orange County. They stressed that a 20-mile-long green belt would preserve hiking and fishing areas and protect habitat areas. Leading spring and winter hikes along the banks, scheduling seasonal rafting trips, selling an annual calendar, and holding photograph competitions, the organization built local support for preservation and the establishment of the Eno River State Park.
Securing the help of The Nature Conservancy on its own initiative, the Eno River Association developed an alternative plan to store water at the Nello Teer quarry, rather than in a reservoir and to develop a state park. The Nature Conservancy agreed to acquire land and hold it in trust in order to allow authorities to raise funds for securing the properties. It helped the association acquire charity status, enabling funds or land donations to be tax exempt. Members who had purchased land were then able to donate it to the conservancy and prevent it being condemned for development. The group's resourcefulness in establishing The Nature Conservancy's first project in the estate was recognized when the plan was accepted by the city in 1973. That year, the conservancy transferred the land it held in trust to the state.
During the fight for establishment of a park, in 1969 Nygard and the association became aware of a threat to a farmhouse, gristmill, and miller's house that were scheduled for demolition to be replaced with housing and mall development. The buildings were located at the junction of the Eno and Roxboro Road. To stop the bulldozers, which were on site, Nygard filed a request for an environmental impact statement. Rather than face lengthy delays, the developer reached a private settlement to sell the site to the City of Durham in 1972. Having acquired the properties, West Point on the Eno was developed as a park and the McCown-Mangum House, one of the buildings on the site was restored in 1976 by the Durham's Junior League.
Over the seven-year span of negotiations to resolve the status of the properties, glass plate negatives by photographer Hugh Mangum were discovered in a barn on the site of the McCown-Mangum House. Many of them were removed by neighbours, children damaged some of them during play, and Mangum's daughter Julia Rowe destroyed his nude photographic plates. Upon acquisition of the property by the City of Durham, Nygard, William Perry Johnson, a local genealogist, and David Page, a local photographer, collected and cleaned the remaining negatives and returned them to Mangum's nephew, Jack Vaughan. The family decided to entrust the care of the negatives to the Eno River Association.
Despite these accomplishments, threats to the waterway and establishing the park persisted. Among those issues were proposed sewer crossings, highway construction, and business development including high-rise structures. In 1970, a shopping mall was proposed, as well as a 163-unit development of tract housing. The following year, a proposed sewer line could have crossed the river 24 times. When that idea found opposition, the plan was to lay the lines along the river banks. For several months, Nygard and other association members took the planning commissioners to walk and canoe along the river to make them aware of the damage the plans would do to the area. The association also battled over a 1973 proposal to locate a 155-acre landfill on the Eno and the construction of a major highway. All of these plans were modified or completely discarded thanks to the advocacy of the Eno River Association.
Controversy emerged between homeowners over how property would be acquired. Concerned that private property would be condemned by the state if an owner refused to sell land for the proposed state park, Stewart Barbour of Hillsborough created an organization in 1975, known as the Eno River Group. His supporters advocated preserving the area along the Eno but through privately owned farms and woodlands and opposed creation of a state park. Nygard's response was that preservation of the area would require cooperation between property owners, as well as city, state, and federal authorities. The state park officially opened in 1975, but controversy over the acquisition of land from local homeowners continued through the 1980s. After the park opening, Nygard stepped down as president of the Eno River Association, serving as the executive vice-president until her death. She was known for her dedication to the river and for her gentle but steely resolve to protect it.
In 1976, Durham County Commissioners granted permission for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to begin the Falls River Reservoir and Dam Project. When the Corps of Engineers began buying land for the reservoir over the next few years, they acquired the former property of Paul C. Cameron, known as Penny's Bend. Because it met preservation requirements, the Penny's Bend Nature Preserve was established and leased to the state of North Carolina. The Eno River Association was one of those appointed by the Management Advisory Committee to manage the habitat. Among their activities were clean-up days held at Penny's Ridge. In 1980, an annual Festival for the Eno was established to raise funds for continuing land purchases along the river. Difficulties continued into the 1980s with Nygard and the association opposing plans to establish a pumping station on the lower Eno to resupply the Cape Fear watershed which supports Chapel Hill. Ongoing efforts to educate officials and the public about the interdependence of waterways and the cause and effect of development continued. With the assistance of Page, in 1986, the Eno River Association donated Mangum's negatives to Duke University for conservation and their preservation.
## Awards and honours
West Point on the Eno applied to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and was approved in 1985. That year, Nygard was honored by the Durham Historic Preservation Society with the inaugural Bartlett L. Durham Award. In 1988, she was presented with the first Alexander Calder Conservation Award from The Conservation Fund, an environmental NGO based in Alexandria, Virginia. The award recognised her work in preserving the wetlands and wildlife along the Eno, protecting close to five thousand acres of land as natural habitat and for recreational purposes. That same year, the Eno River Association was granted the Take Pride in America award from the United States Department of the Interior. Nygard naturalised as a United States citizen in 1993. In 1995, she was posthumously awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina's highest civilian honours.
## Death and legacy
Nygard became ill at her home in Durham after having stayed up all night preparing for a meeting of the Eno River Association. She was transported to Duke University Hospital, where she died on 5 November 1995 from heart failure. Her work resulted in 2,200 acres of riverbank and waterway being protected as the Eno River State Park, establishment of the West Point on the Eno and Penny's Ridge Preserve, as well as protection of the William B. Umstead State Park near Raleigh, and the Jockey's Ridge State Park, in Dare County. She was instrumental in pressing for the legislature to establish a trust fund to permanently endow and protect state parks and create a 40-mile greenbelt linking local and federal lands along the river. The three-day event, Festival for the Eno, which she started occurs on the Independence Day weekend each 4 July. The model Nygard developed with activists from the Eno River Association has been replicated by other organizations in their attempts to preserve river habitats. The Eno River Association continues to work in conservation. It has supported the establishment of the Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area (1997), the Little River Regional Park (2001), and the Confluence Natural Area (2018).
Beginning in 2005, Nygard's papers were donated to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and are held in the Wilson Special Collections Library. They include both her personal archive and records relating to the founding and operation of the Eno River Association. After Holger's death in 2015, the Nygard's children discovered two additional boxes, containing nearly 250 negatives, of Mangum's work in the family attic. The siblings contacted the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University to donate them to the existing collection. Two years of conservation of the negatives were required before they were available for public access. |
25,354,112 | Stephen J. Chamberlin | 1,173,763,445 | United States general | [
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| Stephen Jones Chamberlin (23 December 1889 – 23 October 1971) was a lieutenant general in the United States Army who served during World War II as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, the staff officer in charge of plans and operations.
Born in Spring Hill, Kansas on 23 December 1889, he was a 1912 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. During World War I, he was aide-de-camp to Major General David C. Shanks, the New York Port of Embarkation commander at Hoboken, New Jersey, for which he was one of twelve army officers who received the Navy Cross.
After the war, he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served on the staff of the Chief of Infantry in the War Department. He attended the Army War College and was posted to the staff of the Army's Hawaiian Division at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, as Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3.
In 1938, he became assistant chief of the Construction Branch in the G-4 Division of War Department General Staff. He became involved in the vast construction program of arsenals, depots, airbases and coastal defenses as the United States rearmed prior to its entry into World War II.
In January 1942, he was sent to Australia, where he became Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, at General MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ), Southwest Pacific Area. In this role, he was responsible for planning and overseeing the execution of MacArthur's major operations, including the New Guinea, Philippines and Borneo campaigns.
Chamberlin was director of the Intelligence Division, G-2, on the War Department General Staff from 1946 to 1948, when he became commander of the Fifth Army. He retired in September 1951, and was then employed as chief of security for the US Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee. He died on 23 October 1971.
## Early life
Stephen Jones Chamberlin was born in Spring Hill, Kansas on 23 December 1889, the son of Clark and Minnie (Hare) Chamberlin. He was raised and educated in Spring Hill and graduated from Spring Hill High School in 1907. After graduation, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York by U.S. Representative Charles Frederick Scott. He began attendance in 1908 and graduated in 1912 ranked 63rd of 95.
Chamberlin was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 16th Infantry, which was then stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco. In May 1914, the regiment moved to El Paso, Texas. He transferred to the 8th Infantry on 1 February 1915 and served at Fort William McKinley in the Philippines. He was promoted to first lieutenant on 1 July 1916, becoming a battalion adjutant on 14 October. He was assistant to the post quartermaster from 31 October 1916 to 1 January 1917, and then Post Exchange Officer from 20 December 1916 to 9 June 1917. He was promoted to captain on 15 May 1917, a few weeks after the American entry into World War I, and was acting regimental adjutant from 9 June to 1 September 1917.
## World War I
With the United States now involved in the war, Chamberlin became aide-de-camp to Major General David C. Shanks, the New York Port of Embarkation commander at Hoboken, New Jersey. Chamberlin was also the officer in charge of troop movements. On 2 March 1918, Chamberlin married Shank's daughter, Sarah Chapman, at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York on the corner of Madison Avenue and East 44th Street, in a simple ceremony attended only by Sarah's sister Katherine and Captain Maxwell Sullivan as best man.
Chamberlin was promoted to major on 7 June 1918. For his "distinguished service in the line of his profession as dispatch officer at the Port of Embarkation, Hoboken, New Jersey", he became one of only twelve Army officers to receive the Navy Cross during World War I. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. His citation read:
> The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Stephen J. Chamberlin, Major (Infantry), US Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. As Acting Dispatch Officer at Port of Embarkation, Hoboken, New Jersey, from November 15, 1917 to September 6, 1918, Major Chamberlin displayed marked ability in handling the movements of troops through the port, assigning units and detachments to camps, convoys, and ships, and by foresight, thorough organization, and hard work arranged for the smooth working of troop movements, prevented congestion at the camps and piers, thus enabling the transports to sail at the appointed time with the appropriate number of troops.
In September 1918, Shanks was appointed commander of the 16th Division at Camp Kearny, California, and Chamberlin was appointed the division's Assistant Chief of Staff. To prepare for the role, he attended a course at the Army War College. Following the Armistice with Germany in November 1918, he was sent on a tour of the battlefields in France and Belgium.
## Between the wars
In the aftermath of World War I, Chamberlin was reduced in rank to captain on 9 February 1919, but was promoted to major again on 1 July 1920. A year later he was posted to the Panama Canal Zone, initially as transportation officer, and then with 33rd Infantry. On returning to the United States in January 1922, he joined the staff of 19th Infantry Brigade at Fort McPherson, Georgia. He was transferred to the 22nd Infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia, on 17 February 1923.
From 1924 to 1925, he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, graduating as an Honor Graduate. Duty then followed with the Third Corps Area from 30 June to 5 July 1925; with the National Guard at Staunton, Virginia from 5 July 1925 to 1 July 1926; in the Office Chief of Infantry at Washington, D.C.; and at Camp Perry, Ohio as Publicity Officer. He served on the staff of the Chief of Infantry in the War Department from 1926 to 1930, and then commanded a battalion of the 22nd Infantry from 1930 to 1932.
Chamberlin attended the Army War College from July 1932 to June 1933. Upon graduation, he was posted to the staff of the Army's Hawaiian Division at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, serving as Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3. After more than 15 years as a major, he was finally promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 August 1935. On returning to the United States in July 1936, he became Assistant Professor of Military Science and Tactics for the high schools of Los Angeles.
## World War II
In 1938, Chamberlin became Assistant Chief of the Construction Branch in the G-4 Division of War Department General Staff. At this time, the United States was embarking on a military buildup in response to a worsening international situation, which culminated in the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939. A major component of this build up was a vast construction program of arsenals, depots, airbases and coastal defenses. Some \$175 million was allocated to construction under the Expansion Program, as it became known.
On 7 May 1940, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, Major General Richard C. Moore, G-4 of the War Department General Staff, asked for an estimate of the cost to house an additional 1,200,000 men and balked at the estimate he received of \$800 per head. To save on the cost of cantonments, Moore decided not to paint them. Chamberlin disagreed on the grounds that paint would reduce maintenance costs. President Franklin Roosevelt intervened and directed that the buildings be painted. As a result, an order was placed for 96,500 US gallons (365,000 L; 80,400 imp gal) of paint, resulting in an \$11 million budget shortfall. Chamberlin was promoted to colonel on 14 February 1941. Commenting after the war on the construction program, he wrote:
> Actually a phenomenal standard was set, one in which all Americans can glory. As far as wasting a few dollars was concerned, the construction effort cannot hold a candle to Lend-Lease, the Marshall Plan, or the Military Assistance Program. Had it not been for the courageous performance of those in charge of the War Department in the emergency, we might well have been defeated, and how then would the expenditure of a few millions have loomed in the long-range picture?
In January 1942, Chamberlin was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, of US Army Forces in Australia, arriving by air from Washington, D.C., on 9 January. He soon became Chief of Staff of US Army Forces in Australia, first under Major General Julian F. Barnes, and then under his successor, Lieutenant General George H. Brett. Chamberlin was promoted to brigadier general on 15 February 1942. General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia on 17 March to become Supreme Commander of the newly established Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), which now included the US Army Forces in Australia. On 19 April, MacArthur formally established his General Headquarters (GHQ), and Chamberlin was appointed its Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3.
As G-3, Chamberlin was one of the most highly rated members of the GHQ staff, although not being part of the "Bataan Gang" – the group of officers who had escaped with MacArthur from the Philippines – made him something of an outsider at GHQ. Chamberlin was responsible for planning and overseeing the execution of MacArthur's major operations, including the New Guinea, Philippines and Borneo campaigns. One member of the staff later recalled:
> Chamberlin, G-3, was an outstanding staff planner: quiet, unassuming, methodical, determined, aggressive in defending his position when challenged. He had a fine sense of timing and integration. He manipulated his three separate planning teams to move down parallel paths toward the same objective, or, when necessary, to move along divergent paths to map out a change of direction. Once an objective had been defined in long-run terms, Chamberlin and his planners set the basic sequence of events. All major commanders participated in the planning process, with Chamberlin coordinating and adjusting to smooth out conflicts. Considering the huge distances involved and the necessity for working in the humid heat of equatorial islands, the performance was stupendous. The apparent ease that characterized the operations reflected the thoroughness of the planning process. On those occasions when MacArthur required a sudden and pressing shift of direction, Chamberlin delivered, not always with great patience. The deadlines were met with a finely turned operational plan.
Chamberlin jealously guarded his position. In late 1943, Chamberlin differed with one of his planners, Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, over a proposed landing at Hansa Bay. Fellers thought that Hansa Bay could be bypassed, but Chamberlin felt that this would be too risky. While Fellers was a newcomer to GHQ, he had known MacArthur for many years, and Fellers took his proposal directly to MacArthur, who approved it. A furious Chamberlin had Fellers fired from G-3. MacArthur made him his military secretary.
One of Chamberlin's challenges was working with the Australians. Their decentralized mode of planning was entirely different from the top-down approach used by GHQ, and Chamberlin found this a source of frustration, as it was difficult to extract information from them. Nonetheless, he established a good working relationship with the Australian Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Frank Berryman.
When MacArthur began looking for a new chief of staff to replace Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland in 1945, he considered but rejected giving the post to Chamberlin. Chamberlin became Deputy Chief of Staff in February 1946, and was briefly acting as chief of staff from 2 May to 10 June 1946. For his services in the Southwest Pacific and the Occupation of Japan, Chamberlin was awarded three Army Distinguished Service Medals and the Silver Star. In September 1946, he was one of five American major generals who was made an honorary Commander of Order of the British Empire in the Military Division for his work with US Army Forces in Australia and GHQ SWPA.
## Later life
From June 1946 to October 1948 Chamberlin was director of the Intelligence Division, G-2, on the War Department General Staff. He commanded the Fifth Army from 1948 to 1951, receiving promotion to lieutenant general on 24 January 1948. In 1949, he was chairman of a general officer committee which researched the role of race in the Army, and produced a report favoring the continuation of segregation and the maintenance of a quota limiting the number of African-Americans who could serve in uniform.
He retired in September 1951, and was then employed as chief of security for the US Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center at Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee. He died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, Orange, California on 23 October 1971. He was buried in Section 3, Site 1968 A WH of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Sarah was subsequently interred with him in 1975. His papers are in the US Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
## Awards |
3,745,607 | Maurice Fernandes | 1,158,235,951 | West Indian cricketer (1897–1981) | [
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| Maurius Pacheco Fernandes (12 August 1897 – 8 May 1981), known as Maurice Fernandes, was a West Indian Test cricketer who played first-class cricket for British Guiana between 1922 and 1932. He made two Test appearances for the West Indies, in 1928 and 1930. Fernandes played as a right-handed top-order batsman and occasional wicket-keeper. He scored 2,087 first-class runs in 46 appearances at an average of 28.20.
Graduating from playing at the Demerara Cricket Club as a teenager, to play for British Guiana in 1922, Fernandes took part in tours of England in 1923 and 1928. He made his debut Test appearance during the 1928 tour, playing in the first of the three Tests. His next, and final Test match came during the English tour of the West Indies in 1930. At the time, the West Indies had a practice of picking their captain from the colony that the match was being played in, and Fernandes was granted the honour for the match in British Guiana. The West Indies won the match, their maiden victory in Test cricket. After the match, Fernandes only played one further first-class match, and retired from first-class cricket in 1932.
## Early life and career
Maurius Pacheco Fernandes was born in Georgetown, Demerara, British Guiana on 12 August 1897. He played for the Demerara Cricket Club as a teenager, gaining a reputation as a good cricketer, and made his debut for British Guiana during the 1922 Inter-Colonial Tournament, facing Trinidad. Playing as an opening batsman, Fernandes scored a duck in his first innings, but made 25 runs in the second.
He was part of the West Indian team that toured England in 1923, playing twenty first-class matches against county and representative opposition. Fernandes played in over half of the matches, and passed fifty on three occasions against first-class opposition. He had reached 83 not out when his side declared against Northamptonshire, and reached 73 runs in the second innings against Lancashire in the next match, having narrowly missed out in the first innings, when he scored 49. His highest score of the tour, and his maiden first-class century came against Leicestershire, when he hit 110 runs. In A History of Cricket, H. S. Altham and E. W. Swanton describe the touring side as one which "proved themselves equal to the best." The team relied heavily on the batting of George Challenor, who struck six centuries, and it was only Challenor that Fernandes trailed in the batting averages on the tour: he scored 523 runs at an average of 34.86, and was one of only two players other than Challenor to score a century for the West Indies.
During the Inter-Colonial Tournament in October 1925, Fernandes made significant scores in each of British Guiana's matches: he scored 89 runs in the first innings of their match against Barbados, helping his side to open up a 144-run first innings lead, which they converted into an eight wicket victory. In the subsequent match against Trinidad, he reached 124, but lacked support from his teammates, three of whom fell just short of half-centuries. British Guiana eventually lost the match by two wickets. In the following February, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) toured the West Indies, playing matches in Barbados, Trinidad, British Guiana and Jamaica. Three of the matches, one in each location excluding Jamaica, was against representative West Indies sides: Fernandes played in the match held in British Guiana, but not in either of the others, and also played in both matches between British Guiana and the touring MCC. In the last of these matches, he was selected as captain of the British Guiana side, and marked the occasion by scoring 120 in his team's only innings of a drawn match. He remained as captain for the colony's 1927 match against Barbados, in which their opponents scored 715/9 declared: the second highest innings score made against the team.
## Test cricket
Fernandes was part of the West Indian side which toured England in 1928. After the success of their 1923 tour, three of the matches were granted Test status. The team played 30 first-class matches, but in contrast to their previous tour, they won just five of them. Altham and Swanton describe the side as being "substantially less formidable combination than the West Indies of '23." The touring side lacked a regular wicket-keeper, and as a result Fernandes and the West Indian captain Karl Nunes shared the duties, though Nunes kept in all three Tests. Both were expensive on occasion: against Ireland, Fernandes allowed 25 byes in one innings, and Nunes the same number against Nottinghamshire. Fernandes' batting was significantly less effective than it had been five years before; he passed fifty on only three occasions, making 73 against both Ireland, and Cambridge University, and 54 against Middlesex. He played in the first Test match, the West Indies' first appearance in Test cricket, facing England at Lord's. Batting at number three in each innings, he scored a duck in the first, and eight runs in the second after the West Indies had been forced to follow-on. England won the match by an innings and 58 runs. Fernandes played 20 of the first-class matches in the tour, and scored 581 runs at an average of 18.15.
During the 1929 Inter-Colonial Tournament, Fernandes made the highest score of his first-class career during a seven-day match against Barbados. After the early dismissal of captain Maurice Green, Fernandes joined Jeremy McKenzie at the crease. The pair added 177 runs for the second wicket before McKenzie was run out for 74. Fernandes then shared another century partnership with Frank de Caires, before being dismissed for 141. British Guiana won the match by 391 runs to progress to the final, in which they faced Trinidad. Fernandes scored half-centuries in both innings of the final, scoring 88 runs in the first and 54 runs in the second to help his side to a four wicket victory.
Early the following year, a weakened English cricket team toured the West Indies, playing four Tests and eight other first-class matches. Fernandes captained British Guiana in both of their matches against the MCC, each of which was lost by an innings. Generally, the West Indies named a different captain for each of their home matches, commonly selecting a player from the host colony for the honour due to financial constraints. Fernandes was chosen as captain for the Test played at Bourda, Georgetown, British Guiana. The first two Tests had resulted in a draw and an English victory. Fernandes won the toss and elected to bat first. Clifford Roach and Errol Hunte opened the batting for the West Indies and scored 144 runs together for the opening partnership before Hunte was out for 53. George Headley then joined Roach at the crease, and the pair took the score onto 336 before Roach was dismissed after reaching his double century. Fernandes and Headley took the score up to 400, of which Fernandes added 22. The remaining batsmen were dismissed for a combined 71; Headley scored a century and the West Indies were all out for 471. The England team was then bowled out for 145, a first innings deficit of 326. Despite the healthy lead, Fernandes chose not to enforce the follow-on, and the West Indies batted again to score 290, leaving England requiring 617 runs in the fourth innings to achieve victory. Patsy Hendren scored a century for the visitors, but no other batsman reached 50 runs, and with just four minutes of the match remaining, the West Indies secured their maiden Test win by 289 runs.
## Later career and life
After his single match as West Indies Test captain, Fernandes did not appear for the West Indies again, and only made one further appearance for British Guiana, scoring 78 and 7 against Trinidad in the 1932 Inter-Colonial Tournament final. Fernandes is described in his Wisden Cricketers' Almanack obituary as being "an obdurate batsman", and was praised for his cutting and driving during the 1923 tour of England. He remained a private individual throughout his cricketing career, a characteristic which became stronger after his retirement from cricket. He had one son, Leslie, who played one first-class match for British Guiana in the 1960–61 season, and died in a car accident in 1978 aged 39. After this, Fernandes' health, already poor, deteriorated rapidly, and he died on 8 May 1981, aged 83. |
28,202,495 | Royal question | 1,167,942,775 | 1950 Belgian political crisis | [
"1940s in Belgium",
"1950 in Belgium",
"1951 in Belgium",
"Belgian monarchy",
"Constitutional crises",
"General strikes",
"Government crises",
"History of Wallonia",
"National questions",
"Political controversies in Belgium",
"Riots and civil disorder in Belgium",
"Royal scandals in Belgium",
"Walloon movement"
]
| The royal question (French: question royale, Dutch: Koningskwestie) was a major political crisis in Belgium that lasted from 1945 to 1951, coming to a head between March and August 1950. The question at stake surrounded whether King Leopold III could return to the country and resume his constitutional role amid allegations that his actions during World War II had been contrary to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution. It was eventually resolved by the abdication of Leopold in favour of his son King Baudouin in 1951.
The crisis emerged from the division between Leopold and his Government, led by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot, during the German invasion of 1940. Leopold, who was suspected of authoritarian sympathies, had taken command of the Belgian Army at the outbreak of war. Considering his constitutional position as commander-in-chief to take precedence over his civil role as head of state, he refused to leave his army and join the Belgian government in exile in France. Leopold's refusal to obey the Government marked a constitutional crisis and, after having negotiated the surrender to the Germans on 28 May 1940, King Leopold was widely condemned. During the subsequent German occupation, Leopold was held under house arrest in his palace where he was praised for stoically sharing the suffering of ordinary Belgians. Shortly before the Allies liberated the country in 1944, he was deported to Germany by the Nazis.
With Belgium liberated but the King still in captivity, Leopold was declared officially "unable to rule" in accordance with the constitution and his brother, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, was elected regent. The country was divided along political lines over whether Leopold could ever return to his functions, and with a dominantly left wing government in Belgium, Leopold went into exile in Switzerland. In 1950, a national referendum was organised by a new centre-right government to decide on whether Leopold could return. Although the result was a victory for the Leopoldists, it produced a strong regional split between Flanders, which was broadly in favour of the King's return, and Brussels and Wallonia which generally opposed it. Leopold's return to Belgium in July 1950 was greeted with widespread protests in Wallonia and a general strike. The unrest culminated in the killing of four workers by police on 30 July. With the situation fast deteriorating, on 1 August 1950 Leopold announced his intention to abdicate. After a transition period, he formally abdicated in favour of Baudouin in July 1951.
## Background
### Monarchy and the constitution
Belgium gained its independence from the United Netherlands in 1830 and was established as a popular and constitutional monarchy under a bicameral parliamentary democracy. A liberal Constitution was written in 1831 which codified the responsibilities and restrictions imposed on the monarch. Although the King, as head of state, was prevented from acting without the approval of a government minister, he was allowed full control of military matters in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. Which responsibility would take precedence if they became incompatible was left ambiguous and this uncertainty would lie at the heart of the royal question.
The first King, Leopold I, accepted the terms of the Constitution but attempted to use its ambiguities to subtly increase his own powers. This was continued by his successors, although with little real success.
### King Leopold III
King Leopold III came to the throne in 1934 after his father, Albert I, died in a mountaineering accident. Albert, known as the "Knight King" (roi-chevalier or koning-ridder), had been hugely popular in Belgium after commanding the Belgian army during World War I (1914–18) while much of the country was under German occupation. Leopold's reign was marked by economic crisis in the wake of the Great Depression, and political agitation by both far-left and far-right parties. Amid this period of crisis, Leopold attempted to expand the powers of the monarch. He was widely suspected of holding authoritarian and right-wing political views. From 1936, Leopold was a strong supporter of Belgium's "independence policy" of political neutrality in the face of Nazi Germany's increasingly aggressive territorial expansion.
## German invasion and occupation, 1940–44
On 10 May 1940, German forces invaded neutral Belgium without a formal declaration of war. King Leopold III headed immediately to Fort Breendonk, the headquarters of the Belgian army near Mechelen, to take control of the army. He refused to address the Belgian parliament beforehand, as Albert I had famously done at the outbreak of World War I. The speed of the German advance, using the new Blitzkrieg approach, soon pushed the Belgian army westwards despite British and French support. On 16 May, the Belgian government left Brussels.
### Break between King and Government
Soon after the outbreak of war, the King and Government began to disagree. While the Government argued that the German invasion had violated Belgian neutrality and made Belgium one of the Allies, Leopold argued that Belgium was still a neutral country and had no obligations beyond defending its borders. Leopold opposed allowing British and French forces into Belgian territory to fight alongside Belgian troops, as a breach of its neutrality.
On 25 May 1940, Leopold met senior representatives of his Government for a final time at the Kasteel van Wijnendale in West Flanders. The meeting is frequently cited as the start of the royal question and the moment of the decisive break between King and Government. Four ministers of the Government were present: Hubert Pierlot, Paul-Henri Spaak, Henri Denis and Arthur Vanderpoorten. By the time of the meeting, against the backdrop of the bloody Battle of the Lys, the Belgian government was preparing to continue the fight against Germany from exile in France. They urged the King to join them, following the examples of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg. The King rejected their arguments and hardened his own position. He refused to leave Belgian territory and his army in Flanders at any cost. The ministers suspected that Leopold's aides were already negotiating with the Germans. The meeting broke up with no agreement and the Belgian Government left for France.
King Leopold negotiated a cease-fire with the Germans on 27 May 1940, and the Belgian armed forces officially surrendered the following day. Leopold became a prisoner of war and was placed under house arrest at the Royal Palace of Laeken, near Brussels. Furious that the King had both ignored the Government and negotiated a surrender without consulting them, Pierlot gave an angry speech on Radio Paris, condemning the King and announcing the Government's intention to continue fighting alongside the Allies. French politicians, notably Paul Reynaud, blamed Leopold for the growing disaster of the Battle of France and angrily condemned him as a "criminal king" (roi-félon).
### King Leopold during the German occupation
With the Belgian surrender on 28 May 1940, Belgium was placed under German occupation and a military administration was established under General Alexander von Falkenhausen to govern the country. Belgian civil servants were ordered to remain at their posts in order to ensure the continued functioning of the state and to attempt to protect the population from the demands of the German authorities.
With France's defeat and the installation of the pro-German Vichy regime, it was widely believed that Germany was about to win the war. King Leopold was hailed as a "martyr" or a symbol of national resilience, in contrast to a Government that appeared to place its ideology above the interests of the Belgian people. On 31 May 1940, the senior representative of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Cardinal Jozef-Ernest van Roey, circulated a pastoral letter calling for all Belgians to unite around the King. Other figures in the King's entourage, particularly the authoritarian socialist Henri de Man, believed that democracy had failed and that the end of the war would see the King as the ruler of an authoritarian Belgian state.
Imprisoned, the King continued to follow his own political programme. He believed that after the German victory a "New Order" would be established in Europe and that, as the senior Belgian figure in occupied Europe, he could negotiate with the German authorities. King Leopold corresponded with Adolf Hitler and tried to organise a meeting with him. Hitler remained uninterested and distrustful of the King, but on 19 November 1940, King Leopold succeeded in gaining an unproductive audience with him at Berchtesgaden.
Popular support for Leopold in Belgium declined sharply in December 1941 when news of Leopold's remarriage to Lilian Baels was made public. The marriage was deeply unpopular with the Belgian public. The image of the "prisoner-king" (roi prisonnier), sharing the suffering of the Belgian prisoners of war, was undermined and his popularity fell sharply, especially in Wallonia, the home of the majority of the Belgian prisoners still detained. Popular opinion also turned on the king for his perceived unwillingness to speak out against German occupation policies.
Amid German defeats against the Russians on the Eastern Front after 1942, the King prepared for the end of the war. He ordered the preparation of a document, known as the Political Testament (Testament Politique), which would justify his behaviour under the occupation and detail his interventions on behalf of Belgian prisoners of war and deported workers. Leopold however continued to condemn the action of the Belgian government in exile (based in London after October 1940). On 7 June 1944, following D-Day, he was deported to Germany. He was finally liberated by American forces on 7 May 1945.
## Regency and the early crisis, 1944–49
### Leopold declared "unable to reign", 1944
After the Allied landings in Normandy, Allied troops advanced eastwards and crossed the Belgian frontier on 1 September 1944. German forces offered little resistance and, by 4 September, the Allies were in control of Brussels although the last occupied parts of Belgian territory were only liberated in February 1945. On 8 September 1944, the government in exile returned to Brussels and was greeted with general indifference. Although the King was no longer in the country, his Political Testament was presented to the returned Government as he had wished, and was soon circulated publicly. At the same time, a copy was presented to the British King, George VI, and was seen by the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The text reignited the divisions within the Government which had been largely hidden since earlier in the war.
Since the King was still in German custody, there was no opposition to the creation of a regency in his absence. On 20 September 1944, a meeting of both Chambers of Parliament was called. Article 82 of the Constitution was invoked, declaring the King "unable to reign" (dans l'impossibilité de régner). Leopold's reclusive brother, Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, was elected regent and took the oath the following day. Further action on the royal question was pushed aside by more pressing economic and political issues that occupied most of the Government's time. With Belgium under partial Allied military administration until the restoration of the government services, British hostility to Leopold's return also complicated the issue.
### Political recovery and revival of the royal question
Soon after the liberation, Belgium began a period of rapid economic recovery and the process of political reconstruction began. The traditional party system had been torn apart by the war and occupation. The two major ideological blocks proceeded to create their own parties: socialists created the Belgian Socialist Party (PSB–BSP), while Catholics and conservatives created the Christian Social Party (PSC–CVP). The biggest change in early post-liberation politics was the surge of support for the Communist Party of Belgium, which became the third party in Belgian politics until 1949, temporarily displacing the Liberal Party. The Walloon Movement also re-emerged after the war, promoting the culture and economic interests of the French-speaking areas in the south. The period saw major reform of trade unions following the creation of the first large unified union, the General Labour Federation of Belgium (Fédération générale du Travail de Belgique or Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond, FGTB–ABVV), in April 1945 with 248,000 members nationwide. By 1947, however, the political structure of the Belgian state had stabilised.
Under the early regency, both the Pierlot and subsequent Achille Van Acker governments attempted to avoid confronting the issue of Leopold's return despite calls from Communists, some Socialists and trade unionists for the King's abdication in April and May 1945. Soon after the King's liberation, Van Acker and a government delegation headed to Strobl, Austria to negotiate with Leopold. At a series of meetings between 9 and 11 May 1945, Van Acker insisted that the King publicly announce his support for the Allied cause and his commitment to parliamentary democracy. No agreement was reached. In the meantime, Leopold took up residence in Pregny (near Geneva) in Switzerland under the pretext that heart palpitations made further negotiations or thoughts of return to political life impossible.
In Belgium, political debate about the royal question continued and grew after the war, and remained a polemical topic in the popular press, notably in the Francophone newspaper Le Soir. In the general election of 1949, the PSC–CVP campaigned on a pro-Leopold royalist platform. The results reshaped the political landscape; the Communists were routed and the PSB–BSP lost seats to both the Liberals and Catholics. The Catholics gained a new majority in the Senate and a plurality in the Chamber of Representatives, their best results since the war. Gaston Eyskens took over as Prime Minister at the head of a Liberal-Catholic coalition. Both parties in the government (and Leopold himself) supported a referendum on the King's return, which became the focus of political attention.
## Culmination of the crisis, 1950
### Referendum of March 1950
The Eyskens government agreed to a national referendum, known as the "popular consultation" (consultation populaire or volksraadpleging), which was scheduled for 12 March 1950. It was the first ever referendum in Belgian history and was intended to be advisory. Campaigning was vigorous on both sides, with little disruption at the polls, despite the contentious nature of the subject.
Result of the referendum was that Leopold's return won a 58 percent majority in the national vote, with majorities in seven of the nine provinces. However, the vote was heavily divided by region. In Flanders, 72 percent voted in favour of Leopold's return, but in the arrondissement of Brussels, the Leopoldists won only a minority of 48 percent. In Wallonia a mere 42 percent voted for the restitution of the King. The final results, in percentages by province, were:
The result confirmed the worries of some, including Spaak, that the vote would not be sufficiently decisive in either direction and could divide the country along regional and linguistic lines. On 13 March, Eyskens traveled to Pregny to attempt to encourage Leopold to abdicate. Paul Van Zeeland and Spaak attempted to broker a new agreement by which Leopold would abdicate in favour of his son. On 15 April 1950, Leopold announced that he was willing to temporarily delegate his authority. Many within the PSC–CVP realised that, despite the referendum's result, their party's lack of a parliamentary majority would undermine their ability to build a national reconciliation around the King as long as their Liberal coalition partners and Socialist opponents were unwilling to accept the King's return.
### King Leopold's return to Belgium
On 29 April 1950, Prince-Regent Charles dissolved parliament pending fresh elections. His intention was probably to prevent the formation of a PSC–CVP government under Van Zeeland, a staunch Leopoldist, which would lead to the return of the King without further discussion. The following election produced an absolute PSC–CVP majority in both Chamber and Senate, and a new single-party government under Jean Duvieusart was formed.
One of the first acts of the Duvieusart government was to introduce a bill bringing the "impossibility to reign" to an end. On 22 July 1950, Leopold returned to Belgium for the first time since June 1944 and resumed his functions.
### General strike and abdication
In 1949, the FGTB–ABVV voted a special budget of ten million Belgian francs to establish a Committee of Common Action (Comité d'action commune) aimed at supporting strike action taken in event of the King's return. The union took the lead in the opposition which emerged in the summer of 1950. André Renard, a Walloon trade union leader, called for "insurrection" and "revolution" in the newspaper La Wallonie shortly after the King's return in July 1950. Modern historians have noted that "the smell of revolution was on the air" as Walloon nationalists called for the immediate secession of Wallonia and the creation of a republic.
The general strike of 1950 began in the coal mining centres of Hainaut and quickly spread. Workers were soon on strike across Wallonia, Brussels, and, to a lesser extent, Flanders. The port of Antwerp was one of the key sites affected and the country was virtually paralysed. On 30 July, four workers were shot dead by the Gendarmerie at Grâce-Berleur, near Liège and the violence intensified. Staunch Leopoldists in the Government called for a stronger stance but found themselves in a minority, even in the PSC–CVP. Frustrated at the lack of progress, the Government threatened to resign en masse.
As the situation escalated, the National Confederation of Political Prisoners and their Dependents (Confédération nationale des prisonniers politiques et des ayants droit, Nationale Confederatie van Politieke Gevangenen en Rechthebbenden, or CNPPA–NCPGR), the organisation representing political prisoners detained during the German occupation, offered to act as intermediaries between the different parties because of their respected status. The CNPPA–NCPGR succeeded in persuading both the King and the Government to reopen negotiations which resumed on 31 July. In the afternoon on 1 August, Leopold publicly announced his intention to abdicate in favour of his eldest son, Baudouin, to avoid further bloodshed. Baudouin, at the age of 19, became regent, with the title of "prince royal" on 11 August 1950.
## Accession of King Baudouin, 1951
King Leopold's abdication message of 1 August 1950 was premised on a reconciliation in the person of his eldest son over the course of a year. Baudouin was seen by most parties as an acceptable alternative candidate. Under a law of 11 August, executive powers were transferred to Baudouin in advance of the official abdication. Leopold formally abdicated on 16 July 1951. His son succeeded him the following day as King Baudouin.
### Assassination of Julien Lahaut
On 11 August 1950, as King Baudouin was taking the oath of allegiance to the Constitution in front of the Parliament, an unidentified individual in the Communist benches shouted "Vive la république!" ("Long Live the Republic!"). The interruption caused outrage. It was widely suspected that the culprit was Julien Lahaut, the noted Communist leader who had been one of the leading opponents of Leopold's return. A week later (18 August), Lahaut was shot dead by an unidentified assassin outside his house in Seraing, near Liège. The murder shocked the Belgian public and an estimated 200,000 people attended Lahaut's funeral. Although no-one was ever prosecuted for the murder, it was widely attributed to clandestine Leopoldist militia like the Ligue Eltrois or the Bloc anticommuniste belge who operated with the knowledge of the security services.
## Aftermath and significance
In the aftermath of the royal question, national priorities shifted to other political questions. On 17 September 1950, the government of Joseph Pholien announced its intention of dispatching Belgian volunteers to fight in the Korean War. Negotiations about the European Defence Community followed and, by the mid-1950s, Belgium was immersed in a new political crisis, known as the Second School War, surrounding the secularisation of education. In August 1960, King Baudouin informed Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens that he did not have confidence in his government and asked for his resignation. Eyskens refused and challenged the King to invoke Article 65 of the Constitution and unilaterally revoke his ministerial mandate. Fearing that such an action would reopen the royal question, King Baudouin yielded.
Modern historians describe the royal question as an important moment in Belgian recovery after World War II. The opposition between Leopoldists and anti-Leopoldists led to the re-establishment of Socialist and Catholic political parties from before the war. The Question was also an important moment in the Belgian linguistic conflict. It also put an end to the federalisation of Belgian institutions which might exacerbate the regional tensions exposed by the royal question. In addition, the perceived failure of the PSC–CVP to realise Flemish demands for the return of Leopold helped to strengthen support for the Flemish nationalist Volksunie party after 1954. In Wallonia, the legacy of trade union and socialist political mobilisation during the general strike paved the way for a left-wing revival of the Walloon Movement, eventually witnessed in the Belgian general strike of 1960–1961.
The Lahaut assassination was not solved, and it remained contentious as the only political murder in Belgian history until the death of the socialist politician André Cools in 1991. Leopoldists were suspected, but no individual was prosecuted in the aftermath. An enquiry by historians Rudy Van Doorslaer and Etienne Verhoeyen named an alleged culprit. A final report, commissioned by the Belgian government, was submitted in 2015. |
41,509,642 | Sand Point and Middle Hope | 1,069,864,528 | Headland in Somerset, England | [
"Bristol Channel",
"Geology of Somerset",
"Headlands of Somerset",
"National Trust properties in Somerset",
"North Somerset",
"Sites of Special Scientific Interest in North Somerset",
"Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1952"
]
| Sand Point in Somerset, England, is the peninsula stretching out from Middle Hope, an 84.1-hectare (208-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It lies to the north of the village of Kewstoke, and the stretch of coastline called Sand Bay north of the town of Weston-super-Mare. On a clear day it commands views over Flat Holm, of the Bristol Channel, South Wales, Clevedon, the Second Severn Crossing and the Severn Bridge. A line drawn between Sand Point and Lavernock Point in South Wales marks the lower limit of the Severn Estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel.
Middle Hope is a sequence of carboniferous limestone with unusual geological features including a Pleistocene-aged fossil cliff and as a result has been designated as a regionally important geological site. The underlying geology and soil types support scarce plants such as the smallflower buttercup, honewort, Cheddar pink and Somerset hair grass. Human use of the sites is shown by a bowl barrow and disc barrow from late Neolithic or Bronze Age and the site of a likely motte-and-bailey castle. Woodspring Priory, a former Augustinian priory which was founded in the early 13th century, sits just inland of the rocky promontory. The priory and surrounding land is owned by the National Trust and is a popular place for walking.
## Geology
At Middle Hope a sequence of carboniferous limestone is exposed, which includes thick volcanic tuffs and lavas, demonstrating Tournaisian carbonate sections. The site contains a Pleistocene-aged fossil cliff and shore platform. These features have led to the designation of Middle Hope as a regionally important geological site (RIGS).
The raised beach of wave-cut platforms has been created by changes in sea level of the Bristol Channel since the Quaternary period. The arrangement of volcanic and sedimentary rocks, including the Black Rock Limestone, illustrates the events of 350 million years ago. The strata have been tilted and compressed during the variscan orogeny.
## Flora
Among scarce plants found on Sand Point are smallflower buttercup, and honewort. The range of soils at the site support various flora and fauna. The calcareous grassland is dominated by Festuca species and Dactylis glomerata, while the scrub towards the west of the site is dominated by hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), while that to the east consists of common gorse (Ulex europaeus) and bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg). Less common plants include the cheddar pink (Dianthus gratianopolitanus) and Somerset hair grass (Koeleria vallesiana).
## History
Evidence of early human occupation is provided by a bowl barrow and disc barrow from the late Neolithic or Bronze Age that have been identified on the higher ground. The bowl barrow is 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter and approximately 0.5 metres (1 ft 8 in) high. Slightly west of the bowl barrow is a disc barrow surrounded by a bank and ditch which enclose an area about 8 metres (26 ft) across. These are situated at the highest point where the Ordnance Survey have constructed a triangulation station.
A motte-and-bailey castle may have been constructed after the Norman Conquest. The site is known as Castle Mound or Castle Batch and can be seen as a 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high mound which is approximately 30 metres (98 ft) in diameter and marked by a ditch on the landward eastern edge. The mound was damaged by the construction of a building during World War II. The medieval date for the construction is in doubt with some sources suggesting that the mound may have been a watchtower constructed in the 16th century. The walls of the sheep fold were built by prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars. Hope Cove on the northern coast had a reputation for smuggling as it was "well away from the men of HM Customs and Excise".
Woodspring Priory was an Augustinian priory. It was founded by William de Courtney, in the early 13th century, and dedicated to Thomas Becket. The small community built a church and monastic lodgings during the next hundred years. They were Victorine Canons who were influenced by the Cistercians emphasis on manual labour and self-sufficiency. As a result, the clerks who had taken holy orders worked on the farm, as well as providing clergy for surrounding churches. Despite endowments of land the priory was not wealthy until the 15th century when further building work, including the current priory church, infirmary and barn was undertaken. It was dissolved in 1536 and then owned by local noblemen and leased to local farmers. In 1969 the priory was taken over by the Landmark Trust who spent 20 years on restoration work, and since the 1990s have rented out the farmhouse as holiday accommodation. The surviving buildings include the priory church, which was a 15th-century replacement for the earlier 13th century structure, infirmary, barn and 16th century prior's lodging which was converted into a farmhouse. The whole site was arranged around a central cloister from which only the east wall and west wall of the chapter house remain, the sacristy, refectory, chapter house, lady chapel and parlour having been demolished.
Because of the biological and geological interest the site was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1952. In 1968 the priory and adjoining land of Middle Hope was purchased by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty as part of Project Neptune.
During World War II weapons were tested at Sand Point, in association with the base at Birnbeck Pier which was commissioned as "HMS Birnbeck" by the Admiralty as part of the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) for research into new weapons. To support this buildings were constructed at St Thomas Head, east of Middle Hope. Some of these have since been removed and the site is now used by QinetiQ as an explosives and shock test facility. |
201,943 | Bird migration | 1,173,435,598 | Seasonal movement of birds | [
"Bird flight",
"Bird migration",
"Birds",
"Ornithology"
]
| Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south, along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans, and is driven primarily by the availability of food. It occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funnelled onto specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea.
Migration of species such as storks, turtle doves, and swallows was recorded as many as 3,000 years ago by Ancient Greek authors, including Homer and Aristotle, and in the Book of Job. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, and modern scientific studies have used techniques including bird ringing and satellite tracking to trace migrants. Threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction, especially of stopover and wintering sites, as well as structures such as power lines and wind farms.
The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year. Some species of tubenoses (Procellariiformes) such as albatrosses circle the Earth, flying over the southern oceans, while others such as Manx shearwaters migrate 14,000 km (8,700 mi) between their northern breeding grounds and the southern ocean. Shorter migrations are common, while longer ones are not. The shorter migrations include altitudinal migrations on mountains such as the Andes and Himalayas.
The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length. Migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the Sun and stars, the Earth's magnetic field, and mental maps.
## Historical views
In the Pacific, traditional land-finding techniques used by Micronesians and Polynesians suggest that bird migration was observed and interpreted for more than 3,000 years. In Samoan tradition, for example, Tagaloa sent his daughter Sina to Earth in the form of a bird, Tuli, to find dry land, the word tuli referring specifically to land-finding waders, often to the Pacific golden plover. Bird migrations were recorded in Europe from at least 3,000 years ago by the Ancient Greek writers Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus and Aristotle. Two books of the Bible address migration. The Book of Job notes migrations with the inquiry: "Is it by your insight that the hawk hovers, spreads its wings southward?" A prophecy of Jeremiah includes the following comment: "Even the stork in the heavens knows its seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift and the crane keep the time of their arrival."
Aristotle recorded that cranes travelled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, an observation repeated by Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturalis.
### Swallow migration versus hibernation
Aristotle, however, suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated. This belief persisted as late as 1878 when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no fewer than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. Even the "highly observant" Gilbert White, in his posthumously published 1789 The Natural History of Selborne, quoted a man's story about swallows being found in a chalk cliff collapse "while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone", though the man denied being an eyewitness. However, he writes that "as to swallows being found in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I never heard any such account worth attending to", and that if early swallows "happen to find frost and snow they immediately withdraw for a time—a circumstance this much more in favour of hiding than migration", since he doubts they would "return for a week or two to warmer latitudes".
Only at the end of the eighteenth century was migration accepted as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes. Thomas Bewick's A History of British Birds (Volume 1, 1797) mentions a report from "a very intelligent master of a vessel" who, "between the islands of Menorca and Majorca, saw great numbers of Swallows flying northward", and states the situation in Britain as follows:
> Swallows frequently roost at night, after they begin to congregate, by the sides of rivers and pools, from which circumstance it has been erroneously supposed that they retire into the water.
Bewick then describes an experiment that succeeded in keeping swallows alive in Britain for several years, where they remained warm and dry through the winters. He concludes:
> These experiments have since been amply confirmed by ... M. Natterer, of Vienna ... and the result clearly proves, what is in fact now admitted on all hands, that Swallows do not in any material instance differ from other birds in their nature and propensities [for life in the air]; but that they leave us when this country can no longer furnish them with a supply of their proper and natural food ...
### Pfeilstörche
In 1822, a white stork was found in the German state of Mecklenburg with an arrow made from central African hardwood, which provided some of the earliest evidence of long-distance stork migration. This bird was referred to as a Pfeilstorch, German for "Arrow stork". Since then, around 25 Pfeilstörche have been documented.
## General patterns
Migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south, undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat, or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular (nomadism, invasions, irruptions) or in only one direction (dispersal, movement of young away from natal area). Migration is marked by its annual seasonality. Non-migratory birds are said to be resident or sedentary. Approximately 1,800 of the world's 10,000 bird species are long-distance migrants.
Many bird populations migrate long distances along a flyway. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer and returning in the autumn to wintering grounds in warmer regions to the south. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far south to support long-distance migration.
The primary motivation for migration appears to be food; for example, some hummingbirds choose not to migrate if fed through the winter. In addition, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young. This helps diurnal birds to produce larger clutches than related non-migratory species that remain in the tropics. As the days shorten in autumn, the birds return to warmer regions where the available food supply varies little with the season.
These advantages offset the high stress, physical exertion costs, and other risks of migration. Predation can be heightened during migration: Eleonora's falcon Falco eleonorae, which breeds on Mediterranean islands, has a very late breeding season, coordinated with the autumn passage of southbound passerine migrants, which it feeds to its young. A similar strategy is adopted by the greater noctule bat, which preys on nocturnal passerine migrants. The higher concentrations of migrating birds at stopover sites make them prone to parasites and pathogens, which require a heightened immune response.
Within a species not all populations may be migratory; this is known as "partial migration". Partial migration is very common in the southern continents; in Australia, 44% of non-passerine birds and 32% of passerine species are partially migratory. In some species, the population at higher latitudes tends to be migratory and will often winter at lower latitude. The migrating birds bypass the latitudes where other populations may be sedentary, where suitable wintering habitats may already be occupied. This is an example of leap-frog migration. Many fully migratory species show leap-frog migration (birds that nest at higher latitudes spend the winter at lower latitudes), and many show the alternative, chain migration, where populations 'slide' more evenly north and south without reversing the order.
Within a population, it is common for different ages and/or sexes to have different patterns of timing and distance. Female chaffinches Fringilla coelebs in Eastern Fennoscandia migrate earlier in the autumn than males do and the European tits of genera Parus and Cyanistes only migrate their first year.
Most migrations begin with the birds starting off in a broad front. Often, this front narrows into one or more preferred routes termed flyways. These routes typically follow mountain ranges or coastlines, sometimes rivers, and may take advantage of updrafts and other wind patterns or avoid geographical barriers such as large stretches of open water. The specific routes may be genetically programmed or learned to varying degrees. The routes taken on forward and return migration are often different. A common pattern in North America is clockwise migration, where birds flying North tend to be further West, and flying South tend to shift Eastwards.
Many, if not most, birds migrate in flocks. For larger birds, flying in flocks reduces the energy cost. Geese in a V-formation may conserve 12–20% of the energy they would need to fly alone. Red knots Calidris canutus and dunlins Calidris alpina were found in radar studies to fly 5 km/h (2.5 kn) faster in flocks than when they were flying alone.
Birds fly at varying altitudes during migration. An expedition to Mt. Everest found skeletons of northern pintail Anas acuta and black-tailed godwit Limosa limosa at 5,000 m (16,000 ft) on the Khumbu Glacier. Bar-headed geese Anser indicus have been recorded by GPS flying at up to 6,540 m (21,460 ft) while crossing the Himalayas, at the same time engaging in the highest rates of climb to altitude for any bird. Anecdotal reports of them flying much higher have yet to be corroborated with any direct evidence. Seabirds fly low over water but gain altitude when crossing land, and the reverse pattern is seen in land birds. However most bird migration is in the range of 150 to 600 m (490–2,000 ft). Bird strike Aviation records from the United States show most collisions occur below 600 m (2,000 ft) and almost none above 1,800 m (5,900 ft).
Bird migration is not limited to birds that can fly. Most species of penguin (Spheniscidae) migrate by swimming. These routes can cover over 1,000 km (550 nmi). Dusky grouse Dendragapus obscurus perform altitudinal migration mostly by walking. Emus Dromaius novaehollandiae in Australia have been observed to undertake long-distance movements on foot during droughts.
## Nocturnal migratory behavior
During nocturnal migration ("nocmig"), many birds give nocturnal flight calls, which are short, contact-type calls. These likely serve to maintain the composition of a migrating flock, and can sometimes encode the sex of a migrating individual, and to avoid collision in the air. Nocturnal migration can be monitored using weather radar data, allowing ornithologists to estimate the number of birds migrating on a given night, and the direction of the migration. Future research includes the automatic detection and identification of nocturnally calling migrant birds.
Nocturnal migrants land in the morning and may feed for a few days before resuming their migration. These birds are referred to as passage migrants in the regions where they occur for a short period between the origin and destination.
Nocturnal migrants minimize depredation, avoid overheating, and can feed during the day. One cost of nocturnal migration is the loss of sleep. Migrants may be able to alter their quality of sleep to compensate for the loss.
## Long-distance migration
The typical image of migration is of northern land birds, such as swallows (Hirundinidae) and birds of prey, making long flights to the tropics. However, many Holarctic wildfowl and finch (Fringillidae) species winters in the North Temperate Zone, in regions with milder winters than their summer breeding grounds. For example, the pink-footed goose migrates from Iceland to Britain and neighbouring countries, whilst the dark-eyed junco migrates from subarctic and arctic climates to the contiguous United States and the American goldfinch from taiga to wintering grounds extending from the American South northwestward to Western Oregon. Some ducks, such as the garganey Anas querquedula, move completely or partially into the tropics. The European pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca follows this migratory trend, breeding in Asia and Europe and wintering in Africa.
Migration routes and wintering grounds are both genetically and traditionally determined depending on the social system of the species. In long-lived, social species such as white storks (Ciconia ciconia), flocks are often led by the oldest members and young storks learn the route on their first journey. In short-lived species that migrate alone, such as the Eurasian blackcap Sylvia atricapilla or the yellow-billed cuckoo Coccyzus americanus, first-year migrants follow a genetically determined route that is alterable with selective breeding.
Many migration routes of long-distance migratory birds are circuitous due to evolutionary history: the breeding range of Northern wheatears Oenanthe oenanthe has expanded to cover the entire Northern Hemisphere, but the species still migrates up to 14,500 km to reach ancestral wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa rather than establish new wintering grounds closer to breeding areas.
A migration route often does not follow the most direct line between breeding and wintering grounds. Rather, it could follow a hooked or arched line, with detours around geographical barriers or towards suitable stopover habitat. For most land birds, such barriers could consist of large water bodies or high mountain ranges, a lack of stopover or feeding sites, or a lack of thermal columns (important for broad-winged birds). Conversely, in water-birds, large areas of land without wetlands offering suitable feeding sites may present a barrier, and detours avoiding such barriers are observed. For example, brent geese Branta bernicla bernicla migrating between the Taymyr Peninsula and the Wadden Sea travel via low-lying coastal feeding-areas on the White Sea and the Baltic Sea rather than directly across the Arctic Ocean and the Scandinavian mainland.
Great snipes make non-stop flights of 4,000–7,000 km, lasting 60–90 h, during which they change their average cruising heights from 2,000 m (above sea level) at night to around 4,000 m during daytime.
### In waders
A similar situation occurs with waders (called shorebirds in North America). Many species, such as dunlin Calidris alpina and western sandpiper Calidris mauri, undertake long movements from their Arctic breeding grounds to warmer locations in the same hemisphere, but others such as semipalmated sandpiper C. pusilla travel longer distances to the tropics in the Southern Hemisphere.
For some species of waders, migration success depends on the availability of certain key food resources at stopover points along the migration route. This gives the migrants an opportunity to refuel for the next leg of the voyage. Some examples of important stopover locations are the Bay of Fundy and Delaware Bay.
Some bar-tailed godwits Limosa lapponica baueri have the longest known non-stop flight of any migrant, flying 11,000 km from Alaska to their New Zealand non-breeding areas. Prior to migration, 55 percent of their bodyweight is stored as fat to fuel this uninterrupted journey.
### In seabirds
Seabird migration is similar in pattern to those of the waders and waterfowl. Some, such as the black guillemot Cepphus grylle and some gulls, are quite sedentary; others, such as most terns and auks breeding in the temperate northern hemisphere, move varying distances south in the northern winter. The Arctic tern Sterna paradisaea has the longest-distance migration of any bird, and sees more daylight than any other, moving from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic non-breeding areas. One Arctic tern, ringed (banded) as a chick on the Farne Islands off the British east coast, reached Melbourne, Australia in just three months from fledging, a sea journey of over 22,000 km (12,000 nmi). Many tubenosed birds breed in the southern hemisphere and migrate north in the southern winter.
The most pelagic species, mainly in the 'tubenose' order Procellariiformes, are great wanderers, and the albatrosses of the southern oceans may circle the globe as they ride the "roaring forties" outside the breeding season. The tubenoses spread widely over large areas of open ocean, but congregate when food becomes available. Many are among the longest-distance migrants; sooty shearwaters Puffinus griseus nesting on the Falkland Islands migrate 14,000 km (7,600 nmi) between the breeding colony and the North Atlantic Ocean off Norway. Some Manx shearwaters Puffinus puffinus do this same journey in reverse. As they are long-lived birds, they may cover enormous distances during their lives; one record-breaking Manx shearwater is calculated to have flown 8 million kilometres (4.5 million nautical miles) during its over-50-year lifespan.
### Diurnal migration in large birds using thermals
Some large broad-winged birds rely on thermal columns of rising hot air to enable them to soar. These include many birds of prey such as vultures, eagles, and buzzards, but also storks. These birds migrate in the daytime. Migratory species in these groups have great difficulty crossing large bodies of water, since thermals only form over land, and these birds cannot maintain active flight for long distances. Mediterranean and other seas present a major obstacle to soaring birds, which must cross at the narrowest points. Massive numbers of large raptors and storks pass through areas such as the Strait of Messina, Gibraltar, Falsterbo, and the Bosphorus at migration times. More common species, such as the European honey buzzard Pernis apivorus, can be counted in hundreds of thousands in autumn. Other barriers, such as mountain ranges, can cause funnelling, particularly of large diurnal migrants, as in the Central American migratory bottleneck. The Batumi bottleneck in the Caucasus is one of the heaviest migratory funnels on earth, created when hundreds of thousands of soaring birds avoid flying over the Black Sea surface and across high mountains. Birds of prey such as honey buzzards which migrate using thermals lose only 10 to 20% of their weight during migration, which may explain why they forage less during migration than do smaller birds of prey with more active flight such as falcons, hawks and harriers.
From observing the migration of eleven soaring bird species over the Strait of Gibraltar, species which did not advance their autumn migration dates were those with declining breeding populations in Europe.
## Short-distance and altitudinal migration
Many long-distance migrants appear to be genetically programmed to respond to changing day length. Species that move short distances, however, may not need such a timing mechanism, instead moving in response to local weather conditions. Thus mountain and moorland breeders, such as wallcreeper Tichodroma muraria and white-throated dipper Cinclus cinclus, may move only altitudinally to escape the cold higher ground. Other species such as merlin Falco columbarius and Eurasian skylark Alauda arvensis move further, to the coast or towards the south. Species like the chaffinch are much less migratory in Britain than those of continental Europe, mostly not moving more than 5 km in their lives.
Short-distance passerine migrants have two evolutionary origins. Those that have long-distance migrants in the same family, such as the common chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita, are species of southern hemisphere origins that have progressively shortened their return migration to stay in the northern hemisphere.
Species that have no long-distance migratory relatives, such as the waxwings Bombycilla, are effectively moving in response to winter weather and the loss of their usual winter food, rather than enhanced breeding opportunities.
In the tropics there is little variation in the length of day throughout the year, and it is always warm enough for a food supply, but altitudinal migration occurs in some tropical birds. There is evidence that this enables the migrants to obtain more of their preferred foods such as fruits.
Altitudinal migration is common on mountains worldwide, such as in the Himalayas and the Andes. Dusky grouse in Colorado migrate less than a kilometer away from their summer grounds to winter sites which may be higher or lower by about 400 m in altitude than the summer sites.
Many bird species in arid regions across southern Australia are nomadic; they follow water and food supply around the country in an irregular pattern, unrelated to season but related to rainfall. Several years may pass between visits to an area by a particular species.
## Irruptions and dispersal
Sometimes circumstances such as a good breeding season followed by a food source failure the following year lead to irruptions in which large numbers of a species move far beyond the normal range. Bohemian waxwings Bombycilla garrulus well show this unpredictable variation in annual numbers, with five major arrivals in Britain during the nineteenth century, but 18 between the years 1937 and 2000. Red crossbills Loxia curvirostra too are irruptive, with widespread invasions across England noted in 1251, 1593, 1757, and 1791.
Bird migration is primarily, but not entirely, a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon. This is because continental landmasses of the northern hemisphere are almost entirely temperate and subject to winter food shortages driving bird populations south (including the Southern Hemisphere) to overwinter; In contrast, among (pelagic) seabirds, species of the Southern Hemisphere are more likely to migrate. This is because there is a large area of ocean in the Southern Hemisphere, and more islands suitable for seabirds to nest.
## Physiology and control
The control of migration, its timing and response are genetically controlled and appear to be a primitive trait that is present even in non-migratory species of birds. The ability to navigate and orient themselves during migration is a much more complex phenomenon that may include both endogenous programs as well as learning.
### Timing
The primary physiological cue for migration is the changes in the day length. These changes are related to hormonal changes in the birds. In the period before migration, many birds display higher activity or Zugunruhe (German: migratory restlessness), first described by Johann Friedrich Naumann in 1795, as well as physiological changes such as increased fat deposition. The occurrence of Zugunruhe even in cage-raised birds with no environmental cues (e.g. shortening of day and falling temperature) has pointed to the role of circannual endogenous programs in controlling bird migrations. Caged birds display a preferential flight direction that corresponds with the migratory direction they would take in nature, changing their preferential direction at roughly the same time their wild conspecifics change course.
Satellite tracking of 48 individual Asian houbaras (Chlamydotis macqueenii) across multiple migrations showed that this species uses the local temperature to time their spring migration departure. Notably, departure responses to temperature varied between individuals but were individually repeatable (when tracked over multiple years). This suggests that individual use of temperature is a cue that allows for population-level adaptation to climate change. In other words, in a warming world, many migratory birds are predicted to depart earlier in the year for their summer or winter destination.
In polygynous species with considerable sexual dimorphism, males tend to return earlier to the breeding sites than their females. This is termed protandry.
### Orientation and navigation
Navigation is based on a variety of senses. Many birds have been shown to use a sun compass. Using the Sun for direction involves the need for making compensation based on the time. Navigation has been shown to be based on a combination of other abilities including the ability to detect magnetic fields (magnetoreception), use visual landmarks as well as olfactory cues.
Long-distance migrants are believed to disperse as young birds and form attachments to potential breeding sites and to favorite wintering sites. Once the site attachment is made they show high site-fidelity, visiting the same wintering sites year after year.
The ability of birds to navigate during migrations cannot be fully explained by endogenous programming, even with the help of responses to environmental cues. The ability to successfully perform long-distance migrations can probably only be fully explained with an accounting for the cognitive ability of the birds to recognize habitats and form mental maps. Satellite tracking of day migrating raptors such as ospreys and honey buzzards has shown that older individuals are better at making corrections for wind drift. Birds rely for navigation on a combination of innate biological senses and experience, as with the two electromagnetic tools that they use. A young bird on its first migration flies in the correct direction according to the Earth's magnetic field, but does not know how far the journey will be. It does this through a radical pair mechanism whereby chemical reactions in special photo pigments sensitive to short wavelengths are affected by the field. Although this only works during daylight hours, it does not use the position of the Sun in any way. With experience, it learns various landmarks and this "mapping" is done by magnetites in the trigeminal system, which tell the bird how strong the field is. Because birds migrate between northern and southern regions, the magnetic field strengths at different latitudes let it interpret the radical pair mechanism more accurately and let it know when it has reached its destination. There is a neural connection between the eye and "Cluster N", the part of the forebrain that is active during migrational orientation, suggesting that birds may actually be able to see the magnetic field of the Earth.
### Vagrancy
Migrating birds can lose their way and appear outside their normal ranges. This can be due to flying past their destinations as in the "spring overshoot" in which birds returning to their breeding areas overshoot and end up further north than intended. Certain areas, because of their location, have become famous as watchpoints for such birds. Examples are the Point Pelee National Park in Canada, and Spurn in England.
Reverse migration, where the genetic programming of young birds fails to work properly, can lead to rarities turning up as vagrants thousands of kilometres out of range.
Drift migration of birds blown off course by the wind can result in "falls" of large numbers of migrants at coastal sites.
A related phenomenon called "abmigration" involves birds from one region joining similar birds from a different breeding region in the common winter grounds and then migrating back along with the new population. This is especially common in some waterfowl, which shift from one flyway to another.
### Migration conditioning
It has been possible to teach a migration route to a flock of birds, for example in re-introduction schemes. After a trial with Canada geese Branta canadensis, microlight aircraft were used in the US to teach safe migration routes to reintroduced whooping cranes Grus americana.
## Adaptations
Birds need to alter their metabolism to meet the demands of migration. The storage of energy through the accumulation of fat and the control of sleep in nocturnal migrants require special physiological adaptations. In addition, the feathers of a bird suffer from wear-and-tear and require to be moulted. The timing of this moult – usually once a year but sometimes twice – varies with some species moulting prior to moving to their winter grounds and others molting prior to returning to their breeding grounds. Apart from physiological adaptations, migration sometimes requires behavioral changes such as flying in flocks to reduce the energy used in migration or the risk of predation.
## Evolutionary and ecological factors
Migration in birds is highly labile and is believed to have developed independently in many avian lineages. While it is agreed that the behavioral and physiological adaptations necessary for migration are under genetic control, some authors have argued that no genetic change is necessary for migratory behavior to develop in a sedentary species because the genetic framework for migratory behavior exists in nearly all avian lineages. This explains the rapid appearance of migratory behavior after the most recent glacial maximum.
Theoretical analyses show that detours that increase flight distance by up to 20% will often be adaptive on aerodynamic grounds – a bird that loads itself with food to cross a long barrier flies less efficiently. However some species show circuitous migratory routes that reflect historical range expansions and are far from optimal in ecological terms. An example is the migration of continental populations of Swainson's thrush Catharus ustulatus, which fly far east across North America before turning south via Florida to reach northern South America; this route is believed to be the consequence of a range expansion that occurred about 10,000 years ago. Detours may also be caused by differential wind conditions, predation risk, or other factors.
### Climate change
Large scale climatic changes are expected to have an effect on the timing of migration. Studies have shown a variety of effects including timing changes in migration, breeding as well as population declines. Many species have been expanding their range as a likely consequence of climate change. This is sometimes in the form of former vagrants becoming established or regular migrants.
## Ecological effects
The migration of birds also aids the movement of other species, including those of ectoparasites such as ticks and lice, which in turn may carry micro-organisms including those of concern to human health. Due to the global spread of avian influenza, bird migration has been studied as a possible mechanism of disease transmission, but it has been found not to present a special risk; import of pet and domestic birds is a greater threat. Some viruses that are maintained in birds without lethal effects, such as the West Nile virus may however be spread by migrating birds. Birds may also have a role in the dispersal of propagules of plants and plankton.
Some predators take advantage of the concentration of birds during migration. Greater noctule bats feed on nocturnal migrating passerines. Some birds of prey specialize on migrating waders.
## Study techniques
Early studies on the timing of migration began in 1749 in Finland, with Johannes Leche of Turku collecting the dates of arrivals of spring migrants.
Bird migration routes have been studied by a variety of techniques including the oldest, marking. Swans have been marked with a nick on the beak since about 1560 in England. Scientific ringing was pioneered by Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen in 1899. Other techniques include radar and satellite tracking. The rate of bird migration over the Alps (up to a height of 150 m) was found to be highly comparable between fixed-beam radar measurements and visual bird counts, highlighting the potential use of this technique as an objective way of quantifying bird migration.
Stable isotopes of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur can establish avian migratory connectivity between wintering sites and breeding grounds. Stable isotopic methods to establish migratory linkage rely on spatial isotopic differences in bird diet that are incorporated into inert tissues like feathers, or into growing tissues such as claws and muscle or blood.
An approach to identify migration intensity makes use of upward pointing microphones to record the nocturnal contact calls of flocks flying overhead. These are then analyzed in a laboratory to measure time, frequency and species.
An older technique developed by George Lowery and others to quantify migration involves observing the face of the full moon with a telescope and counting the silhouettes of flocks of birds as they fly at night.
Orientation behavior studies have been traditionally carried out using variants of a setup known as the Emlen funnel, which consists of a circular cage with the top covered by glass or wire-screen so that either the sky is visible or the setup is placed in a planetarium or with other controls on environmental cues. The orientation behavior of the bird inside the cage is studied quantitatively using the distribution of marks that the bird leaves on the walls of the cage. Other approaches used in pigeon homing studies make use of the direction in which the bird vanishes on the horizon.
## Threats and conservation
Human activities have threatened many migratory bird species. The distances involved in bird migration mean that they often cross political boundaries of countries and conservation measures require international cooperation. Several international treaties have been signed to protect migratory species including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 of the US. and the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement
The concentration of birds during migration can put species at risk. Some spectacular migrants have already gone extinct; during the passenger pigeon's (Ectopistes migratorius) migration the enormous flocks were 1.5 kilometres (1 mi) wide, darkening the sky, and 500 km (300 mi) long, taking several days to pass.
Hunting along migration routes threatens some bird species. The populations of Siberian cranes (Leucogeranus leucogeranus) that wintered in India declined due to hunting along the route, particularly in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Birds were last seen in their favourite wintering grounds in Keoladeo National Park in 2002. Structures such as power lines, wind farms and offshore oil-rigs have also been known to affect migratory birds. Other migration hazards include pollution, storms, wildfires, and habitat destruction along migration routes, denying migrants food at stopover points. For example, in the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, up to 65% of key intertidal habitat at the Yellow Sea migration bottleneck has been destroyed since the 1950s.
Other significant areas include stop-over sites between the wintering and breeding territories. A capture-recapture study of passerine migrants with high fidelity for breeding and wintering sites did not show similar strict association with stop-over sites. Unfortunately, many historic stopover sites have been destroyed or drastically reduced due to human agricultural development, leading to an increased risk of bird extinction, especially in the face of climate change.
Conversely, so-called "ship-assisted migration" may be a modern benefit to migrating birds by giving them a mid-ocean rest stop on ships.
### Stopover site conservation efforts
California's Central Valley was once a massive stopover site for birds traveling along the Pacific Flyway, before being converted into agricultural land. 90% of North America’s shorebirds utilize this migration path and the destruction of rest stops has had detrimental impacts on bird populations, as they cannot get adequate rest and food and can be unable to complete their migration. As a solution, conservationists and farmers in the United States are now working together to help provide stopover habitats for migrating birds. In the winter, when many of these birds are migrating, farmers are now flooding their fields in order to provide temporary wetlands for birds to rest and feed before continuing their journey. Rice is a major crop produced along this flyway, and flooded rice paddies have shown to be important areas for at least 169 different bird species. For example, in California, legislation changes have made it illegal for farmers to burn excess rice straw, so instead they have begun flooding their fields during the winter. Similar practices are now taking place across the nation, with the Mississippi Alluvial Valley being a primary area of interest due to its agricultural use and its importance for migration.
Plant debris provides food sources for the birds while the newly formed wetland serves as a habitat for bird prey species such as insects and other invertebrates. In turn, bird foraging assists in breaking down plant matter and droppings then help to fertilize the field helping the farmers, and in turn significantly decreasing their need for artificial fertilizers by at least 13%. Recent studies have shown that the implementation of these temporary wetlands has had significant positive impacts on bird populations, such as the White‐fronted Goose, as well as various species of wading birds. The artificial nature of these temporary wetlands also greatly reduces the threat of predation from other wild animals. This practice requires extremely low investment on behalf of the farmers, and researchers believe that mutually beneficial approaches such as this are key to wildlife conservation moving forward. Economic incentives are key to getting more farmers to participate in this practice. However, issues can arise if bird populations are too high with their large amounts of droppings decreasing water quality and potentially leading to eutrophication. Increasing participation in this practice would allow migratory birds to spread out and rest on a wider variety of locations, decreasing the negative impacts of having too many birds congregated in a small area. Using this practice in areas with close proximity to natural wetlands could also greatly increase their positive impact.
## See also
- Human-guided migration
- Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
- Winged Migration, 2001 documentary film |
31,829,019 | 2011 Football League One play-off final | 1,141,267,922 | null | [
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"Huddersfield Town A.F.C. matches",
"May 2011 sports events in the United Kingdom",
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| The 2011 Football League One play-off final was an association football match which was played on 29 May 2011 at Old Trafford in Manchester, between Huddersfield Town and Peterborough United, to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from Football League One to the Football League Championship. The top two teams of the 2010–11 Football League One season, Brighton & Hove Albion and Southampton, gained automatic promotion to the Championship, while the teams placed from third to sixth position took part in play-offs. The winners of the play-off semi-finals competed for the final place for the 2011–12 season in the Championship. AFC Bournemouth and Milton Keynes Dons were the defeated semi-finalists, losing to Huddersfield Town and Peterborough United respectively.
Steve Tanner was the referee for the match, which was played in front of 48,410 spectators. Craig Mackail-Smith, League One's leading scorer, went close for Peterborough on several occasions in the first half but it ended goalless. In the 78th minute, Peterborough took the lead as Tommy Rowe headed Grant McCann's free-kick into the Huddersfield net. Mackail-Smith doubled Peterborough's lead within two minutes, his shot deflecting into the goal off Antony Kay. With five minutes remaining, McCann increased the lead with a long-range strike to give Peterborough a 3–0 victory and promotion to the Championship.
Peterborough United ended their next season in 18th place in the Championship, four places and ten points above the relegation zone. Huddersfield Town finished their following season in fourth position in League One and qualified for the 2012 Football League play-offs where they met Sheffield United in the final and won promotion to the Championship after a penalty shootout.
## Route to the final
Huddersfield Town finished the regular 2010–11 season in third place in Football League One, the third tier of the English football league system, one place and eight points ahead of Peterborough United. Both therefore missed out on the two automatic places for promotion to the Football League Championship and instead took part in the play-offs to determine the third promoted team. Huddersfield Town finished five points behind Southampton (who were promoted in second place) and eight behind league winners Brighton & Hove Albion.
Peterborough United's opponents for their play-off semi-final were Milton Keynes Dons with the first match of the two-legged tie taking place at Stadium MK in Milton Keynes on 15 May 2011. Craig Mackail-Smith gave the visitors the lead in the 8th minute, scoring after MK Dons goalkeeper David Martin pushed away a strike from Nathaniel Mendez-Laing. In the 47th minute, Daniel Powell levelled the score from close range after a defensive error from Tommy Rowe and three minutes later MK Dons went ahead 2–1 after Sam Baldock's free-kick went through the wall into the Peterborough net. Ángelo Balanta made it 3–1 in the 56th minute after beating Peterborough goalkeeper Paul Jones at the near post. Charlie Lee was then sent off for Peterborough after receiving two yellow cards, the second for a foul on Powell. With nine minutes remaining, Stephen Gleeson was also sent off, for a foul on Mark Little, and Grant McCann converted the subsequent penalty to make the final score 3–2 to MK Dons. The second leg was held four days later at London Road in Peterborough. McCann scored in the 11th minute from a free-kick to put Peterborough into the lead before Mackail-Smith's close-range strike made it 2–0 and sent his side to the final with a 4–3 aggregate victory.
Huddersfield Town faced AFC Bournemouth in the other semi-final; the first leg was played at Dean Court in Bournemouth on 14 May 2011. Midway through the first half, Kevin Kilbane put the visitors ahead with a header from Gary Roberts' cross. Soon after, Rhoys Wiggins was fouled by Huddersfield goalkeeper Ian Bennett, who conceded a penalty. Danny Ings took the spot-kick but Bennett dived to his right to make the save. In the 60th minute, Donal McDermott scored with a shot from around 25 yards (23 metres) to level the match, which ended 1–1. The second leg took place four days later at the Galpharm Stadium in Huddersfield. Lee Peltier gave Huddersfield the lead on 26 minutes from a Roberts corner, but Steve Lovell equalised just before half-time from the penalty spot after Adam Smith was fouled in the Huddersfield penalty area. Danny Ward restored the home side's lead just before half-time with a strike past Bournemouth's goalkeeper Shwan Jalal. Midway through the second half, McDermott's pass found Lovell who rounded Bennett and scored to make it 2–2. With the aggregate score 3–3 at the final whistle, the match went into extra time. Ings scored for Bournemouth from a Marc Pugh cross in the 104th minute but Antony Kay equalised almost immediately with a header from a Roberts corner. Midway through the second period of additional time, Jason Pearce was shown the red card for a foul. The match ended 3–3, and with the scores level at 4–4 on aggregate, a penalty shootout was required to determine who would progress. Michael Symes and Lee Novak scored the opening penalties for Bournemouth and Huddersfield respectively but Liam Feeney's spot-kick was saved by Bennett. Ward made it 2–1 to Huddersfield before Anton Robinson missed his penalty. Kilbane and Shaun Cooper then scored for Huddersfield and Bournemouth respectively, but Kay scored the decider and Huddersfield won the shootout 4–2, progressing to the final.
## Match
### Background
Due to the 2011 UEFA Champions League Final being held at Wembley Stadium on 28 May 2011, it appeared that the three Football League play-off finals may have to be played at a different venue for the first time since 2007. Manchester United's Old Trafford had been confirmed as a possible alternative, while Arsenal's Emirates Stadium and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff were also under consideration to host the Championship, League One and League Two play-off finals. It was confirmed in January 2011 that Wembley would host the Championship play-off final on 30 May, while Old Trafford would host the League Two and League One finals on 28 and 29 May respectively.
The match was Huddersfield Town's third play-off final—their previous appearances came in 1995 (a 2–1 win over Bristol Rovers) and 2004 (a 4–1 penalty shootout win over Mansfield Town)—and capped their seventh overall appearance in the Football League play-offs. They had been relegated to the third tier of English football at the end of the 2002–03 season. Peterborough United had also featured in two previous play-off finals, winning the Football League Third Division final in both 1992 (2–1 against Stockport County) and 2000 (1–0 against Darlington). They had been relegated to League One the previous season, finishing bottom of the division and 15 points from safety.
The sides had played each other three times during the season, twice in the league and once in the Football League Trophy. Peterborough won the first league encounter 4–2 at London Road in August 2010; Huddersfield secured a 3–2 victory six weeks later in the cup competition. The second league match took place in April 2011 and ended in a 1–1 draw. This was also the second time the sides had faced one another in the play-offs, with Peterborough winning 4–3 on aggregate in the 1992 semi-finals.
Peterborough's Mackail-Smith was the division's top scorer during the regular season with 32 goals (27 in the league, 2 in the FA Cup and 3 in the League Cup). His side's other leading scorers were George Boyd with 17 (15 in the league and 2 in the League Cup) and Aaron McLean on 13 (10 in the league, 2 in the FA Cup and 1 in the League Cup). Jordan Rhodes was Huddersfield's top scorer with 26 goals (20 in the league, 1 in the FA Cup, 1 in the League Cup and 4 in the Football League Trophy) followed by Anthony Pilkington with 14 (10 in the league and 3 in the Football League Trophy).
The referee for the match was Steve Tanner. He was assisted by Peter Bankes and Charles Breakspear, Mick Russell acted as the fourth official and Seb Stockbridge was reserve assistant referee. The final was broadcast live in the United Kingdom on Sky Sports. Huddersfield adopted a 4–5–1 formation while Peterborough played as a 4–3–2–1.
### Summary
The match kicked off around 3 p.m. on 29 May 2011 at Old Trafford in front of 48,410 spectators. In the fifth minute, Mackail-Smith's shot was deflected by Kay onto the outside of Huddersfield's post from a tackle. Boyd then struck from around 30 yards (27 metres) but his shot was saved by Bennett. For Huddersfield, Peltier headed a Roberts pass over the Peterborough crossbar before Jones caught Clarke's on-target header. Benik Afobe, playing as a lone striker, then missed an opportunity for Huddersfield before Mackail-Smith was denied once again by Kay. Roberts' free-kick was then tipped round the post by Jones before Afobe struck wide from 8 yards (7.3 metres) from the resulting corner. Mackail-Smith then hit a shot wide while unmarked after receiving a pass from Boyd, and the half ended goalless.
The first chance of the second half fell to McCann who struck a curling free-kick over the bar from around 20 yards (18 metres), before Ward's run down the wing ended with his shot striking the Peterborough crossbar. Kay then fouled Mackail-Smith, who was through on goal, and was shown a yellow card. In the 78th minute, Peterborough took the lead as Rowe's header from McCann's free-kick went into the Huddersfield net. In immediate response, Danny Cadamarteri was brought on for Ward as Huddersfield switched to two strikers, but Mackail-Smith doubled Peterborough's lead within two minutes, his shot deflecting into the goal off Kay. With five minutes remaining, McCann increased his side's lead with a long-range strike before Lee Tomlin's shot went over the Huddersfield crossbar. Peterborough won the match 3–0 and were promoted to the Championship.
### Details
## Post-match
Darren Ferguson, the Peterborough manager, was quick to praise his chairman, Darragh MacAnthony, noting "he's spent money, had a right go and had the bottle to get me back at the club". He also noted that his father, Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, had not been present at the final, calling him a "jinx" and jokingly attributing Peterborough's semi-final first-leg loss to MK Dons to him. The Huddersfield manager Lee Clark said that the final score did not tell the whole story of the match: "It was just a crazy eight, ten minutes. For the first half-hour of the second half we dominated, but they had a set-piece expert ... I'm hurting for the owner, for the fantastic supporters".
Peterborough United ended their next season in 18th place in the Championship, four places and ten points above the relegation zone. Huddersfield Town finished their following season in fourth position in League One and qualified for the 2012 Football League play-offs where they met Sheffield United in the final, winning promotion to the Championship after a penalty shootout. |
40,011,958 | Experimental pop | 1,166,498,920 | Pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries | [
"20th-century music genres",
"Avant-garde music",
"Experimental music genres",
"Experimental pop",
"Pop music genres",
"Progressive music"
]
| Experimental pop is pop music that cannot be categorized within traditional musical boundaries or which attempts to push elements of existing popular forms into new areas. It may incorporate experimental techniques such as musique concrète, aleatoric music, or eclecticism into pop contexts. Often, the compositional process involves the use of electronic production effects to manipulate sounds and arrangements, and the composer may draw the listener's attention specifically with both timbre and tonality, though not always simultaneously.
Experimental pop music developed concurrently with experimental jazz as a new kind of avant-garde, with many younger musicians embracing the practice of making studio recordings along the fringes of popular music. In the early 1960s, it was common for producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects, and by the late 1960s, highly experimental pop music, or sounds that expanded the idea of the typical popular song, was positively received by young audiences.
## Characteristics
Author Bill Martin states that while the term "experimental pop" may sound "seemingly oxymoronic", it is possible to identify three criteria for characterizing its music:
- It is rooted in existing popular forms
- It experiments with or stretches the use of these popular forms
- It attempts to draw the audience of those forms toward these new developments, in the manner of the avant-garde
Some tendencies among artists include the incorporation of experimental techniques such as musique concrète, aleatoric music, or eclecticism into pop contexts. Often, the compositional process involves the use of electronic production effects to manipulate sounds and arrangements. According to musicologist Leigh Landy, experimental pop settings combine sound-based work and note-based work, though not always simultaneously. Composer Nico Muhly described the world of experimental pop as "celebrations of sonic juxtapositions".
## History
### Origins (1950s–1960s)
Martin writes that experimental pop developed at roughly the same time as experimental jazz, and that it emerged as "a new kind of avant-garde" made possible by the historical and material circumstances of its time. In the pop and rock music of the early 1960s, it was common for producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados. According to author Mark Brend, Meek's I Hear a New World (1960) predates better-known experimental pop by several years, whereas musicologist Leigh Landy names the American composer Frank Zappa as one of the first experimental pop musicians.
Musician David Grubbs writes that many younger musicians "moved out of [John] Cage's shadow by taking to a different extreme and embracing the practice of making studio recordings of works along the fringes of popular music". Grubbs further explains that some of the most prominent avant-garde musicians who formed rock bands in the mid 1960s were the Welsh John Cale (later of the Velvet Underground) and the American Joseph Byrd (later of the United States of America), who both went on to create albums of experimental pop music. However, a "gulf" would still exist between experimental composers and "out-there" pop musicians, partly due to the role of the recording studio. Regarding this, composer Robert Ashley is quoted in 1966;
> We can't be popular musicians, where the fairly exciting things happen. [...] The one thing I like about popular music is that they record it. They record it, record it, record it, record it! The astute producer cuts out the magic from the different tapes (laughter) and puts them in a certain order and gets a whole piece. It's very beautiful, because it's really aural magic. [...] We have to invent social situations to allow that magic to happen.
Music historian Lorenzo Candalaria described American rock band the Beach Boys as "one of the most experimental and innovative groups of the 1960s." Co-founder and leader Brian Wilson wrote and produced songs for the group that ranged from massive hits to obscure experimental pop compositions. Their 1966 single "Good Vibrations", also produced and co-written by Wilson, topped record charts internationally, subsequently proliferating a wave of pop experimentation with its rush of riff changes, echo chamber effects, and intricate harmonies. It was followed by Smiley Smile (1967), an album of stripped-down recordings. In 2003, Stylus Magazine wrote that the album "embrace[d] the listener with a drugged out sincerity; a feat never accomplished by the more pretentious and heavy-handed psychedelia of that era. It is for this reason Smiley Smile flows so well with the more experimental pop of today".
In the view of artist Duggie Fields, the Syd Barret-led incarnation of Pink Floyd exemplified experimental pop. The group found their initial success playing at the UFO Club in London, an underground venue whose objective was to provide an outlet for experimental pop groups. According to The New York Times, Barrett and his subsequent solo albums "became a touchstone for experimental pop musicians".
By the late 1960s, highly experimental pop music, or sounds that expanded the idea of the typical popular song, was positively received by young audiences, which cultural essayist Gerald Lyn Early credits to bands like Cream, Traffic, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and "of course", the Beatles. Drummer John Densmore believed that the Doors were on the cutting edge of experimental pop music until he listened to the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), which he described as "[seeming] to have done it all". Martin wrote that, along with the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967), the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper "opened a space" for experimental pop which would be later filled by Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, and the Who's Tommy (1968). Prior to Sgt. Pepper, Gary Usher and Curt Boettcher were Los Angeles-based songwriters and producers who were interested in classical music and the avant-garde. Later cited as fixtures of sunshine pop, they worked together to create their debut studio album, Present Tense (1968). It was credited to Sagittarius, a studio group referred to as an "experimental pop band" by The A.V. Club'''s Noel Murray.
### 1970s–1980s
Author Pascal Bussy wrote that German krautrock groups such as Can and Kraftwerk successfully bridged the gap between experimental and pop music in the 1970s, while according to The New York Times, Kraftwerk refined an "experimental pop sensibility" on albums such as Radio-Activity (1976) and Trans-Europe Express (1977). Writer Owen Hatherley located a "literary-experimental pop tradition" running throughout the United Kingdom during the 1970s and 1980s. Embodied by artists such as Roxy Music, the Smiths, the Associates, and Pet Shop Boys, this tradition "balanced sexuality and literacy, ostentatious performance and austere rectitude, raging ambition and class resentment, translating it into records balancing experimentation with populist cohesion."
The 1970s work of ex-Roxy Music member musician Brian Eno is cited by Leigh Landy as an archetypal example of a pop musician who "applied developments from the experimental sector while creating their own experimental pop sector." Following his departure from Roxy Music in 1973, Eno began releasing a series of solo albums where he simultaneously developed his ambient, pop, and electronic styles. In the belief of pop musician Scott Miller, they were the era's "most successful" experimental pop artists, explaining that the key to Eno's success "appears to have been making a science out of decision points (see 'Oblique Strategies') rather than being willfully weird or different at the usual unexamined decision points"
Eno's album Before and After Science (1977), according to Joshua Pickard of publication Nooga, was "experimental pop lucidity [...] the culmination of sound that Eno had been working on since the release of Here Come the Warm Jets in 1973." Members of Roxy Music, Free, Fairport Convention, Can and Cluster feature on the record as session musicians in addition to Phil Collins, who performs drums on one track. Collins' own debut solo single "In the Air Tonight" (1981) was described by Gary Mills of The Quietus as being "at the vanguard of experimental pop" when it was released. He further called it "a rock oddity classic" which was influenced by "the unconventional studio predilections of Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel". Landy noted the tendency of experimental pop artists such as Eno and David Byrne to build tracks around existing recordings, effectively fusing different styles, a technique used on the duo's 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
The New York Times' Will Hermes names Laurie Anderson an experimental pop pioneer whose signature song "O Superman" (1981) was a "left-field new wave hit" that "conflated maternal succor with the psychology of the modern corporate state using electronically processed verse." Writing for The Guardian, Jason Cowley described British singer-songwriter Kate Bush as "an artist superbly articulate in the language of experimental pop music". Paste Magazine credited My Bloody Valentine's 1988 album Isn't Anything with showcasing an experimental pop aesthetic, which drew on "harsh, swirling guitar tones and beautifully dissonant distortion," that would eventually develop into the genre known as shoegazing. Martin suggested that hip hop music, particularly released by artists such as Public Enemy and KRS-One, emerged as a new form of experimental pop, seeing a renewed merger of artistic and political innovation.
### 1990s–2000s
Icelandic singer Björk, who began her solo career in the 1990s, has been called "the queen of experimental pop" by The Guardian'''s Michael Cragg.
The record label Hippos in Tanks, founded by Barron Machat in 2010, was associated with Internet age experimental pop that drew on disparate sources such as new wave, avant-garde noise, R&B, and techno. The label released projects by artists such as James Ferraro, Autre Ne Veut, Laurel Halo, Hype Williams, and Arca. |
39,760,328 | Fez, Morocco | 1,173,551,714 | null | [
"789 establishments",
"8th-century establishments in Africa",
"Burial sites of the Idrisid dynasty",
"Fez, Morocco",
"Former capitals of Morocco",
"Populated places established in the 8th century",
"Prefecturial capitals in Morocco",
"Regional capitals in Morocco"
]
| Fez or Fes (/fɛz/; Arabic: فاس, romanized: fās; Standard Moroccan Tamazight: ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, romanized: fizaz; French: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 million according to the 2014 census. Located to the northwest of the Atlas Mountains, it is surrounded by hills and the old city is centered around the Fez River (Oued Fes) flowing from west to east.
Fez was founded under Idrisid rule during the 8th–9th centuries CE. It initially consisted of two autonomous and competing settlements. Successive waves of mainly Arab immigrants from Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and al-Andalus (Spain/Portugal) in the early 9th century gave the nascent city its Arab character. After the downfall of the Idrisid dynasty, other empires came and went until the 11th century when the Almoravid Sultan Yusuf ibn Tashfin united the two settlements into what is today's Fes el-Bali quarter. Under Almoravid rule, the city gained a reputation for religious scholarship and mercantile activity.
Fez reached its zenith in the Marinid era (13th-15th centuries), regaining its status as political capital. Numerous new madrasas and mosques were constructed, many of which survive today, while other structures were restored. These buildings are counted among the hallmarks of Moorish and Moroccan architectural styles. In 1276 the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf Yaqub also founded the royal administrative district of Fes Jdid, where the Royal Palace (Dar al-Makhzen) is still located today, to which extensive gardens were later added. During this period the Jewish population of the city grew and the Mellah (Jewish quarter) was formed on the south side of this new district. After the overthrow of the Marinid dynasty, Fez declined and subsequently competed with Marrakesh for political and cultural influence. It became the capital again under the 'Alawi dynasty up until 1912.
Today, the city consists of two old medina quarters, Fes el-Bali and Fes Jdid, and the much larger modern urban Ville Nouvelle area founded during the French colonial era. The medina of Fez is listed as a World Heritage Site and is considered the world's largest and oldest urban pedestrian zones (car-free areas). It contains the University of al-Qarawiyyin which was founded in 857 and is considered by some to be the oldest continuously functioning institute of higher education in the world. It also contains the Chouara Tannery from the 11th century, one of the oldest tanneries in the world. The city has been called the "Mecca of the West" and the "Athens of Africa." It is also considered the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco.
## Etymology
The name of the city in Arabic is فاس Fās (or ڢاس in traditional Maghrebi script), from which the names Fez (American English), Fes (British English), Fès (French) or Fas (a more direct transliteration) are derived.
According to some traditions, the city's name comes from the Arabic word فأس Faʾs, with a hamza representing a glottal stop, meaning pickaxe. Various legends have been reported to explain this etymology. One tells the story of a gold pickaxe found on site during the city's construction, while another claims that Idris I used a silver and gold pickaxe to dig alongside his workers. Another account reported by Ibn Abi Zar claims that an ancient city named "Sef" had previously existed on the site and that Idris I reversed the letters of this name to create the name "Fes".
During the rule of the Idrisid dynasty (788 to 974), Fez consisted of two cities: Fas, founded by Idris I, and al-ʿĀliyá, founded by his son, Idris II. During this period the capital city was known as al-ʿĀliyá, with the name Fas being reserved for the separate site on the other side of the river; no Idrisid coins have been found with the name Fez, only al-ʿĀliyá and al-ʿĀliyá Madinat Idris. It is not known whether the name al-ʿĀliyá ever referred to both urban areas. The two cities were united in 1070 and the name Fas was used for the combined site.
## History
### Foundation and the Idrisids
The city was first founded in 789 as Madinat Fas on the southeast bank of the Jawhar River (now known as the Fez River) by Idris I, founder of the Idrisid dynasty. His son, Idris II, built a settlement called Al-'Aliya on the opposing river bank in 809 and moved his capital here from Walili (Volubilis). The early population was composed mostly of Berbers, along with hundreds of Arab warriors from Kairouan who made up Idris II's entourage.
Arab emigration to Fez increased afterwards. Andalusi families of mixed Arab and Iberian descent, who were expelled from Córdoba after a rebellion in 817–818 against al-Hakam I, were one major component of this. These families mainly settled in Madinat Fas. These two waves of immigrants gave the city its Arabic character and would subsequently give their name to the districts of 'Adwat Al-Andalus [ar] and 'Adwat al-Qarawiyyin [ar]. The city also had a strong Jewish community, probably consisting of Zenata Berbers who had previously converted to Judaism, as well as a small remaining Christian population for a time. The Jews were especially concentrated in a northeastern district of Al-'Aliya, known as Funduq el-Yihoudi (near the present-day Bab Guissa gate).
Following the death of Idris II in 828 the region was divided among his sons. The eldest, Muhammad, received Fez, but some of his brothers attempted to break away from his leadership, resulting in an internecine conflict. Although the Idrisid realm was eventually reunified and enjoyed a period of peace under Ali ibn Muhammad and Yahya ibn Muhammad, it fell into decline again in the late 9th century.
In the 10th century, the city was contested by the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba and the Fatimid Caliphate of Ifriqiya (Tunisia), who ruled the city through a host of Zenata clients. The Fatimids took the city in 927 and expelled the Idrisids definitively, after which their Miknasa (one of the Zenata tribes) were installed there. The city, along with much of northern Morocco, continued to change hands between the proxies of Córdoba and the proxies of the Fatimids for many decades. Following another successful invasion by Buluggin ibn Ziri in 979 and a brief period of Fatimid control, the forces of Al-Mansur of Cordoba managed to retake the region again, expelling the Fatimids permanently. From 980 (or from 986), Fez was ruled by a Zenata dynasty from the Maghrawa tribe, who were allies of the Caliphate of Córdoba. They maintained this control even after the Caliphate's collapse in the early 11th century and until the arrival of the Almoravids.
Fez continued to grow under Zenata control, even though conflicts between its two settlements, Madinat Fas and Al-'Aliya, flared up during periods of political rivalry. Ziri ibn Atiyya, the first ruler of the new dynasty, had a troubled reign. However, Ibn Atiyya's descendant Dunas ibn Hamama, ruling between 1037 and 1049, was responsible for improving the city's infrastructure. He developed much of Fez's water supply system, which has largely survived up to the present day. Other structures built in his time included hammams (bathhouses), mosques, and the first bridges over the Oued Bou Khrareb (mostly rebuilt in later eras). The two cities became increasingly integrated: the open space between the two was filled up by new houses and up to six bridges across the river allowed for easier passage between them. A decade after Dunas, between 1059 and 1061, the two cities were ruled separately by two rival Zenata emirs who fought with each other: Al-'Aliya was controlled by an emir named Al-Gisa and Madinat Fas was controlled by Al-Fetouh. Both brothers fortified their respective shores, and their names have been preserved in two of the city's gates to this day: Bab Guissa (or Bab Gisa) in the north and Bab Ftouh in the south.
### Almoravids, Almohads and Marinids
In 1069–1070 (or possibly a few years later), Fez was conquered by the Almoravids under Yusuf ibn Tashfin. In the same year of this conquest, Yusuf ibn Tashfin unified Madinat Fas and Al-'Aliya into one city. The walls dividing them were destroyed, bridges connecting them were built or renovated, and a new circuit of walls was constructed that encompassed both cities. A kasbah (Arabic term for "citadel") was built at the western edge of the city (just west of Bab Bou Jeloud today) to house the city's governor and garrison. Although the capital was moved to Marrakesh under the Almoravids, Fez acquired a reputation for Maliki legal scholarship and remained an important centre of trade and industry. Almoravid impact on the city's structure was such that Yusuf ibn Tashfin is sometimes considered to be the second founder of Fez.
In 1145 the Almohad leader Abd al-Mu'min besieged and conquered the city during the Almohad overthrow of the Almoravids. Due to the ferocious resistance they encountered from the local population, the Almohads demolished the city's fortifications. However, due to Fez's continuing economic and military importance, the Almohad caliph Ya'qub al-Mansur ordered the reconstruction of the ramparts. The walls were completed by his successor Muhammad al-Nasir in 1204, giving them their definitive shape and establishing the perimeter of Fes el-Bali to this day. The Almohads built the Kasbah Bou Jeloud on the site of the former Almoravid kasbah and also built the first kasbah occupying the site of the current Kasbah an-Nouar. Not all the land within the city walls was densely inhabited; much of it was still relatively open and was occupied by crops and gardens used by the inhabitants. During the 12th century, the city was one of the largest in the world, with an estimated population of 200,000.
In 1250, Fez regained its status as the capital under the Marinid dynasty. The city reached its golden age in the Marinid period. In 1276, an anti-Marinid revolt resulted in a massacre of the Jewish community that was stopped by the intervention of the ruler Abu Yusuf Ya'qub. Following the revolt, Abu Yusuf Yaqub founded Fes Jdid as the new administrative and military centre. Under the Marinids, many of the principal monuments in the medina were built and the city established its reputation as an important intellectual centre. Between 1271 and 1357 seven madrasas were built, which are among the best examples of Moroccan architecture and some of the most richly decorated monuments in Fez.
The Jewish quarter of Fez, the Mellah, was created in Fes Jdid at some point during the Marinid period. The exact date and circumstances of its formation are not firmly established, but many scholars date the transfer of the Jewish population from Fes el-Bali to the new Mellah to the 15th century, a period of political tension and instability. In particular, Jewish sources describe the transfer as a consequence of the "rediscovery" of Idris II's body in the heart of the city in 1437, which caused the surrounding area – if not the entire city – to acquire a "holy" (haram) status, requiring that non-Muslims be removed from the area. The Moroccan Jewish community had initially consisted of indigenous local Jews (known as the Toshavim) but these were joined by Western Sephardic Jews fleeing from the Iberian Peninsula (known as the Megorashim) in subsequent generations, especially after the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain and 1496 expulsion of Jews from Portugal.
The 1465 Moroccan revolt overthrew the last Marinid sultan. In 1472 the Wattasids, another Zenata dynasty which had previously served as viziers under the Marinid sultans, succeeded as rulers of Morocco from Fez. They perpetuated the structure of the Marinid state and continued its policies, but were unable to control all of Morocco. They did not contribute significantly to the physical fabric of Fez.
### Saadis and 'Alawis
In the 16th century the Saadis, a dynasty claiming prophetic heritage, rose to power in southern Morocco and challenged the Wattasids. Around the same time, the Ottoman Empire came close to Fez after its conquest of Algeria. In January 1549, the Saadi sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh took Fez and ousted the last Wattasid sultan Ali Abu Hassun. The Wattasids later retook the city in 1554 with Ottoman support, but this reconquest was short-lived and later that same year the Wattasids were decisively defeated by the Saadis. The Ottomans attempted to invade Morocco after the assassination of Mohammed ash-Sheikh in 1558, but were stopped by his son Abdallah al-Ghalib at the Battle of Wadi al-Laban north of Fez. After the death of Abdallah al-Ghalib a new power struggle emerged. Abd al-Malik, Abdallah's brother, captured Fez with Ottoman support and ousted his nephew Abu Abdullah from the throne. This led to the Battle of Wadi al-Makhazin (also known as Battle of the Three Kings) in which Abd al-Malik's army defeated the invading Portuguese army, ensuring Moroccan independence. Abd al-Malik was killed during the battle and was succeeded by Ahmad al-Mansur (r. 1578–1603).
The Saadis, who used Marrakesh again as their capital, did not lavish much attention on Fez, with the exception of the ornate ablutions pavilions added to the Qarawiyyin Mosque's courtyard during their time. Perhaps as a result of persistent tensions with the city's inhabitants, the Saadis built a number of new forts and bastions around the city which appear to have been aimed at keeping control over the local population.
After the long reign of Ahmad al-Mansur, the Saadi state fell into civil war between his sons and potential successors. Fez became a rival seat of power for a number of brothers vying against other family members ruling from Marrakesh. Both cities changed hands multiple times until the internecine conflict finally ended in 1627. Despite the reunification of the realm after 1627, the Saadis were in full decline and Fez had already suffered considerably from the repeated conquests and reconquests during the conflict. In 1641, Muhammad al-Haj of the Sanhaja Dilā' Sufi order occupied Fes. The time was particularly difficult for Fessi Jews. It was only when the founder of the 'Alawi dynasty, Moulay Rashid, took Fez in 1666 that the city saw a revival and became the capital again, albeit briefly. Moulay Rashid set about restoring the city after a long period of neglect. He built the Kasbah Cherarda (also known as the Kasbah al-Khemis) to the north of Fes Jdid in order to house a large part of his tribal troops. He also restored or rebuilt what became known as the Kasbah an-Nouar, which became the living quarters of his followers from the Tafilalt region (the 'Alawi dynasty's ancestral home). Moulay Rashid also built a large new madrasa, the Cherratine Madrasa, in 1670.
After Rashid's death, Fez underwent another dark period. Moulay Isma'il, his successor, apparently disliked the city – possibly due to a rebellion there in his early reign – and chose nearby Meknès as his capital instead. Although he did restore or rebuild some major monuments in the city, such as the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II, he also frequently imposed heavy taxes on the city's inhabitants and sometimes even forcibly transferred parts of its population to repopulate other cities in the country. After his death, Morocco was plunged into anarchy and decades of conflict between his sons who vied to succeed him. Fez suffered particularly from repeated conflicts with the Udayas (or Oudayas), a guich tribe (vassal tribe serving as a garrison and military force) previously installed in the Kasbah Cherarda by Moulay Isma'il. Sultan Moulay Abdallah, who reigned intermittently during this period and used Fez as a capital, was initially welcomed in 1728–29 as an enemy of the Udayas, but relations between him and the city's population quickly soured due to his choice of governor. He immediately built a separate fortified palace in the countryside, Dar Dbibegh, where he resided instead. For nearly three more decades the city remained in more or less perpetual conflict with both the Udayas and the 'Alawi sultans.
Starting with the reign of Moulay Muhammad ibn Abdallah, between 1757 and 1790, the country stabilized and Fez finally regained its fortunes. Although its status was partly shared with Marrakesh, it remained the capital of Morocco for the rest of the 'Alawi period up to the 20th century. The 'Alawis continued to rebuild or restore various monuments and undertook a series of extensions to the Royal Palace. The sultans and their entourages also became more and more closely associated with the elites of Fez and other urban centers, with the ulama (religious scholars) of Fez being particularly influential. After Moulay Slimane's death, powerful Fassi families became the main players of the country's political and intellectual scene.
The Tijani Sufi order, started by Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1815), has had its spiritual center in Fez since al-Tijani moved here from Algeria in 1789. The order spread quickly among the literary elite of North West Africa and its ulama had significant religious, intellectual, and political influence in Fez and beyond. Until the 19th century the city was the only source of fezzes (also known as the tarboosh). The last major change to Fez's topography before the 20th century was made during the reign of Moulay Hassan I (1873-1894), who finally connected Fes Jdid and Fes el-Bali by building a walled corridor between them. New gardens and summer palaces, used by the royals and the capital's high society, were built within the corridor, such as the Jnan Sbil Gardens and the Dar Batha palace. Moulay Hassan also expanded the old Royal Palace itself, extending its entrance up to the current location of the Old Mechouar while adding the New Mechouar, along with the Dar al-Makina, to the north. The expansion separated the Moulay Abdallah neighbourhood to the northwest from the rest of Fes Jdid.
Fez played a central role in the Hafidhiya, the brief civil war that erupted when Abdelhafid challenged his brother Abdelaziz for the throne. The ulama of Fez, led by the Sufi modernist Muhammad Bin Abdul-Kabir Al-Kattani, offered their conditioned support to Abd al-Hafid, which turned the tide of the conflict. Abdelaziz was defeated in the Battle of Marrakesh in 1908. Abdelhafid's reign soon deteriorated and in early 1911 the sultan was besieged in Fez by the tribes of the Middle Atlas. Abdelhafid appealed for French help and a French force under Colonel Charles Émile Moinier [fr] arrived in Fez on May 21 and established a command centre at Dar Dbibegh.
### Colonial period
In 1912, French colonial rule was instituted over Morocco following the Treaty of Fes. One immediate consequence was the 1912 riots in Fez, a popular uprising which included deadly attacks targeting Europeans as well as native Jewish inhabitants in the Mellah, followed by an even deadlier repression. The first French resident general, Hubert Lyautey, decided to move the administrative capital of the Protectorate to Rabat in 1912–1913, which has remained the capital ever since.
A number of social and physical changes took place during this period and across the 20th century. Starting under Lyautey, one important policy with long-term consequences was the decision to largely forego redevelopment of existing historic walled cities in Morocco and to intentionally preserve them as sites of historic heritage, still known today as "medinas". Instead, the French administration built new modern cities (the Villes Nouvelles) just outside the old cities, where European settlers largely resided with modern Western-style amenities. This was part of a larger "policy of association" adopted by Lyautey which favoured various forms of indirect colonial rule by preserving local institutions and elites, in contrast with other French colonial policies that had favoured "assimilation". The Ville Nouvelle also became known as Dar Dbibegh by Moroccans, as the former palace of Moulay Abdallah was located in the same area.The creation of the separate French Ville Nouvelle to the west had a wider impact on the entire city's development. While new colonial policies preserved historic monuments, it also had other consequences in the long-term due to stalling urban development in these heritage areas. Scholar Janet Abu-Lughod has argued that these policies created a kind of urban "apartheid" between the indigenous Moroccan urban areas, who were forced to remain stagnant in terms of urban development and architectural innovation, and the new, mainly European-inhabited planned cities, which expanded to occupy lands formerly used by Moroccans outside the city. This separation was partly softened, however, by wealthy Moroccans who started moving into the Ville Nouvelles during this period. By contrast, the old city (medina) of Fez was increasingly settled by poorer rural migrants from the countryside.
Fez also played a role in the Moroccan nationalist movement and in protests against the French colonial regime. Many Moroccan nationalists received their education at the Al-Qarawiyyin University and some of their informal political networks were established thanks to this shared educational background. In July 1930, the students and other inhabitants protested against the Berber Dahir, decreed by the French authorities in May of that year. In 1937, the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and R'cif Mosque were rallying points for demonstrations against a violent crackdown on Moroccan protesters in the nearby city of Meknes, which ended with French troops being deployed across Fes el-Bali, including at the mosques themselves. Towards the end of World War II, Moroccan nationalists gathered in Fez to draft a demand for independence which they submitted to the Allies on January 11, 1944. This resulted in the arrest of nationalist leaders followed by the violent suppression of protests across many cities, including Fez.
### Post-independence era
After Morocco regained its independence in 1956 many of the trends begun under colonial rule continued and accelerated during the second half of the 20th century. Much of Fez's bourgeois classes moved to the growing metropolises of Casablanca and the capital, Rabat. The Jewish population was particularly depleted, either moving to Casablanca or emigrating to countries like France, Canada, and Israel. Although the population of the city grew, it did so only slowly up until the late 1960s, when the pace of growth finally accelerated. Throughout this period (and up to today) Fez nonetheless remained the country's third largest urban center. Between 1971 and 2000, the population of the city roughly tripled from 325,000 to 940,000. The Ville Nouvelle became the locus of further development, with new peripheral neighbourhoods–with inconsistent housing quality–spreading outwards around it. In 1963 the University of Al-Qarawiyyin was reorganized as a state university, while a new public university, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, was founded in 1975 in the Ville Nouvelle. In 1981, the old city, consisting of Fes el-Bali and Fes Jdid, was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Social inequalities and economic precarity were accentuated during the repressive reign of King Hassan II and the period known as the Years of Lead (roughly 1975–1990). Fez was strongly affected by unemployment and lack of housing. Austerity measures led to several riots and uprisings across other cities during the 1980s. On December 14, 1990, a general strike was called and led to protests and rioting by university students and youths in Fez. Buildings were burned and looted, including the Hôtel des Mérinides, a luxury hotel overlooking Fes el-Bali and dating to the time of Lyautey. Thousands were arrested and at least five were killed. The government promised to investigate and raise wages, though some of these measures were dismissed by the opposition.
Today Fez remains a regional capital and one of Morocco's most important cities. Many of the former notable families of Fez still make up a large part of the country's political elite. It is also a major tourism destination due to its historical heritage. In recent years efforts have been underway to restore and rehabilitate the old medina, ranging from the restoration of individual monuments to attempts to rehabilitate the Fez River.
## Geography
### Location
The city is divided between its historic medina (the two walled districts of Fes el-Bali and Fes Jdid) and the now much larger Ville Nouvelle (New City) along with several outlying modern neighbourhoods. The old city is located in a valley along the banks of the Oued Fes (Fez River) just above its confluence with the larger Sebou River to the northeast. The Fez River takes its sources from the south and west and is split into various small canals which provide the historic city with water. These in turn empty into the Oued Bou Khrareb, the stretch of the river which passes through the middle of Fes el-Bali and separates the Qarawiyyin quarter from the Andalusian quarter.
The new city occupies a plateau on the edge of the Saïs plain. The latter stretches out to the west and south and is occupied largely by farmland. Roughly 15 km south of Fes el-Bali is the region's main airport, Fes-Saïs. Further south is the town of Sefrou, while the city of Meknes, the next largest city in the region, is located to the southwest.
### Climate
Northwest of the Middle Atlas mountains, Fez has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa) with a strong continental influence, shifting from relatively cool and wet in the winter to dry and hot days in the summer months between June and September. Rainfall can reach up to 800 mm (31 in) in good years. The winter highs typically reach around 15 °C (59 °F) in December–January. Frost is not uncommon during the winter period. The highest and lowest temperatures ever recorded in the city are 46.7 °C (116 °F) and −8.2 °C (17 °F), respectively. Snowfall on average occurs once every 3 to 5 years. Fez recorded snowfall in three straight years in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
## Demographics
According to the 2014 national census, the population of the city of Fez was 1,112,072, which includes the municipalities of Fez proper and Méchouar Fès Jdid (New Fès). Most of this population was Moroccan, but it also included 3515 resident foreigners. The majority of the population lives in the Ville Nouvelle region and other modern-day neighbourhoods outside the historic walled city.
### Language
The main spoken language in Fes is Arabic Darija (الدارجة المغربية lit. "the Moroccan vernacular"), a vernacular variety of Arabic. Like the inhabitants of other historical urban centers in Morocco, Ahl Fes (أهل فاس "the people of Fes," referring especially to old elite families) speak their own distinct dialect of Darija. This Fessi dialect has traditionally been regarded as a prestige dialect over other forms of Moroccan Darija—particularly those seen as rural or 'arūbi (عروبي "of the rural Arabs")—due to its "association with the socio-economic power and dominance that its speakers enjoy at the national level," in the words of Mohammed Errihani.
The Fessi dialect has traditionally had distinctive linguistic features. On the phonological level, these include the stereotypical use of a postalveolar approximant (like the American pronunciation of /ɹ/ in the word "red") in the place of a trilled [r] for /ر/, or a pharyngealized glottal stop or voiceless uvular plosive in the place of a voiced velar plosive ([g]) for /ق/. On the morphosyntactic level, gender distinction in pronouns and verb inflections is neutralized in the second person singular.
Many of these features were shared with the other "pre-Hilalian" dialects in the region. However, due to social and demographic changes that started in the 20th century such as mass rural migration into the city and the departure of most of the city's old urban elites to Casablanca, these old linguistic features are no longer dominant in the speech of Arabic speakers in Fez today. Prior to the departure of most Jewish residents in the second half of the 20th century, the Jewish community in Fez also spoke an Arabic dialect similar to the rest of city.
Modern Standard Arabic and Berber (Tamazight) are Morocco's two official state languages, although French is also widespread as a language of government and law. The primary language of the literary traditions of Fes is Arabic. While the daily spoken language is Darija (the Moroccan Arabic dialect), many people also speak French fluently. English is increasingly being learned by younger generations. Berber dialects are commonly spoken in the countryside around the city.
## Economy
Historically, the city was one of Morocco's main centers of trade and craftsmanship. The tanning industry, for example, still embodied by tanneries of Fes el-Bali today, was a major source of exports and economic sustenance since the city's early history. Up until the late 19th century, the city was the only place in the world which fabricated the fez hat. The city's commerce was concentrated along its major streets, like Tala'a Kebira, and around the central bazaar known as the Kissariat al-Kifah from which many other souqs (markets) branched off. The crafts industry continues to this day and is still focused in the old city, though largely reliant on tourism.
Today, the city's surrounding countryside, the fertile Saïss plains, is an important source of agricultural activity producing primarily cereals, beans, olives, and grapes, as well as raising livestock. Tourism is also a major industry due to the city's UNESCO-listed historic medina. Religious tourism is also present due to the old city's many major zawiyas (Islamic shrines), such as the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II and the Zawiya of Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani, which attract both Moroccan and international (especially West African) pilgrims. The city and the region still struggle with unemployment and economic precarity.
## Government
Two municipalities (Arabic: جماعتين حضريتين, French: communes) in the Fez Prefecture [ar] (Arabic: عمالة فاس) make up the city of Fez. Most of Fez is administered as the municipality of Fez, while the neighborhood of Fes Jdid is administered separately as the municipality of Méchouar Fès Jdid. Outside of the city, there are also three rural municipalities in the prefecture, Aïn Bida, Oulad Tayeb, and Sidi Harazem.
The municipality of Fez has an area of 94 square kilometres (36 sq mi) and recorded a population of 1,091,512 in the 2014 Moroccan census. It is divided into six arrondissements (مقاطعات):
The municipality of Fez is governed by a 91-member council, elected by direct universal suffrage every six years. The arrondissements of Zouagha and Marininyine elect 17 councillors each; Jnane El Ward and Saiss elect 16 councillors each; Agdal elects 13, and Fès-Médina elects 12. Executive power is wielded by a president and ten vice-presidents, which are elected by the council. In 2021, Abdeslam Bekkali, a member of the National Rally of Independents (RNI), succeeded Driss Azami El Idrissi as the new president of the municipality of Fez.
The municipality of Méchouar Fès Jdid consists of the neighborhood of Fes Jdid in the old city and forms an enclave within the municipality of Fez. Established in 1992, it is only 1.6 square kilometres (0.62 sq mi) in extent, and recorded a population of 20,560 in the 2014 census. The municipality possesses a special administrative status as the location of a royal palace (the Dar al-Makhzen or méchouar), one of four such municipalities (French: communes des méchouars) in Morocco. The other three are located in Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Rabat. These four municipalities are governed by special provisions that do not apply to ordinary municipalities.
The subdivisions of Fez Prefecture are grouped into two electoral districts, North Fez and South Fez, each of which elects four members to the House of Representatives. North Fez consists of the arrondissements of El Mariniyine, Fès-Médina, and Zouagha and the municipality of Méchouar Fès Jdid. South Fez consists of the other three arrondissements of Agdal, Jnan El Ouard, and Saiss, and the three rural municipalities outside the city of Fez.
### Utility
The city's water supply, sewage, and electricity neworks are managed by Régie de distribution d’eau et d’électricité de Fès (RADEEF). An activated sludge treatment plant has been treating the wastewater since 2014.
## Landmarks
### Medina of Fez
The historic city of Fez consists of Fes el-Bali, the original city on both shores of the Oued Fes (River of Fez), and the smaller Fez Jdid, founded on higher ground to the west in the 13th century. It is distinct from Fez's now much larger Ville Nouvelle (new city). Fes el-Bali is the oldest continuously inhabited walled city in the Arab world. It is the site of the famous Qarawiyyin University and the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II, the most important religious and cultural sites, while Fez el-Jdid is the site of the 195 acre Royal Palace, still used by the King of Morocco today. These two historic cities are linked together and are usually referred to together as the "medina" of Fez, though this term is sometimes applied more restrictively to Fes el-Bali only.
Fez is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination and many non-Moroccans are now restoring traditional houses (riads and dars) as second homes in the medina. In 1981, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Medina of Fez a World Heritage site, describing it as "one of the most extensive and best conserved historic towns of the Arab-Muslim world." It was the first site in Morocco to be granted this status.
### Places of worship
There are numerous historic mosques in the medina, some of which are part of a madrasa or zawiya. Among the oldest still standing today are the Mosque of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 857 and subsequently expanded, the Mosque of the Andalusians founded in 859–860, the Bou Jeloud Mosque from the late 12th century, and possibly the Mosque of the Kasbah en-Nouar (which may have existed in the Almohad period but was likely rebuilt much later). The very oldest mosques of the city, dating back to its first years, were the Mosque of the Sharifs (or Shurafa Mosque) and the Mosque of the Sheikhs (or al-Anouar Mosque); however, they no longer exist in their original form. The Mosque of the Sharifs was the burial site of Idris II and evolved into the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II that exists today, while the al-Anouar Mosque has left only minor remnants.
A number of mosques from the important Marinid era, when Fes Jdid was created to be the capital of Morocco, include the Great Mosque of Fez el-Jdid from 1276, the Abu al-Hasan Mosque from 1341, the Chrabliyine Mosque from 1342, and the al-Hamra Mosque from around the same period. The Bab Guissa Mosque was also founded in the reign of Abu al-Hasan (1331-1351), but modified in later centuries. Other major mosques from the more recent 'Alawi period are the Moulay Abdallah Mosque, built in the early to mid-18th century with the tomb of Sultan Moulay Abdallah, and the R'cif Mosque, built in the reign of Moulay Slimane (1793-1822). The Zawiya of Moulay Idris II and the Zawiya of Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani include mosque areas as well, as do several other prominent zawiyas in the city. The Ville Nouvelle also includes many modern mosques, the largest of which is the Imam Malik Mosque which opened in 1994.
Elsewhere, the Jewish quarter (Mellah) is the site of the 17th-century Al-Fassiyin Synagogue and Ibn Danan Synagogue, as well multiple other lesser-known synagogues, though none of them are functioning today. According to the World Jewish Congress there are only 150 Moroccan Jews remaining in Fes. The Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, the only Catholic church in Fez, was established in 1919 or 1920, during the French colonial period. The current building was constructed in 1928 and expanded in 1933. Today it is part of the Archdiocese of Rabat, and it was most recently restored in 2005.
### Madrasas
The al-Qarawiyyin was established in 857 by Fatima al-Fihri, originally as a mosque, now a university. It is the oldest existing and continually operating degree-awarding educational institution in the world according to UNESCO and Guinness World Records. The Marinid dynasty devoted great attention to the construction of madrasas following the Maliki orthodoxy, resulting in the unprecedented prosperity of the city's religious institutions. The first madrasa built during the Marinid era was the Saffarin Madrasa in Fes el-Bali by Sultan Abu Yusuf in 1271. Sultan Abu al-Hasan was the most prolific patron of madrasa construction, completing the Al-Attarine, Mesbahiyya and Sahrij Madrasas. His son Abu Inan Faris built the Bou Inania Madrasa, and by the time of his death, every major city in the Marinid Empire had at least one madrasa. The library of al-Qarawiyyin, which holds a large collection of manuscripts from the medieval era, was also established under Marinid rule around 1350. It is widely believed to be the oldest library in the world that is still open. The largest madrasa in the medina is Cherratine Madrasa, which was commissioned by the 'Alawi sultan Al-Rashid in 1670 and is the only major non-Marinid foundation besides the Madrasa of al-Qarawiyyin.
### Tombs and mausoleums
Located in the heart of Fes el-Bali, the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II is a zawiya (a shrine and religious complex; also spelled zaouia), dedicated to and containing the tomb of Idris II (or Moulay Idris II when including his sharifian title) who is considered the main founder of the city of Fez. Another well-known and important zawiya is the Zawiyia of Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani, which commemorates Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani, the founder of Tijaniyyah tariqa from the 18th century. A number of zawiyas are scattered elsewhere across the city, many containing the tombs of important Sufi saints or scholars, such as the Zawiya of Sidi Abdelkader al-Fassi, the Zawiya of Sidi Ahmed esh-Shawi, and the Zawiya of Sidi Taoudi Ben Souda.
The old city contains several major historic cemeteries which stand outside the walls of Fes el-Bali, namely the cemeteries of Bab Ftouh (the most significant), Bab Mahrouk, and Bab Guissa. Some include marabouts or domed structures, containing the tombs of local Muslim saints (often considered Sufis), for example the Marabout of Sidi Harazem in the Bab Ftouh Cemetery. The ruins of the Marinid Tombs, built during the 14th century as a necropolis for the Marinid sultans, are close to the Bab Guissa Cemetery.
### Fortifications
The entire medina of Fez was heavily fortified with crenelated walls with watchtowers and gates, a pattern of urban planning which can be seen in Salé and Chellah as well. The oldest sections of the walls today, on the north side of Fes el-Bali, date back to the Almohad period. The gates of Fez, scattered along the circuit of walls, were guarded by the military detachments and shut at night. Some of the main gates have existed, in different forms, since the earliest years of the city. The oldest gates today, and historically the most important ones of Fes el-Bali, are Bab Mahrouk (in the west), Bab Guissa (in the northeast), and Bab Ftouh (in the southeast). The main gates of Fes Jdid include Bab Dekkakin, Bab Semmarine, and Bab al-Amer. In modern times, the function of gates became more ceremonial rather than defensive, as reflected by the 1913 construction of the decorative Bab Bou Jeloud gate at the western entrance of Fes el-Bali by the French colonial administration.
Several forts were constructed along the defensive perimeters of the medina during different time periods. A "kasbah" in the context of Maghrebi region is the traditional military structure for fortification, military preparation, command and control. Some of them were occupied as well by citizens, certain tribal groups, and merchants. Throughout the city's history, 13 kasbahs were constructed. Among them is the Kasbah an-Nouar, the Kasbah Tamdert, and the Kasbah Cherarda. The Saadis also built a number of bastions and forts in the late 16th century including Borj Nord and its sister fort, Borj Sud.
### Tanneries
Since the city's foundation, the tanning industry has been continually operating in Fez and is considered one of the main tourist attractions. There are three tanneries in the city, largest among them is Chouara Tannery near the Saffarin Madrasa along the river. The tanneries are packed with the round stone wells filled with dye or white liquids for softening the hides. The leather goods produced in the tanneries are exported around the world. The two other major tanneries are the Sidi Moussa Tannery to the west of the Zawiya of Moulay Idris II and the Ain Azliten Tannery in the neighbourhood of the same name on the northern edge of Fes el-Bali.
### Historic palaces and residences
Many old private residences have also survived to this day, in various states of conservation. The typical traditional house (dar) is centered around an internal courtyard. Some of these houses also had internal gardens known as a riad. Such private houses include the Dar al-Alami, the Dar Saada (now a restaurant), Dar 'Adiyil, Dar Belghazi, and others. Larger and richer mansions, such as the Dar Mnebhi, Dar Moqri, and Jamai Palace, have also been preserved. Numerous traditional houses, popularly known as "riads", are now utilized as hotels for the tourism industry. The Jamai Palace was converted into a luxury hotel, known as Palais Jamaï, in the early 20th century. The lavish former mansion of the Glaoui clan, known as the Dar Glaoui, is partly open to visitors but still privately owned.
As a former capital, the city contains several royal palaces as well. Dar Batha is a former palace completed by the 'Alawi Sultan Abdelaziz. In 1915 it was turned into a museum of historical art and artifacts, containing around 6,000 pieces. A large area of Fes Jdid is also taken up by the 80-hectare Royal Palace, or Dar al-Makhzen. Its ornate gates built in 1969-71 are the main feature visible to the public. Its grounds are not open to the public, as they are still used by the King of Morocco when visiting the city.
### Gardens
The Jnane Sbile Garden, between Fes Jdid and Fes el-Bali, is the oldest surviving garden in Fez and was created as a royal park and garden in the 19th century by Sultan Moulay Hassan I. Many bourgeois and aristocratic mansions also had private gardens, especially in the southwestern part of Fes el-Bali. Other gardens also exist within the grounds of the historic royal palaces of the city, such as the Agdal and Lalla Mina Gardens in the Royal Palace or the gardens of the Dar el-Beida (originally attached to Dar Batha).
### Funduqs (historic merchant buildings)
The old city of Fez includes more than a hundred funduqs or foundouks (traditional inns, or urban caravanserais). These commercial buildings housed the workshops of artisans or provided lodging for merchants and travelers. They also frequently served as venues for other commercial activities such as markets and auctions. The Funduq al-Najjarin was built in the 18th century by Amin Adiyil to provide accommodation and storage for merchants and now houses the Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts & Crafts. Other major important examples include the Funduq Shamma'in (also spelled Foundouk Chemmaïne) and the Funduq Staouniyyin (or Funduq of the Tetouanis), both dating from the Marinid era or earlier, and the Funduq Sagha which is contemporary with the Funduq al-Najjariyyin.
### Hammams (bathhouses)
Fez is also notable for having preserved a great many of its historic hammams (public bathhouses in the Muslim world) which continue to be used by local people. Examples, all dating from around the 14th century, include the Hammam as-Saffarin, the Hammam al-Mokhfiya, and the Hammam Ben Abbad. They were generally built next to a well or natural spring which provided water, while the sloping topography of the city allowed for easy drainage. The layout of the traditional hammam in the region was inherited from the Roman bathhouse model, consisting of a changing room, a cold room, a warm room, and a hot room. Though their architecture can be very functional, some of them, like the Hammam as-Saffarin and the Hammam al-Mokhfiya, feature more decoration. The hammams are identifiable from the exterior by the domes and vaults above their main chambers.
### Ville Nouvelle
The Ville Nouvelle is centered around Avenue Hassan II, a wide street laid out by the French colonial administration after 1912 and known then as Avenue de France. A tree-lined park area runs along its middle between the lanes for car traffic. At the avenue's northeastern end is Place de la Résistance (originally called Place Gambetta), a large roundabout with a fountain at its center. Further south along the same avenue is Place Florence (originally Place Lyautey), a wide plaza planted with trees and originally designed as a public garden. At the southwest end of the avenue is Place Ahmed El Mansour (originally Place Galliéni).
During the colonial period the main public buildings of the city were erected along and around this main avenue. Buildings from this period were constructed in a mix of mauresque (neo-Moorish or Moroccan), Art Deco, and Neoclassical styles. On the south side of Place Florence is the Bank al-Maghrib building, built between 1928 and 1931 by architect René Canu. Nearby, on the east side of Avenue Hassan II, is the Central Post Office building. The first post office here was built in 1925 and 1927 by architect Edmond Pauty, but it was rebuilt and expanded in its current form by architect Emile Toulon in 1946–1947. The Court of Appeals building, located southwest of the post office, was constructed in 1934-1936 by architects Adrien Laforgue and Antoine Marchisio and it originally housed the Court of First Instance (Tribunal de première instance).
## Culture
### Literature
Up until the 19th century, the al-Qarawiyyin dominated the intellectual life of the city and of the country around it. Literature was focused on religious scholarship, philosophy, and poetry. The city's largest library was located at the Qarawiyyin Mosque, while others were attached to other major mosques. Under Sultan Abd al-Rahman (r. 1822–1859a) a new library was created inside the Royal Palace and later in the 19th century the city's wealthy elites began creating their own privates libraries. The city is also one of the historical centers of Moroccan Sufism and a significant body of written works were devoted to its many Sufi walis ("saints" or teachers). This type of literature established itself as one of the main literary genres of Morocco by the late 14th century and Sufi written works from Fez are especially abundant from the 17th to 20th centuries. A study by Ruggero Vimercati Sanseverino describes the rise of the Zawiya al-Fasiyya, a Sufi order founded in 1581 by Abu l-Mahasin Yusuf al-Fasi, as the impetus for the development of a tradition of Sufi literature particular to Fez. This literature was a diverse mix of hagiographies (religious biographies), genealogies, and historiographies whose conventions evolved over time. Writers sought to establish a continuity between the teachings of contemporary Sufi masters and those that came before them, with the city of Fez portrayed as the center of this spiritual heritage. Towards the beginning of the 20th century Moroccan literature began to diversify, with polemic or political works becoming more common at this time. For example, there were Muhammad Bin Abdul-Kabir Al-Kattani's anti-colonial periodical at-Tā'ūn (الطاعون The Plague), and his uncle Muhammad ibn Jaqfar al-Kattani's popular Nasihat ahl al-Islam ("Advice to the People of Islam"), published in Fez in 1908, both of which called on Moroccans to unite against European encroachment.
Fez, along with Cordoba, was one of the centers of a Jewish intellectual and cultural renaissance that took place in the 10th and 11th centuries in Morocco and al-Andalus. Jewish literary figures associated with Fez include the poet Dunash Ben Labrat (d. circa 990), the grammarian Judah ben David Hayyuj (d. circa 1012), the Talmudist Isaac al-Fasi (d. 1103), and the scholar Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin (d. circa 1220), who were all born in Fez or spent time there. Maimonides (d. 1204), one of the most important Jewish intellectuals of his era, also lived in Fez from 1159 to 1165 after fleeing al-Andalus. The first book printed on the African continent was printed in Fez. A copy of Sefer Abudarham (ספר אבודרהם) was printed in Hebrew in 1516 by Samuel ben Isaac Nedivot and his son, who were Jewish refugees from Lisbon. The press was short-lived and printed 15 copies, one of which is now preserved at the Library of Congress.
Printing in Arabic was introduced to Morocco in 1864–65, on the initiative of a man named Muhammad at-Tayyib ar-Rudani [ar], an Islamic scholar and judge originally from the Sous region. In 1864 Ar-Rudani, while returning from his Hajj pilgrimage, bought an Arabic printing press in Cairo and contracted an Egyptian operator, bringing both back with him to Morocco. The press appears to have been confiscated by the Moroccan authorities when it arrived at port and sent to Meknes, where Sultan Muhammad IV was residing at the time. The first book in Arabic was thus printed in Meknes in June 1865, before the press was moved again to Fez in that same year, where it continued to operate until the 1940s. The press was installed in a central neighbourhood of Fes el-Bali and was managed by the government, which printed traditional scholarly books and made some of the productions available to the Qarawiyyin University free of charge. After 1871 the government transferred management of the press to private citizens and the applications of printing widened. After 1897 it became a regulated industry overseen by officials in Fez. By 1908 there were at least four printing establishments in Fez, while two other Moroccan printers were in Tangier. Hebrew printing presses were reintroduced to Morocco in the 1890s in Tangier and were more firmly established across the country in the 1920s.
### Music
Fes is associated with the tarab al-āla [ar] (طرب الآلة lit. "joy of the instrument") musical style, a result of a large migration of Muslims from Valencia to Fes. The Fessi āla style utilizes the Moroccan forms of the Andalusi nubah melodical arrangements. While this musical style is sometimes popularly referred to as Andalusi music, those who have studied it reject this naming: Mohamed El Fassi intentionally chose the name āla (آلة "instrument") to differentiate it from the Sufi tradition of samā''', which is purely vocal, while Idrīs Bin Jellūn at-Twīmī [fr], in his study of Mohammed al-Haik's Kunash al-Haik, described the appelation "Andalusi music" as an unprecedented colonial invention "meant to detract from [the musical form's] Arabness and [Moroccans'] intellectual and artistic abilities."
### Art
Maghrebi Arabic script is an important part of the history of visual art in Fes. While some aspects of Maghrebi script are codified and prescribed, there have also been innovations, such as those by the 19th century calligrapher Muhammad al-Qandusi.
The modernist artist Jilali Gharbaoui studied at the Académie des Arts in Fes.
### Cultural venues and institutions
The city's main museums are housed in historic monuments mentioned above, including the Nejjarine Museum, the Dar Batha Museum, and the Arms Museum in Borj Nord. The Al Houria Cultural Complex, opened in 2005, is a cultural center in the Ville Nouvelle that includes a theatre, a media library, and exhibition spaces. Several language institutes in Fez also organize cultural activities in addition to offering courses. The French Institute and the Cervantes Institute have branches in Fez which promote French and Spanish, respectively. The American Language Center and the Arabic Language Institute in Fez, sister organizations that share the same location in the Ville Nouvelle, offer courses in English and Arabic, respectively.
### Festivals
Fez hosts the annual World Sacred Music Festival, which started in 1994 and showcases religious music from around the world. The festival occurs in May or June and concerts take place at multiple venues across the city, including at historic sites such as Bab Makina (the New Mechouar) in Fes Jdid. The annual Festival of Amazigh Culture, which started in 2005, normally takes place in July and hosts performances from Amazigh (Berber) musicians and artists from across Morocco. The annual Festival of Sufi Culture hosts a conference with discussions and debates on Sufism as well as Sufi musical performances and rituals such as haḍras. The Festival of Malhoun Art features performances of malhun music and poetry from across the country.
Multiple moussems (Sufi religious festivals) have traditionally taken place every year in honour of local Muslim saints and are typically sponsored by one or more of the city's guilds. The most important moussem in the city, and one of the most important in Morocco, is the Moussem of Moulay Idris II. This festival has taken place for hundreds of years and is sponsored by all the guilds in he city, who march through the city together in a procession that culminates at the mausoleum of Idris II. Each guild donates gifts to the zawiya, one of which is a keswa, a large textile decorated with Qur'anic verses that is draped over Idris II's catafalque. The week of the moussem is also marked by other cultural events and entertainment.
## Education
### Universities
The University of al-Qarawiyyin is considered by some to be the oldest continually-operating university in the world. The university was first founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 which subsequently became one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the historic Muslim world. It became a state university in 1963, and remains an important institution of learning today.
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University is a public university founded in 1975 and is the largest in the city by attendance, counting over 86,000 students in 2020. It has 12 faculties with sites across the city, with two main campuses known as Dhar El Mehraz and Sais. Another public university, the Euromed University of Fez, was created in 2012 and is certified by the Union for the Mediterranean.
The city's first private university, the Private University of Fez, was created in 2013 out of the École polytechnique de Technologie founded 5 years earlier. Its main focus is its engineering school, though it also offers diplomas in architecture, business, and law.
## Transport
The city is served by the region's main international airport, Fès–Saïs, located roughly 15 km south of the city center. A new terminal was added to the airport in 2017 which expanded the airport's capacity to 2.5 million visitors a year.
The city's main train station, operated by ONCF, is located a short distance from the downtown area of the Ville Nouvelle and is connected to the rail lines running east to Oujda and west to Tangier and Casablanca. The main intercity bus terminal (or gare routière) is located just north of Bab Mahrouk, on the outskirts of the old medina, although CTM also operates a terminal off Boulevard Mohammed V in the Ville Nouvelle. Intercity taxis (also known as grands taxis) depart from and arrive at several spots including the Bab Mahrouk bus station (for western destinations like Meknes and Rabat), Bab Ftouh (for eastern destinations like Sidi Harazem and Taza), and another lot in the Ville Nouvelle'' (for southern destinations like Sefrou).
The city operates a public transit system with various bus routes.
## Sport
Fez has two football teams, MAS Fez (Fés Maghrebi) and Wydad de Fès (WAF). They both play in the Botola the highest tier of the Moroccan football system and play their home matches at the 45,000 seat Complexe Sportif de Fès stadium.
The MAS Fez basketball team competes in the Nationale 1, Morocco's top basketball division.
## International relations
Fez is twinned with:
- Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso (1982)
- Chengdu, China (2015)
- Coimbra, Portugal
- Córdoba, Spain (1990)
- East Jerusalem, Palestine (1982)
- Florence, Italy (1961)
- Jericho, Palestine (2014)
- Kairouan, Tunisia (1965)
- Kraków, Poland (1985)
- Montpellier, France (2003)
- Saint-Louis, Senegal (1979)
- Suwon, South Korea (2003)
- Wuxi, China (2011)
- Xi'an, China (2019)
## Notable people
- Abd al-Hafid of Morocco – Sultan of Morocco from 1909 to 1912, born in Fez
- Abdelilah Bagui – Former international goalkeeper who was born in Fez
- Abdellatif Laabi – Poet born in 1942 in Fez
- Abdessalam Benjelloun – Former international footballer born in Fez
- Adel Taarabt – Moroccan association football player from Fez
- Ahmad Zarruq – Prominent Islamic scholar
- Akram Roumani – Former international footballer born in Fez
- Ali ibn Qasim al-Zaqqaq – Author in the field of Maliki common law
- Anas Zniti – Professional footballer born in Fez
- Dunash ben Labrat – Commentator and poet born in Fez
- Hamid Chabat – Moroccan politician and former mayor of Fez
- Mehdi Bennani – Moroccan professional racing driver, born in Fez
- Mohamed Chafik – Leading figure in the Amazigh (also known as Berber) cultural movement, born in Fez
- Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco – Princess consort of Morocco, born in Fez
- Roberto López Ufarte – Professional footballer from Fez
- Samuel Pallache – Merchant, diplomat, and pirate, born in Fez
- Soufiane El Bakkali – Steeplechase runner, born in Fez
- Youssef En-Nesyri – International footballer born in Fez
- Yves Lacoste – French geographer and geopolitician, born in Fez |
4,398,564 | List of Puerto Rican flags | 1,171,024,542 | None | [
"Flags of the insular areas of the United States",
"History of Puerto Rico",
"National symbols of Puerto Rico"
]
| This is a list of the flags of Puerto Rico. These flags represent and symbolize Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people. The most commonly used flags of Puerto Rico are the current flag, which represents the people of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico; municipal flags, which represent the 78 municipalities of the archipelago; political flags, which represent the different political beliefs of the people; and sports flags, which identify Puerto Rico as the country represented by its athletics during competitions.
Each of the 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico has adopted flags which represent the municipality and its people, employing designs that oftentimes derive their symbolism from the municipality's coat of arms. Most of the political parties in Puerto Rico also have their own flags, which represent and symbolize the political ideals of its members. These political party flags are usually displayed in public during political rallies, meetings, or parades in a show of political strength and unity. Various sports associations in Puerto Rico have adopted flags which represent them and which are used during competitions and other sport events.
## First flags used in Puerto Rico
The introduction of a flag in Puerto Rico can be traced to when Christopher Columbus landed on the island's shore and with the flag appointed to him by the Spanish Crown claimed the island, which he named "San Juan Bautista", in the name of Spain. Columbus wrote in his logbook that on October 12, 1492, he used the Royal Flag, and that his captains used two flags which the Admiral carried in all the ships as Ensign, each white with a green cross in the middle and an 'F' and 'Y', both green and crowned with golden, open royal crowns, for Ferdinand II of Aragon and Ysabel (Isabel I). The conquistadores under the command of Juan Ponce de León proceeded to conquer and settle the island. They carried as their military standard the "Spanish Expedition Flag". After the island was conquered and colonized, the flag of Spain was used in Puerto Rico, same as it was used in all of its other colonies.
Once the Spanish armed forces established themselves on the island they began the construction of military fortifications such as La Fortaleza, Fort San Felipe del Morro, Fort San Cristóbal and San Gerónimo. The Spanish Army designed the "Burgundy Cross Flag" and adopted it as their standard. This flag flew wherever there was a Spanish military installation.
## The first flag of Puerto Rico
The independence movement in Puerto Rico gained momentum with the liberation successes of Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín in South America. In 1868, local independence leader Ramón Emeterio Betances urged Mariana Bracetti to knit a revolutionary flag using the flag of the Dominican Republic as an example, promoting the then popular ideal of uniting the three caribbean islands into an Antillean Confederation. The materials for the flag were provided by Eduvigis Beauchamp Sterling, named Treasurer of the revolution by Betances. The flag was divided in the middle by a white Latin cross, the two lower corners were red and the two upper corners were blue with a white star in the upper left blue corner. According to Puerto Rican poet Luis Lloréns Torres the white cross on it stands for the yearning for homeland redemption; the red squares, the blood poured by the heroes of the rebellion and the white star in the blue solitude square, stands for liberty and freedom. The "Revolutionary Flag of Lares" was used in the short-lived rebellion against Spain in what became known as El Grito de Lares (The Cry of Lares). The flag was proclaimed the national flag of the "Republic of Puerto Rico" by Francisco Ramírez Medina, who was sworn in as Puerto Rico's first president, and placed on the high altar of the Catholic Church of Lares, thus becoming the first Puerto Rican Flag. The original Lares flag was taken by a Spanish army officer as a war prize. Many years later it was returned and transferred to the Puerto Rican people. It is now exhibited in the University of Puerto Rico's Museum.
In 1873, following the abdication of Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, as King (1870–1873) and with Spain's change from Kingdom to Republic, the Spanish government issued a new colonial flag for Puerto Rico. The new flag, which was used until 1873, resembled the flag of Spain, with the difference that it had the coat of arms of Puerto Rico in the middle. Spain's flag once more flew over Puerto Rico with the restoration of the Spanish kingdom in 1873, until 1898 the year that the island became a possession of the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1898) in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War.
## Historical flags
The following are historical flags related to Puerto Rico:
## Municipal flags of Puerto Rico
Each of the municipalities of Puerto Rico, including the islands of Culebra and Vieques, have adopted a flag which represents the region and its people. The colors and designs may vary. Some flags contain a coat of arms or images of an object associated with the region, such as a bird, animal, or crop. In the case of Lares, in 1952, the town Municipal Assembly adopted the "Revolutionary Flag of Lares" as their official flag. The barrios of the municipality of Caguas also have their own flags.
Many of the municipal flags of Puerto Rico pay tribute to the Cacíques of the Taíno tribes (the native Puerto Rican tribe) who ruled the island before the arrival of the Spaniards and who were the rulers of the land where the town now stands. The flag of Utuado for example has a Taino Sun in honor of the Supreme Taino Cacique Agüeybaná whose name means "The Great Sun". Other flags, such as San Germán's, contain a mural crown. The crown pays tribute to Spain and the Spanish who settled the area.
## Political flags
Throughout Puerto Rico's political history various parties have designed and displayed flags representing their ideals. Political flags in Puerto Rico are usually displayed in public during rallies, meetings, or parades in show of political strength and unity. The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party flag has a white Calatrava Cross, also known as the Cross potent on the middle of a black background. The Cross of Calatrava was first used by the Crusaders of Calatrava and later by the French revolutionists. The black background symbolized the mourning of the Puerto Rican Nation in colonial captivity. It was usually displayed by the Cadets of the Republic, also known as the Black Shirts (Camisa Negras) because of their black shirt and white trousers uniform. On occasions the Nationalists would also carry the Puerto Rican flag with the light blue triangle, which was outlawed from 1898 to 1952. The three main political parties of Puerto Rico are the New Progressive Party, which favors statehood and whose flag has what might resemble a blue palm tree inside a round cornered square in the middle with a white background; the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, flag has a red image of what is supposed to resemble a Puerto Rican jíbaro (farmer) in the middle with a white background; and the Puerto Rican Independence Party, whose flag has a white cross symbolizing Christianity and purity, on a green background which symbolizes hope. Founded in 2003, the flag of the Puerto Ricans for Puerto Rico Party has a light brown colored "coqui" as its symbol with the words "Por Puerto Rico" (For Puerto Rico) in the middle. Another political flag is that of the Boricua Popular Army, also known as Los Macheteros an underground pro-independence group which believes and has often resorted to the use of violence. This ensign displays a green machete and a red star imposed on a black background.
## Sports flags
The standard representative symbol carried by Puerto Ricans at international sports events, such as the Olympics, Pan American Games, Central American and Caribbean Games, and the World Cup of Baseball, is the Flag of Puerto Rico. However, various sports associations have adopted flags which are also used during sports events. Prior to the adoption of the Puerto Rican flag, athletes from the archipelago competed under both the United States flag and a special white banner containing a variation of the seal and the words "Puerto Rico" present above it. The symbolism in this ensign includes a green background that represents the main island's vegetation, the Lamb of God symbolizing Jesus of Nazareth, and a book with the seven seals where the lamb sits, in reference to the Book of Revelation.
## See also
- Flag of Puerto Rico
- List of municipal flags of Puerto Rico
- Coat of arms of Puerto Rico
- Seal of Puerto Rico
- Flag of Cuba, a similar flag with the red and blue reversed, and longer length
- Det Stavangerske Dampskibsselskap - A Norwegian shipping company with a virtually identical flag in its logo
## Primary sources
- Act No.1, Approved July 24, 1952.
- Regulations on the Use of the Puerto Rico flag. Núm. 5282, August 3, 1995 |
25,768,654 | Brian & Stewie | 1,173,389,062 | null | [
"2010 American television episodes",
"Bottle television episodes",
"Family Guy (season 8) episodes",
"Two-handers"
]
| "Brian & Stewie" is the 17th episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on May 2, 2010. The episode features Brian and Stewie after they are accidentally trapped inside a bank vault over a weekend. The two try to kill each other, and are ultimately forced to reveal their true feelings about each other, and eventually go on to question each other's existence and purpose in life. Brian and Stewie become even closer to each other as time goes on, and climactically help each other survive being trapped inside the vault. The bottle episode breaks from the show's usual set-up, and is the only episode of the series not to feature any music or use any cutaway gags with Brian and Stewie being the only two characters featured in the entire episode. In repeats of the episode there is no main title sequence, nor is any music played over the end credits.
"Brian & Stewie" was written by Gary Janetti and directed by Dominic Bianchi. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics for its serious dialogue and development of the two characters and their relationship, although it attracted controversy and criticism from the Parents Television Council for a sequence in which Brian eats Stewie's feces and vomit. According to Nielsen ratings, it was viewed in 7.68 million homes in its original airing. The episode aired along with a series of musical numbers from throughout the show's eight seasons. "Brian & Stewie" was released on DVD along with ten other episodes from the season on December 13, 2011.
## Plot
Brian and Stewie visit the local Quahog bank so that Brian can deposit money in his safe deposit box. Stewie then wants to go to a store to return a \$3,000 Thom Browne sweater. While they are still inside the vault, the door closes at the end of the work day and locks them inside. Frightened, Stewie soils his diaper. Worried he will get a rash from the dirty diaper, Stewie desperately tries to make Brian eat his feces by threatening him with a gun that Brian had stored in his deposit box. They discover that Stewie has a cellphone in his pocket, with only enough charge in the battery for one short phone call. Stewie uses the last of the phone's battery charge to call the clothing store rather than for help. Angered, Brian slaps Stewie, smashes his phone, and yells at him, making him cry. Instantly remorseful, Brian reluctantly agrees to eat Stewie's feces as a way of apologizing. While watching Brian eating, Stewie becomes nauseated and throws up; Stewie then convinces Brian to eat his vomit. Realizing that he has nothing to clean his bottom with, Stewie manages to convince Brian to clean him with his tongue in order to avoid infection. Afterward, they both decide to take a nap, but soon they realize that the next day is Sunday, meaning that they will have to wait another day before they can be released from the vault.
Awaking from his nap, Brian decides to drink a bottle of Glenfiddich scotch whisky that he had stored in his deposit box. He offers Stewie a sip, and they both become so drunk that Brian agrees to pierce Stewie's ear with a pin from his sweater, leaving him with a bloodied ear for the rest of the episode. While talking, Brian revealed he voted for John McCain. Stewie and Brian discuss The Dog Whisperer and Cesar Millan, and Brian explains that he is inspired by Millan's philosophy about dogs' instinctive ability to live in the present and with purpose. Stewie, however, points out that Brian himself does not appear to live with any specific purpose. Angered, Brian begins insulting Stewie, who bitterly retaliates by revealing that he could have gone all day without having his diaper changed, and only thinks of Brian as a passing amusement and "the best of a bad situation". Stewie dares Brian to shoot him with the revolver in the deposit box. Stewie prematurely causes the gun to discharge, causing the bullet to randomly ricochet off the vault walls, forcing the two under the table to wait for the bullet to stop.
After sobering up and eating energy bars that were in Stewie's bag, Stewie asks Brian why he has a gun, noting that Brian is a staunch gun control proponent and seems to be the last person who would ever own a firearm, even mentioning how Brian cried after the Columbine massacre. Brian refuses to talk about it at first, but eventually admits that he has the gun in case he ever wants to commit suicide (although he clarifies that he came to the bank only so he could shore up his Christmas savings). He confesses that due to his anthropomorphism, he cannot find his purpose in life like other dogs, and finds comfort in knowing he has the option of killing himself; the scotch bottle was intended to serve as a last drink. Though visibly shocked by the revelation, Stewie snaps at Brian, saying that he would be lost without Brian, claiming he is the only person in the world that he really cares about; he admits that his earlier assertion that he did not care about Brian was out of retaliation for Brian's insults, and both admit that they care for each other as friends. Stewie adds that maybe making someone else happy is enough, because it is the best gift one person can give. Stewie falls asleep as Brian reads the beginning of David Copperfield to him. The following morning, the vault door opens, and Brian silently carries a sleeping Stewie and their belongings out of the room.
## Production and development
The episode was written by series consulting producer Gary Janetti as his second episode of the season, and directed by series regular Dominic Bianchi, also in his second episode of the season. In an interview with Forbes, series producer Kara Vallow revealed that the plot was inspired by an episode of the CBS sitcom All in the Family entitled "Archie in the Cellar," in which Archie Bunker is locked in a cellar, breaking from the show's usual storyline. Vallow and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane were fans of All in the Family during its original airing and came up with the original concept for the episode. Vallow went on to state that the episode " like a one-act stage play in a way," because it " rely on our standard cutaways and gags." In a first for the series, the only voice actor to perform in the episode was series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane, who portrays both characters. In addition, neither composer Ron Jones nor composer Walter Murphy contributed any background music to the episode whatsoever. The writer of the episode, Gary Janetti, wrote the episode based on a loose script written by MacFarlane, as well as various phone conversations about the structure of the storyline, and the various acts.
"Brian & Stewie", along with the eleven other episodes from Family Guy's eighth season, was released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on December 13, 2011. The sets include brief audio commentaries by various crew and cast members for several episodes, a collection of deleted scenes and animatics, a special mini-feature which discussed the process behind animating "And Then There Were Fewer", a mini-feature entitled "The Comical Adventures of Family Guy – Brian & Stewie: The Lost Phone Call", and footage of the Family Guy panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International.
In its initial airing, the episode aired with a framing device involving Stewie and Brian standing in front of a red curtain and addressing the television audience. The two begin the program by introducing the "very special" episode and, after the episode aired, conclude it by introducing a series of musical numbers. Together, the episode and musical number aired as an hour-long special, in celebration of a week-long "Fox Rocks" television event. The initial airing included musical numbers from the fourth-season episode "The Fat Guy Strangler", the sixth-season episode "Play It Again, Brian", and the eighth-season episode "Business Guy", as well as other numbers, including "You've Got A Lot to See" from "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows", "Shipoopi" from "Patriot Games", and "My Drunken Irish Dad" from the episode "Peter's Two Dads". In repeats of the episode the usual main title sequence is replaced by a still shot of the show's logo on a black background, whilst the end credits are shown without any musical accompaniment.
## Cultural references
In addition to "Archie in the Cellar", the plot of the episode is inspired by the All in the Family episode "Two's a Crowd", in which Archie and Mike are locked in a storeroom, drink brandy, and share their deepest secrets. The episode also makes reference to an episode of The Twilight Zone entitled "Time Enough at Last", in which a banker named Henry Bemis sneaks into a bank vault and is knocked unconscious. In the episode, Henry Bemis is reading a copy of David Copperfield, which Brian also reads during the episode. The beginning of the episode mentions Turner & Hooch.
## Reception
In an improvement over the previous six episodes, the episode was viewed in 7.68 million homes in its original airing, according to Nielsen ratings, despite airing simultaneously with Desperate Housewives on ABC, Celebrity Apprentice on NBC and Cold Case on CBS. The episode also acquired a 3.7 rating in the 18–49 demographic, beating The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show, as well as the accompanying musical special, which received a total rating of 3.3.
The episode received mixed reviews from critics and viewers. Reviewers disliked the episode's moments of gross-out humor, but frequently lauded its serious tone and subject matter, as well as its break from the show's formula. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club believed that the show's concept, which allowed only two characters and a single scene, was "ambitious" but that the end result was "flaccid." She commented that with no cut-away gags or side plots, the episode was "basically everything critics of the show would like the show to have" but was deprived of Family Guy's trademark fast pace and reduced to "a series of what amounts to grossout comedy sketches." Television critic Ramsey Isler of IGN added that the gross-out humor "didn't work for me" and found the "more serious stuff" in the episode to be the most entertaining. Said Isler, "the addition of more dramatic themes and the elimination of the cutaway gags really showed what this show could be if Seth and team put more effort in." In a subsequent review of Family Guy's eighth season, Isler listed "Brian & Stewie" as being "surprisingly dramatic," and, "had it not been for the extended poop-eating jokes and rehashed musical numbers in the second half, I'd say it was one of the better efforts the show has ever put out." Jason Hughes of TV Squad was also "more than a little disturbed" by the amount of time spent on Stewie's soiled diaper. However, he noted, "I didn't laugh much at 'Brian & Stewie', but I found myself absolutely captured by their discussion throughout the episode." Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described the episode as "tedious, predictably vulgar, and, by the end, sentimental." Adam Rosenberg of MTV wrote, "Beneath all of the more disturbing elements there's actually some very thoughtful, mature discussion of suicide and what love means amidst it all." Andrew Hanson of the Los Angeles Times found the soiled diaper gag "too sick to watch" and "the grossest" moment featured in Family Guy so far, but conceded that that may have been the producer's intention. Still, Hanson described Brian's suicidal confession as "deep" and stated, "It’s nice to see that Family Guy is still trying new things and going out on a limb even at episode No. 150." Tom Eames of entertainment website Digital Spy placed the episode at number seven on his listing of the best Family Guy episodes in order of "yukyukyuks" and said he "loved" this episode due its feature of Brian and Stewie's relationship. He added that the episode was "particularly great" because it featured no cutaway gags and was a two-hander, noting that "Clearly, the writers know exactly what the fans want."
The Parents Television Council, a conservative media watchdog group and frequent critic of MacFarlane-produced programs, called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Family Guy after the episode aired, citing the scenes where Brian is talked into eating Stewie's feces and vomit. PTC president Tim Winter said that, "Given the patently offensive depictions of one character eating excrement out of a diaper, then eating vomit, and finally licking the remaining excrement from a baby’s bottom – while the baby expresses physical gratification from having his bottom licked – we believe that the broadcast decency law has been broken. It seems as though Family Guy creator, Seth MacFarlane, carefully reviewed the legal definition of broadcast indecency and set out to violate it as literally as he could." The Parents Television Council went on to name the episode as its "Worst TV Show of the Week", ending the week of May 7, 2010, citing the extreme indecency of the episode. |
68,447,529 | The Sacrifice (Oates novel) | 1,166,835,208 | 2015 novel by Joyce Carol Oates | [
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"Novels set in the 1980s"
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| The Sacrifice is a 2015 novel by the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. Set in blighted urban New Jersey in the 1980s, it follows a young Black woman, Sybilla, who is discovered in a degraded condition in an abandoned factory after going missing. When she alleges that she was kidnapped, assaulted, and left for dead by a group of white police officers, her cause is taken up by an ambitious and unscrupulous civil rights activist and his lawyer brother, despite evidence of deceit in her story. The events of the novel are based on the real-life Tawana Brawley case, and takes place in a part of New Jersey still suffering from the aftermath of post-war deindustrialization and the 1967 Newark riots.
Following some of Oates's previous work, the novel explores themes of race, police violence, exploitation, and how individuals can be turned into symbols. Oates views the novel as "strongly linked" to her 1969 novel Them. It received a polarized critical reception: some reviews praised its treatment of the theme of racial inequality, while others felt it lacked nuance and empathy.
## Plot
On October 7, 1987, in Pascayne, New Jersey, a badly beaten young Black woman is discovered in the cellar of an abandoned factory. She is partially naked and caked in dried blood with feces smeared in her hair and racial slurs written on her body in marker. The ambulance crew notes a few details that they find odd: she seems to be pretending to be unconscious, and the words written on her body are upside-down.
At the hospital, she is identified as Sybilla Frye, a 15-year-old girl who has been missing for the past several days. Sybilla's mother, Ednetta, arrives at the hospital and demands that they release Sybilla into her custody. She refuses to allow a rape kit to be administered to Sybilla, but consents to a police interview on the condition that the police officer be a Black woman. Sybilla communicates to the assigned officer, a young Puerto Rican woman named Ines Iglesias, that she was abducted, raped, and left for dead by a group of five or six white police officers. As Sybilla is largely uncommunicative and Ednetta is hostile to Iglesias, the interview ends quickly, and Ednetta insists on taking Sybilla home.
Ednetta takes Sybilla to Sybilla's grandmother's house to hide and refuses to tell the police where she is. She tries to conceal the attack from Anis Schutt, her common-law husband who has harbored a deep hatred of the police since they killed his brother, and she rebuffs the entreaties of neighbors and civil rights lawyers to pursue the case against the police.
A month after Sybilla was discovered, word of the alleged attack reaches the ears of Marus Mudrick, a Black preacher and prominent civil rights activist. Mudrick spots an opportunity to capitalize on the crime, and reaches out to Ednetta and Sybilla offering to represent them and publicize their case. Ednetta and her daughter are hesitant, but eventually given in to Mudrick's charm.
Mudrick quickly drums up outrage over the attack and the inaction of the Pascayne police, with the hesitant support of his twin brother Byron, a respectable lawyer with a milder temperament who somewhat resents Marus's success. A rally that Mudrick convenes in Pascayne turns violent when he urges them to march on the city hall. In the ensuing chaos, Iglesias, who is attending the rally off-duty, is injured, loses her service weapon, and is subsequently reassigned to a different division as punishment.
In December, rookie police officer Jerold "Jere" Zahn kills himself after finding out that he has been let go from the force. Seizing on the news, Mudrick compels Sybilla to identify Zahn as one of her rapists. When the district attorney challenges the accusation, Mudrick accuses him of participating in the rape, too. Meanwhile, Mudrick has increasingly taken control of Ednetta and Sybilla's lives, moving them from their home and even confiscating a Rolex watch that Mike Tyson gave as a gift to Sybilla. At the height of the crusade, Mudrick is stabbed and nearly killed by an agent of one of his rivals, the militant leader of the Kingdom of Islam known as the Black Prince.
A few months later, Sybilla has joined the Kingdom of Islam and the Black Prince has taken up her cause. In a series of flashbacks, it is implied that Sybilla and Ednetta concocted the story of the gang rape after Anis beat Sybilla brutally. At a rally for Sybilla organized by the Black Prince in Pascayne, Anis is stopped by the police. After hesitating, Anis shoots two of them and is instantly killed by a barrage of return fire.
## Background
### Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Described as "America's foremost woman of letters" and known for her prolific output, she had written more than 40 novels before The Sacrifice, some of which had dealt with issues of racism and misogyny. In the afterword to The Sacrifice, Oates states that the novel is "strongly linked" to her 1969 novel Them, which ends with the 1967 Detroit riots. Several of her previous books were based on real-life events, notably Blonde, about Marilyn Monroe, and Black Water, a roman à clef that parallels the Chappaquiddick incident. According to Alan Cheuse, The Sacrifice was published in the midst of a "national trauma on police and unarmed victims", and a subsequent novel by Oates, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., would also address racism and police violence. Greg Johnson, who wrote a biography of Oates, notes that she is willing to take on themes of race more directly than most other white authors.
### Tawana Brawley
On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, a 15-year Black girl who had been missing for four days, was found, alive, in a plastic garbage bag outside an apartment where she had lived in Wappingers Falls in the U.S. state of New York. Dazed and mostly unresponsive, she was smeared with feces and several racial slurs had been written on her body. In subsequent police interviews, Brawley indicated that she had been kidnapped by a group of white men, including one who appeared to be a police officer. Brawley's case was taken up and brought to national attention by civil rights activist Al Sharpton (assisted by lawyers Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason), who alleged a large-scale cover-up. A grand jury later concluded that Brawley fabricated her story, although Brawley continued to maintain that she was telling the truth. The plot of the novel closely follows the Brawley case.
### Setting
The novel is set in the fictional town of Pascayne (based on Passaic) in northern New Jersey in the 1980s. After World War II, New Jersey cities were hit hard by deindustrialization, while at the same time the Black population of cities like Newark, a major city close to the novel's fictional setting, increased significantly. In July 1967, Newark saw five days of rioting after the beating of a Black cab driver by white police officers; over the course of the "most devastating riots in the history of New Jersey" twenty-six people were killed and millions of dollars of property was destroyed. The riots – referenced in the novel – left a legacy of distrust between the city's Black population and the mostly-white police force. The riots also hastened white flight from the city, and in their aftermath rising crime and urban blight contributed to Newark's status as "a symbol of America's decaying cities".
## Themes
According to Roxane Gay, the novel's title refers to the fact that "nearly all of the characters sacrifice something – faith, hope, dignity, truth, justice." More literally, Alan Cheuse points out that the detective Ines Iglesias wonders if she is going to be made a "'sacrifice' to public opinion", and at one point Marus tells Sybilla that she is "a race victim, a martyr, and a sacrifice". A central theme of the novel is how individual people and events are transformed into symbols and "are made to surrender their unique complexities as human beings", sometimes resulting in the obfuscation of facts in service of a larger purpose. According to Kirkus Reviews, the novel raises the question of whether the truth or falsity of Sybilla's story makes "racism... any less true". In an academic review, Eric K. Anderson links The Sacrifice to Oates's earlier novel Them and its "understanding of how specific incidents of racial conflict cannot be viewed only in isolation". Anderson also notes that the battle of wills between the Mudrick twins recalls similar dynamics between twins in previous novels by Oates.
Race plays an important role in The Sacrifice, not only in the conflict between white and non-white communities – exemplified by the police killing of Anis Schutt's brother as well as by Sybilla's case – but also in internal tensions within communities of color, such as Ednetta Frye's distrust of Iglesias, the Hispanic detective. Rose Tremain of The Guardian views the violence that breaks out during Mudrick's crusade as "mirroring an internal labyrinth of fear". A review in The Independent found that the novel depicts the "powerless of women" in a male world, and "simmers with barely concealed rage at the impotence inflicted on people by race and gender inequalities". Multiple reviewers noted the parallels between the novel and contemporary racial tensions in the United States.
## Reception
Writing in The New York Times, Roxane Gay offered measured praise for Oates's ambition but criticized the novel for its "lack of empathy" and "utter disregard for nuance", singling out inaccuracies in Oates's rendition of African-American Vernacular English. Kirkus Reviews found that the multiple perspectives employed by the novel failed to offer "nuance or fresh insights", and concluded that "Oates revives an old scandal without making it new." Publishers Weekly similarly criticized the lack of nuance in its "heavy and overt focus on race", and described the narrative as "fragmented and often repetitive". A review of Oates's later novel Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. noted that Oates's engagement with "the subjects of race, violence and socioeconomic status" has had only "intermittent success" and that The Sacrifice in particular was "marred by a lack of empathy and worse".
In a review for National Public Radio, Alan Cheuse was more positive, calling the novel a "raw and earnest work of fiction [that] offers a mix of fiery drama and the cold bone truths of race as we all live it today." Lesley McDowell's review in The Independent praised it as a "superb" synthesis of the themes of sexual violence and racial prejudice written in her "characteristic visceral and hypnotising style". The Washington Post's Jon Michaud and The Guardian's Rose Tremain found the Mudrick brothers particularly compelling. |
64,681,478 | 1987 vote of no confidence in the government of Felipe González | 1,137,654,053 | 1987 vote of no confidence in the government of Felipe González | [
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| A motion of no confidence in the Spanish government of Felipe González was debated and voted in the Congress of Deputies between 26 and 30 March 1987. It was proposed by People's Alliance (AP) leader Antonio Hernández Mancha, motivated on the "deteriorating situation of the country" as a result of the social conflict sparked throughout the 1986–87 winter between the governing Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and its erstwhile allied Workers' General Union (UGT), which had grown increasingly critical of González's economic policies. However, the motion's true motives were attributed to Mancha's need for public promotion as both AP and opposition leader after his recent election to the post, as well as to his party's perceived urge to vindicate its primacy within the centre-right political spectrum in Spain amid the internal crisis that had been beleaguering it in the previous months.
It was soundly defeated by the absolute majority held by the PSOE in the Congress. It only secured the votes of two parties, the AP and Valencian Union (UV), with the other 15 parties either voting in favor or abstaining. Many deputies did not attend the vote at all. Having been unable to secure any significant support outside of his group, harshly criticized by other opposition parties and seeing some notorious gaffes during his speech, political commentators promptly came to regard the motion as a huge political blow for Hernández Mancha's career, who ultimately ended up retiring from politics in 1989.
## Background
The conservative People's Coalition had broken up following disappointing results in the 1986 Spanish general election: first with the departure of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) from the coalition's parliamentary group in July 1986, then with the Liberal Party (PL) following suit in January 1987. Dissensions within the People's Alliance had also seen the splitting of Jorge Verstrynge and Carlos Manglano in October to form the Democratic Renewal party (RD), and of Gabriel Camuñas and Carlos Ruiz Soto into the Democratic Party (PD) in December.
Concurrently, following the electoral defeat in the Basque regional election held in November that same year, Manuel Fraga resigned as AP leader on 1 December, being replaced by Antonio Hernández Mancha—until then the leader of the party in Andalusia—on 7 February. However, by the time of Mancha's election his party's parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies had been reduced to 67 members out of the 105 that the People's Coalition had secured in the 1986 election. Additionally, Hernandez Mancha was not a deputy but a senator. This meant that he was unable to engage Felipe Gonzalez directly during debates, limiting this ability to reach out to the general public as leader of the opposition. Finally, Fraga's resignation had prompted former prime minister Adolfo Suárez and his Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) party to attempt an electoral expansion at the expense of AP in the upcoming 1987 local, regional and European Parliament elections, ultimately envisaging the former overcoming the latter as the main opposition party in Spain.
## Legal provisions
The Spanish Constitution of 1978 required for motions of no confidence to be proposed by at least one-tenth of the Congress of Deputies—35 out of 350. Following the German model, votes of no confidence in Spain were constructive, so the motion was required to include an alternative candidate for prime minister. For a motion of no confidence to be successful, it had to be passed by an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies. A minimum period of five days from the motion's registration (dubbed as "cooling period") was required to pass before it could come up for a vote, but no maximum was established. Other parties were entitled to submit alternative motions within the first two days from the registration.
> 1\. The Congress of Deputies may challenge Government policy by passing a motion of censure by an absolute majority of its members.
> 2. The motion of censure must be proposed by at least one tenth of the Deputies, including a candidate for the office of President of the Government.
> 3. The motion of censure may not be voted on until five days after it has been submitted. During the first two days of this period, alternative motions may be submitted.
> 4. If the motion of censure is not passed by the Congress, its signatories may not submit another during the same session.
Concurrently, the Prime Minister was barred from dissolving the Cortes Generales and calling a general election while a motion of no confidence was pending. If the motion was successful, the incumbent prime minister and their government were required to submit their resignation to the Monarch, while the candidate proposed in the motion was automatically considered to have the confidence of the Congress of Deputies and immediately appointed as prime minister. If unsuccessful, the signatories of the motion were barred from submitting another during the same session.
The procedure for motions of no confidence was regulated within Articles 175 to 179 of the Standing Orders of the Congress of Deputies, which provided for the debate on the motion starting with its defence by one of the signatory members without any time limitations, to be followed by an also time-unlimited speech by the nominated candidate to explain their political programme. Subsequently, spokespeople from the different parliamentary groups in Congress were allowed to speak for thirty minutes, with an opportunity to reply or rectify themselves for ten minutes. Members of the government were allowed to take the floor and speak at any time of their request during the debate.
## Events
### Prelude
The motion was officially registered on 23 March 1987 by fifty-one People's Alliance (AP) deputies and with Antonio Hernández Mancha as the proposed candidate. The text of the motion justified it in the following six motives:
- "poor functioning of state services";
- "ineffective economic management";
- "ineffectiveness and inadequacy of the Central Administration";
- "erratic foreign and defense policy";
- "hegemonic and interventionist attitude of the State"; and
- "absence of proper channels for dialogue with social movements".
More specifically, the latter was attributed to the ongoing social conflict between González's government and trade unions—including the historically PSOE-aligned Workers' General Union (UGT)—since the end of 1986 and into the spring of 1987, over growing criticism of González's economic policies. The initiative was criticized by several parties, including the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), because of the motion's mathematical impossibility of succeeding as a result of the latter commanding an absolute majority in the Congress of Deputies, while also being dubbed as an opportunistic exercise of political self-promotion because of the close proximity of the 1987 local and regional elections.
The debate's schedule was set for 26–27 March, whereas the vote itself was not expected to take place until after the weekend, on 30 March, in order to respect the five-day timetable set down by the Constitution. This was the first and—to date—only time that the vote on a motion of no confidence in Spain would not be held immediately after the debate. AP's spokesperson in Congress Juan Ramón Calero had advocated for the debate to be postponed to next week so as not to interrupt the "unity of act" between the debate and the vote, but the government pushed through its own schedule thanks to its parliamentary majority. This led Calero to claim that this had been done "so as to cast off the feeling of censorship that our initiative implies", but he reluctantly accepted it so as to not give the impression that Hernández Mancha needed more time for preparation. The CDS, the PDP, United Left (IU) and the Regionalist Aragonese Party (PAR) supported the view that the debate and the vote should respect the unity of act of the parliamentary meeting, whereas Convergence and Union (CiU) had been favourable to the debate being held as early as possible, with the latter stance being the one that prevailed.
### Debate
In his defense of the motion previous to Mancha's speech as candidate on 26 March, Calero argued on its motives that when the governing commanded an absolute majority in the chamber, the motion of no confidence fulfilled a subsidiary control purpose, which was the main reason behind his group's proposal. After laying out his programme, Hernández Mancha was received with widespread criticism from other parties: those in opposition condemned AP's attitude of not having reached out to them previously to ask for their support to the motion, whereas González's government remained mostly silent in the first day of debate—except for the formal reply to the speeches by Calero and Mancha, which was borne to deputy prime minister Alfonso Guerra—allegedly "out of respect for the other spokespeople", but in reality because of considering that the one being examined was Hernández Mancha and not themselves. In his reply, Guerra mocked Mancha by dubbing his speech as "the discourse of the old, reactionary right, clothed in populism".
In the second day of debate, Prime Minister Felipe González took the floor to disapprove of Mancha's performance and criticize his alleged contradictions, the "lack of consistency" of his programme and "the insufficient information" that he had collected on the issues addressed in his speeches. The replies from AP's leader were notorious because of a number of gaffes: a first one in which he erroneously claimed that then-foreign minister Francisco Fernández Ordóñez had been a cabinet member under Adolfo Suárez during the censure motion of May 1980—Fernández Ordóñez had not been appointed to the cabinet until September that year—and another one when he mistakenly attributed to Saint Teresa of Jesus a quote from Lope de Vega when addressing the CDS parliamentary group and Suárez himself, which forced the latter—who had initially rejected to participate in the debate—to take the floor himself to refute it, as well as to reject the alleged political motivation of the motion.
The motion was defeated by an overwhelming margin, with just 67 votes in favour—those of AP and Valencian Union (UV)—194 against and 71 abstentions, with 18 absentees (including the 5 members of Herri Batasuna who had not taken their seats). Several of the opposition parties were in disagreement with the government's policy and González's management of the country, but their level of dissatisfaction was not such so as to openly support Mancha's investiture as alternative prime minister, prompting many of these parties to abstain instead. The supportive stance of UV's only member in Congress also led to discomfort setting among the more moderate and centrist sectors within the party, which had unsuccessfully advocated for an abstention in the vote. The refusal of the PDP and PL to support the motion—the latter of which had taken the decision that same day, on the grounds that it had been tabled untimely and unilaterally—prompted a AP to break up all relations with these two parties in the short term.
### Opinion polls
Opinion polling conducted in the days during and after the events of the vote of no confidence showed a large opposition to the motion.
### Vote
## Aftermath
Antonio Hernández Mancha regarded the motion and the vote as a success in "consolidating [AP] as the sole alternative of government", not ruling out the proposal of future, similar motions. However, the motion's opportunity, Mancha's lackluster performance in the debate and his oversized defeat—including the refusal from AP's erstwhile allies (PDP and PL) or that of its split members (RD and PD) to back him—would go down in history as a massive political blunder that, ultimately, would cost him his political career.
A number of factors were said to contribute to Hernández Mancha's failing to secure any political gain from the debate. Firstly, that he was a newcomer to national politics—having been appointed as AP leader barely two months earlier—coupled with the fact that the ruling PSOE rushed the debate on the motion to the earliest possible date allowed under law, which meant that Mancha had little time to prepare himself against the well-experienced Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra. Secondly, the prime minister's choice not to intervene until the second day of debating further weakened Mancha's ability to stage the parliamentary duel he sought, with his speech being mostly panned by the spokespeople of other minor parties. From that point, movements were set in motion within his party to replace him as leader, ultimately seeing Manuel Fraga forcing him out of politics in January 1989 and prompting the refoundation of AP—together with the PDP and PL—into the People's Party (PP) that same month.
A different interpretation of the motion's consequences was that it was partly successful in allowing AP to recover the political initiative ahead of the June 1987 local and regional elections, where the party held out as the main opposition force in Spain despite the electoral growth of the CDS. Later on, Hernández Mancha would reveal that he had not tabled the motion against González, but against Suárez, weary that the right-wing electorate could succumb to tactical voting in favour of the latter—much more widely known and popular than himself—as a result of the political vacuum left by Fraga's resignation. In any case, the 1987 motion has come to go down in the recent history of Spain in contraposition to the 1980 one, as the exemplification of the political risks than an ill-fated vote of no confidence can entail for the candidate tabling it. |
12,714,240 | Wild Guns | 1,169,693,842 | 1994 video game | [
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"Video games scored by Hiroyuki Iwatsuki",
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| Wild Guns is a 1994 space Western shooting gallery video game developed by Natsume for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Set in the Wild West with steampunk and sci-fi influences, the story follows Annie and her bounty hunter Clint, seeking revenge for the death of her family. The player controls either Annie or Clint sidestepping and jumping in the foreground while shooting down enemy robots in the background and dodging enemy bullets. These gameplay mechanics combine elements from third-person shooters and light gun games.
Development lasted five months on a small budget with a team of only three core members and two support staff. The team leads had previously worked together on The Ninja Warriors (1994) for the Super NES, and so chose to develop for that system. Wild Guns was heavily influenced in its gameplay and artistic design by arcade games such as Blood Bros. and Dynamite Duke. The game's scenery, characters, and sound design drew ideas from the Western film genre and the science fiction manga Cobra, creating a space Western setting.
Wild Guns received positive reviews at its initial release, and in retrospective reviews is considered a cult classic. Critics have praised the gameplay of what has become a niche genre, as well as the cooperative mode and graphical attention to detail. The game was rereleased on the Virtual Console for the Wii in 2010 and Wii U in 2014. The game was added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in 2020. An enhanced remaster titled Wild Guns Reloaded was released in 2016 for PlayStation 4, 2017 for Windows, and 2018 for Nintendo Switch. Reloaded features two new characters which are Doris and Bullet the dog with his sentry drone, additional stages and modes, and updated visuals and audio.
## Gameplay
Wild Guns is a shooting gallery game with an American Wild West setting along with sci-fi and steampunk influences. The gameplay combines elements from third-person shooters and light gun games in a similar fashion to Blood Bros. and Cabal. There are six levels, each with two stages, followed by a mini-boss, and a third stage with a final boss. Single player and cooperative modes are available, as well as target practice allowing two players to compete to achieve the highest score. The story follows a young woman named Annie seeking revenge against the Kid family for abducting and killing her family. She seeks help from renowned space bounty hunter Clint. Although Clint says he doesn't need Annie's assistance, she insists, claiming she has a personal vendetta against the Kid family and is a skilled shooter.
The player controls either Annie or Clint in the foreground with the D-pad and must shoot enemies in the background and dodge enemy fire. While holding the fire button down, the D-pad instead makes the gun reticle move. Shooting and moving at the same time is not possible. While the gun is holstered, the player can jump, dive, and roll to evade gunfire. A "Look Out!" text bubble will appear when one can dodge bullets. Some enemies will throw dynamite sticks at the player, but these can be tossed back. A lasso can be used to temporarily stun enemies.
Both enemies and their bullets can be shot down. Defeating enemies will sometimes reveal item boxes, which can hold precious metals such as gold and silver for extra points, and bombs. Only five bombs can be held at a time, which can be used to clear the screen of enemies. Weapon upgrades may appear after defeating certain enemies. These weapons, such as shotguns and machine guns, will increase the player's firing speed or damage output. When a player's bullets hit bullets fired by enemies, a gauge at the bottom of the screen will fill. Once filled, the player will be awarded with a Vulcan gun, the most powerful weapon in the game which grants invincibility. The gauge will then begin to deplete and the Vulcan gun will disappear once empty.
## Development
Development of Wild Guns began when a small team of Natsume staff was asked to create a game quickly and cheaply while waiting for their next major assignment. The team consisted of three core members: Shunichi Taniguchi for game design and graphics, Toshiyasu Miyabe for programming, and Hiroyuki Iwatsuki for sound. Two other people helped as support staff. The team chose to develop for the Super NES because the three had worked together previously on The Ninja Warriors (1994) for that system. Development of Wild Guns lasted approximately five months and was led by Taniguchi.
Wild Guns was heavily influenced by Dynamite Duke and Blood Bros. during development. The space Western setting was largely influenced by the space Western manga Cobra. The screen shaking and mirage-like effects that occur after explosions were influenced by the film RoboCop 3. When composing the music for Wild Guns, Hiroyuki Iwatsuki drew upon the influence of a Western soundtrack "Best Of" CD that Natsume had provided him. He enjoyed listening to the CD both during and after development. The game's music was created using PC-98s, a Roland W-30 keyboard, and a MIDI sequencer. Some sounds came from the Roland Sound Canvas series.
Originally, the reticle could only move up and down, and lateral movement was done by moving the player side-to-side; this, however, proved to be cumbersome and was changed. The "Look Out!" text bubble was added because of difficulty judging bullet distances due to the screen's artificial 3D depth. Clint and Annie were designed in clothing that was emblematic of the time period, and Annie's dress was chosen instead of jeans to avoid overlapping with Clint's design and to enable easier animation. The characters' names were suggested by the American Natsume offices. Due to the game's low budget, voice actors were not used; instead, Taniguchi's voice was recorded in the office bathroom for Clint.
## Release
The game was released in Japan on August 12, 1994. The North American version of Wild Guns was set to be released in the third quarter of 1994 and was reviewed at the time, but the release was unexpectedly delayed until the third quarter of 1995. A 32X version was reportedly planned for 1996, but never materialized. The game has since become a rare collector's item. The game was rereleased on the Virtual Console for the Wii in 2010 and Wii U in 2014. The game was added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in 2020.
An enhanced remaster titled Wild Guns Reloaded was released for the PlayStation 4 in December 2016. The game was developed by the original team (as Tengo Project) and features classic characters and stages but also enhancements such as more playable characters, enemies, stages, and local four-player support. The game was made available for download on the PlayStation Store, and physical copies were available from Amazon, Play-Asia, and Video Games Plus. Natsume released Reloaded on Windows in July 2017, marking the company's first ever release on the personal computer. On April 17, 2018, Reloaded was released on the Nintendo Switch.
## Reception
Contemporary reviews of the game were positive. Famitsu gave it a score of 26 out of 40. Reviewers at Electronic Gaming Monthly cited the cooperative multiplayer mode and challenging levels as the game's strongest points. They declared it one of the best shooters on the SNES and compared it to the Neo Geo game NAM-1975. GamePro praised the game for its intense action, fun cooperative multiplayer mode, colorful graphics, and ability to shoot almost any on-screen object. They remarked that the game is difficult even on easy, but that players are rewarded for perseverance. Nintendo Power found the game to have good graphics and control, and complimented the presence of both male and female playable characters. However, they believed the game was not as challenging as other shooters.
In a retrospective Virtual Console review, IGN's Lucas M. Thomas commended the gameplay depth and the detailed visual presentation. He acknowledged the difficulty, even on easy, but praised the game as one of the best examples of the niche shooting gallery genre. Mat Allen of Nintendo Life found the game to be an excellent example of what the Virtual Console is for: providing gamers chances to experience quality games that were overlooked in their time. He highlighted the release as providing a cheap option to play a game which has become an expensive collector's item. In another retrospective review, Todd Ciolek of GameSetWatch cited Wild Guns as one of the best games in a genre that has become a lost art. Critics and Natsume themselves have acknowledged Wild Guns as a cult classic.
Wild Guns Reloaded was also well received. Critics praised the game for being a quality remaster of an already classic game. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave the PS4 version of the game a score of 29 out of 40. |
27,638,016 | Bryan v. Itasca County | 1,110,036,586 | null | [
"1976 in United States case law",
"Itasca County, Minnesota",
"Minnesota Chippewa Tribe",
"Native American history of Minnesota",
"United States Native American case law",
"United States Native American tax case law",
"United States Supreme Court cases",
"United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court"
]
| Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373 (1976), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state did not have the right to assess a tax on the property of a Native American (Indian) living on tribal land absent a specific Congressional grant of authority to do so.
The case arose when a Minnesota county taxed an Indian's mobile home located on the reservation. The Court ruled that the state did not have the authority to impose such a tax or, more generally, to regulate behavior on the reservation. Bryan has become a landmark case that has led to Indian gaming on reservations and altered the economic status of almost every Indian tribe. Later decisions, citing Bryan, ruled that Public Law 280 allows states to enact prohibitions, or crimes, that would apply on reservations, but could not impose regulations on conduct that was otherwise allowed. The case has also called into question the ability of the states to impose any sort of regulations on tribal reservations, such as labor standards and certain traffic regulations.
## Background
### Background information
Generally, no state has the authority to tax an Indian tribe or an individual Indian living on a reservation without authorization from Congress. This is based primarily on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which states, "Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." This doctrine is based on Worcester v. Georgia, which stated that Indian tribes are considered to be dependent sovereign nations which deal directly with the federal government, and that states have no authority to regulate or control the tribes. Congress can authorize the states to have some control over the tribes. Minnesota is a Public Law 280 state, one where Congress has granted the state total criminal and limited civil jurisdiction on tribal land and reservations.
### History
Russell Bryan was an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, which is a component band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. He married Helen Charwood in 1957. Helen was an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, which was also a part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. They raised their children on reservation land and lived in a mobile home which they purchased in 1971. The mobile home was located on the Greater Leech Lake Indian Reservation near Squaw Lake in Itasca County, Minnesota. Bryan's mobile home, had it not been on the reservation, would have been subject to taxes from Itasca County. In June 1972, Itasca County notified Bryan that the mobile home was subject to US\$147.95 in taxes. The Bryans could not afford to pay the tax, and contacted the Leech Lake Reservation Legal Services Project (Legal Services) for help, noting that the mobile home was on Indian land.
### Lower courts
On behalf of Bryan, Legal Services attorney Patrick Moriarty then sued the state and Itasca County in the District Court of Itasca County, seeking declaratory relief and an injunction which would prevent the state and county from collecting taxes from Indians on tribal land. This was filed as a class action suit. There was no dispute as to the facts of the case, so the matter was submitted as a question of law to Judge James F. Murphy. In 1973, the district court held that the state and county were authorized to collect such taxes under Public Law 280. Murphy noted that while the Chippewa had at one time been a sovereign Indian nation, their members were now citizens of Minnesota and received benefits from the state such as county services, the court system, and other like services.
At about the same time as the district court made its decision, Legal Services hired a new director, Gerald "Jerry" Seck. Seck was not well versed on Indian law, so he contacted the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). With their help, Bryan appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Minnesota Chippewa tribe and the United States both filed amicus curae briefs with the court that supported Bryan's position, and NARF attorneys appeared on his behalf. In March 1975, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the trial court by a unanimous decision, holding that Public Law 280 showed Congressional intent to allow such taxation. The Minnesota Supreme Court based its decision primarily on Omaha Tribe of Indians v. Peters, 382 F.Supp. 421 (D. Neb. 1974). Bryan appealed this decision, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
## Opinion of the Court
### Arguments
By the time the appeal was prepared, Seck had left Legal Services but was still the attorney of record. The tribe paid to fly him to Washington, D.C. to prepare the brief with Dan Israel of NARF and Bernie Becker, the tribe's attorney who would argue the case before the Supreme Court. At oral arguments on April 20, 1976, Becker pointed out that Public Law 280 gave the state jurisdiction over criminal matters and civil "causes of actions" – a legal term for lawsuits. Since Congress had also passed other Indian laws at the same time, such as the various Indian Termination Acts, which specifically authorized states to collect taxes from Indians, its silence in this area meant Congress did not intend to do so with Public Law 280. Becker brought up the leading article on Public Law 280, by UCLA law professor Carole Goldberg, that argued that the law was established to address the problem of crime on reservations. He also noted that tribes which had adequate law-and-order processes, such as the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, were excluded from state jurisdiction in Minnesota. Arguing for the State of Minnesota was C. H. Luther of the State Attorney General's office. Luther argued four points for the tax being valid: a) the language of the statute; b) the legislative history of Public Law 280; c) prior judicial opinions; and d) public policy. Luther conceded that if the trailer was a fixed house or real property, it would be exempt from taxation. Luther also stated that other taxes – such as gasoline, sales, income and other taxes of general applicability – would apply to Indians.
### Unanimous opinion
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. delivered the unanimous opinion of the court on June 14, 1976. Brennan stated that Public Law 280 was not designed to eliminate all restrictions on the states as they dealt with Indian tribes. Brennan noted that under the Supreme Court's prior decisions of Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, and McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm'n, , states had no authority to tax Indians "absent Congressional consent." Since Itasca County was claiming Public Law 280 granted that consent, Brennan evaluated the statute in regards to the taxation of Indians.
Brennan noted that the Minnesota Supreme Court had found that the statute did grant the right to tax personal property as an inherent power, even though the law did not specifically mention the power to tax. He rejected this argument, noting that the primary purpose of the law was to provide for "state criminal jurisdiction over offenses committed by or against Indians on the reservations." Nothing in the legislative history of the law provided support for Itasca County's interpretation. Brennan also noted that the several tribal termination acts which were considered at the same time specifically discussed the taxation of Indians, while Public Law 280 was silent.
Brennan then noted that the principles of statutory construction as regards to Indians were very specific. Any differences in possible interpretation must be resolved in favor of the tribe or the Indian. Since Minnesota's interpretation did not meet any of these tests regarding either the consent of Congress to tax or of statutory construction, Brennan stated that the Supreme Court would not follow the state's reasoning, and reversed the lower court's decision.
## Subsequent developments
When the decision was announced, it was reported as a substantial victory for Indians by both the local and national press. Bryan is a landmark case on the taxation of Indians and tribal sovereignty, having been cited over 380 times as of July 2010. The case has had a significant impact on Indian gaming with its broad holding that Public Law 280 did not confer "general state civil regulatory control over Indian reservations." This ruling in a challenge to a tax bill of under \$200 had the effect of enabling Indian tribes nationwide to earn over \$200 billion in gaming revenue as of 2007. The first cases influenced by Bryan involved bingo, which many states allowed, but regulated. The cases which were decided all cited Bryan in holding that the various states had no legal grounds to regulate games on tribal land. Many analysts point to the Bryan case as being the grounds upon which California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians was decided. The Supreme Court noted that California was not able to impose civil regulations against an Indian tribe on tribal land. In that case, the court noted that California not only allowed gaming, but promoted its own state lottery. Therefore, the prohibition against gaming was regulatory in nature, not criminal, notwithstanding the fact that the games were open to non-Indians as well as Indians. After the decision, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to provide for a system of regulation of the Indian gaming industry.
The case is often cited to support the concept which first "coalesced" in the 1968 case, Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United States, , that tribal rights would not be abrogated without an explicit intent of Congress to do so. It has been opined by a number of legal scholars that tribes would not be subject to state labor laws. In some instances, Bryan and Cabazon have been viewed as not allowing the state jurisdiction over the traffic violations of non-member Indians on another tribe's reservation. Bryan is extensively discussed in both major legal textbooks on Native American law and in numerous other high school and college texts. |
71,782,554 | David Cortés (politician) | 1,166,499,793 | Bolivian politician (1955–2015) | [
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"Club Independiente Petrolero players",
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"Members of the Bolivian Chamber of Deputies from Potosí",
"Men's association football goalkeepers",
"People from Potosí",
"Santa Claus",
"Social Alliance politicians",
"Tomás Frías Autonomous University alumni"
]
| Ángel David Cortés Villegas (1 March 1955 – 30 October 2015) was a Bolivian educator, politician, and trade unionist who served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from Potosí, representing circumscription 37 from 2010 to 2015.
Cortés graduated as a teacher from the Marshal Sucre Normal School [es] and obtained a master's in educational management from Tomás Frías University. His opposition to the repressive military governments of the day brought him into the ranks of the Communist Party of Bolivia, an organization with which he fought for the rights of educators and mineworkers.
Throughout his career, Cortés served as an advisor to Potosí's largest trade unions, helmed multiple teachers' unions, and directed La Palca [es]'s Óscar Alfaro School. In 2005, he was appointed to serve as Potosí's senior official for culture and human development, a position that brought him to local notability for his tradition of dressing as Santa Claus during the Christmas season. When Potosí Mayor René Joaquino sought the presidency in 2009, Cortés was nominated to run for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, a position he attained, thanks in large part to his popularity in the city.
## Early life and career
David Cortés was born on 1 March 1955 in Potosí to David Cortés Rivera and Aurelia Villegas. Cortés was raised in the small mining community of Catavi [es], completing primary education at the Marshal Sucre School before moving to Sucre in 1968, where he graduated from secondary at the Junín National School. He pursued simultaneous degrees in medicine and education, completing six semesters of medical school and graduating from the Marshal Sucre Normal School [es]. He subsequently attended Tomás Frías University, graduating with a degree in educational administration with a master's in educational management. While in university, Cortés enjoyed a twelve-year career in professional football, playing as a goalkeeper for River Plate and Independiente Petrolero.
In his adolescence, Cortés was a witness to the San Juan massacre, in which striking mineworkers were brutally gunned down by the Armed Forces. The military government's violent repression of workers motivated Cortés to involve himself in the labor movement. His left-wing activism against the dictatorships of the 1970s and '80s led him to join the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB). He became one of its leaders in the public sphere, representing the education and mining sectors. In 1980, he became a founding member of the National Confederation of Student Teachers and served as its executive secretary. That year, following the coup d'état of Luis García Meza, Cortés was arrested and conscripted into the Army's 10th Division in Tupiza for three years. Barred from political activity, he briefly returned to football, playing for Potosí's 1o de Mayo club.
Following his release, Cortés returned to education. He briefly worked as a professor at the Siglo XX National University before settling in La Palca [es]. There, he first taught at the Óscar Alfaro School and later directed it for eighteen years between 1985 and 2003. During this time, Cortés served as executive secretary of the Federation of Education Workers of Potosí in addition to working as an advisor to the Departmental Workers' Center and serving as a member of the Potosí Civic Committee. In 2003, Cortés was appointed to serve as district director of urban education of Potosí, a position he exercised for two years. Shortly thereafter, Potosí Mayor René Joaquino invited Cortés to work in the Mayor's Office as the municipal government's senior official for culture and human development. Cortés held the position for four years between 2005 and 2009. During this time, he became well known in the city for his tradition of dressing as Santa Claus during the Christmas season, sharing merriment, and distributing gifts to children, for which he was dubbed the "Santa Claus of Potosí".
## Chamber of Deputies
### Election
Cortés's popularity in the city led him to be put forward as a candidate for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies on behalf of Joaquino's Social Alliance (AS). In the 2009 general election, the AS nominated him to run in circumscription 37, encompassing the municipality of Potosí. Cortés's popularity, coupled with Joaquino's established political presence in the area, landed him the victory in the election.
### Tenure
While in the Chamber of Deputies, Cortés served as a leading member of the Parliamentary Network for Children and Adolescents, a legislative body committed to the rights and welfare of the country's youth. In that vein, he continued his longstanding tradition of celebrating Christmas as Santa Claus. Throughout all five years of his term, Cortés served as the fourth secretary on the lower chamber's directorate, during which time he presented a total of twelve bills for consideration, of which four went on to be enacted into law. Around halfway through his term, Cortés distanced himself from the AS and aligned himself with the ruling Movement for Socialism, regularly voting in favor of the party's political projects from then on.
Upon the conclusion of his tenure, Cortés did not seek reelection and retired from politics. He died in La Paz in October 2015, less than a year after leaving office. Following a brief memorial at the Legislative Assembly, his remains were interred in La Paz's Jardín Cemetery.
### Commission assignments
- Chamber of Deputies Directorate (Fourth Secretary: 2010–2015)
## Electoral history |
1,450,381 | Exmoor pony | 1,155,266,101 | British breed of horse | [
"Animal breeds on the RBST Watchlist",
"Conservation Priority Breeds of the Livestock Conservancy",
"Exmoor",
"Feral horses",
"Horse breeds",
"Horse breeds originating in England"
]
| The Exmoor Pony is a British breed of pony or small horse. It is one of the mountain and moorland pony breeds native to the British Isles, and so falls within the larger Celtic group of European ponies. It originates on, and is named for, the Exmoor area of moorland in north-eastern Devon and western Somerset, in south-west England, and is well adapted to the climate conditions and poor grazing of the moor. Some still live there in a near-feral state, but most are in private ownership.
Written records of ponies on Exmoor start with the Domesday Book in 1086. After centuries of being a “Royal Forest” (not an area of trees but a hunting ground), most of Exmoor was sold in 1818. Thirty ponies, identified as the original old type, were moved to neighbouring moorland; these were the foundation stock of the present-day breed. A breed society, the Exmoor Pony Society, was formed in 1921; the first stud-book was published in 1963.
The ponies came close to extinction during the Second World War, when some were stolen for food. After the war a small group of breeders worked to preserve the remaining stock; during the 1950s small numbers were exported, to continental Europe and to Canada. In 1981 the vulnerability of the breeding population received publicity, and numbers recovered somewhat. In the twenty-first century it is a gravely endangered breed, with a total of 95 head reported in the United Kingdom for 2021, and an estimated population world-wide of 330. Its conservation status is listed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust as 'priority', the highest level of concern of the trust.
## History
Ponies were first recorded in the Exmoor area in the Domesday Book in 1086, but no count of the ponies roaming the Royal Forest of Exmoor is included as, being owned by the King, they were not to be taxed. Over the centuries, a series of Wardens managed the Royal Forest, charging fees for the grazing of livestock including ponies. The change of Warden was often accompanied by the sale of ponies they personally owned, as for example in 1748 at the end of the Hill and Darch wardenship. Whether some were sold to incoming Wardens is not recorded. In 1767 Warden Sir Thomas Acland was grazing ponies on the Forest. Sales records from 1805 and 1809 list the colours black, grey, bay, dun, 'chestnut', and piebald for ponies and 19th century drawings show a variety of white markings in the breed. Studies disagree as to the significance of this: some argue it shows that the native type of Exmoor pony was not limited to bay, brown and dun with mealy, and that other coat colours were deliberately bred out to create a specific look that fitted a romantic driven native breed narrative; others consider that because only the Warden could run stallions, cross-bred mares of different colours could co-exist with the indigenous type.
In 1818 the Royal Forest and some adjoining land was sold to John Knight. Sir Thomas Acland, the outgoing warden, took thirty of “the old type” to Ashway Side close to Winsford Hill, while others were sold to local farmers. Records show that Acland then adopted two breeding strategies, a closed, purebred herd on Ashway Side and some separate crossing experiments on Winsford Hill. In contrast, John Knight, starting in 1826, crossed all the ponies he had purchased with Arabians, Thoroughbreds, and other breeds to increase their size. Significantly, today’s registered Exmoor pony population is descended from the Acland herd.
From the late nineteenth century, Exmoors were selectively bred for the characteristic mealy muzzle. In 1921, the fledgling Exmoor Pony Society’s rules accepted grey and black ponies in addition to bay, brown and dun, though the colour standards were soon tightened to exclude animals that did not conform to the carefully defined breed standard. In Herd 23 there are also chestnut pangaré and true dun individuals known, though the chestnut individuals are at this point not excepted in the registry. Exmoor pony registrations (as well as any ponies from Exmoor) were recorded in the Polo & Riding Pony Stud Books (the National Pony Society Stud Books from 1913). The Exmoor Pony Society published its first stud book exclusively for registered Exmoor ponies in 1963.
The Second World War led to a sharp decrease in the breed population. This was largely due to ponies being stolen for the wartime horse-meat market; a small number of ponies were supposedly also used for target practice by soldiers, Exmoor being a training ground.
After the war, a small group of breeders, including Mary Etherington, worked to restore the herds. In the 1950s, Exmoors were first exported to Canada and continental Europe, where small populations are still maintained.
`Since the mid-1980s, small free-living herds of Exmoor ponies have been established in various areas of the UK: these herds are used to manage vegetation on nature reserves belonging to organisations such as the National Trust, Natural England, and County Wildlife Trusts. Since the start of the 21st century Exmoor ponies have been in demand for ‘rewilding’ projects both UK-based and in additional European countries.`
In 2000, the Moorland Mousie Trust, a British organisation, was established to assist in the preservation of the Exmoor pony. With very limited demand for Exmoor colts, the organisation works to raise funds for the gelding, handling and training of these ponies. In 2006, the Trust opened the Exmoor Pony Centre, on Exmoor.
Until 2009, every purebred registered Exmoor was hot branded for individual identification. Then, with microchipping offering a viable alternative, in-ground (not moorland herds) breeders ceased to brand. A few years later, hot branding became illegal throughout Britain for all except semi-feral ponies, for which there is no other workable alternative.
Currently, the UK Rare Breeds Survival Trust watchlist includes the Exmoor breed in its most threatened category, "Priority", based upon the number of breeding animals and the level of in-breeding. Whilst worldwide the total population numbers around 4,000 (the vast majority within the UK), Exmoor Pony Society estimates the number of breeding animals is only around 600. The Livestock Conservancy in North America also considers the population of the Exmoor pony to be at "threatened" levels.
### Prehistoric origin theories
Some claim that the Exmoor pony descends directly from the wild horses of north-west Europe, uninfluenced by domestic horses. Others consider that Exmoor ponies have a fully domesticated origin. Modern DNA research has not yet conclusively determined the breed’s origins: studies indicate they share their maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA with various other horse breeds from across the world, and their paternally inherited Y-chromosome is identical to that of most other domesticated horses.
Wild horses have lived in Britain for hundreds of thousands of years. Some remains found date as early as 700,000 BC, while others are as recent as 3,500 BC. No genetic studies to date have correlated these prehistoric remains to any modern breed. What has been studied are Y-chromosomes (Y-DNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The Y-chromosome is passed on through the male line, and worldwide shows very little genetic variation in horses, except for a second Y-chromosome haplotype found in China, suggesting that a very limited number of stallions contributed to the original genome of the domestic horse. The Exmoor pony shares this general Y-chromosome haplotype. Mitochondrial DNA is passed on though the female line, and shows far more variation than Y-DNA, indicating that a large number of wild mares from several regions have contributed to modern domestic breeds. Genetical the exmoor pony fits neatly in the Northwestern European cluster Some mtDNA-haplotypes have been found in DNA samples obtained from wild horses in prehistoric deposits, while other mtDNA-haplotypes have only been found in domesticated horses, from both living individuals and archeological finds. The Exmoor pony has a high frequency of pre-domestication mtDNA-haplotypes; these are also found in some other breeds all around the world. Currently, for the British Isles, few DNA archeological samples have been studied.
Although wild horses were abundant after the last ice age, the lack of sufficient pre-domestication DNA samples makes it impossible to determine the contribution of the wild horses of the British Islands to modern breeds, including the Exmoor pony. A 1995 study of morphological characteristics, the outward appearance of organisms, indicated that the Exmoor, the Pottock, and the now-extinct Tarpan have an extremely close resemblance; these breeds were consistently grouped together in the results from several analyses, with the Exmoor showing the closest relationship to the Tarpan of all the breeds studied, at 0.27; the next-closest breeds to the Tarpan were the Pottock and Merens, both with a genetic distance from the Tarpan of 0.47. The distance between the Exmoor and Pottock was 0.37, and between the Exmoor and Merens was 0.40; a significantly wider gap than the distance between the Exmoor and Tarpan.
The first indication of domesticated horses in England comes from archaeological investigations showing that the ancient Britons were using wheeled horse-drawn transport extensively in southwest England as early as 400 BC. Recent research has indicated that there was significant Roman involvement in mining on Exmoor. Metals including iron, tin, and copper were transported to Hengistbury Head in neighbouring Dorset for export, and Roman carvings, showing British and Roman chariots pulled by ponies phenotypically similar to the Exmoor, have been found in Somerset.
## Characteristics
The Exmoor pony coat colour is predominantly a variant of dark bay, called "brown", with some individuals lighter and termed "bay". More rarely there exist dun exmoors which the registry allows. All Exmoors display pangaré ("mealy") markings around the eyes, muzzle and underbelly. Pangaré markings occur in other equines as well as horses, and are considered to be a primitive trait. In order to be registered in the stud book Exmoor ponies cannot have white markings. In height, the majority of Exmoors range from (45 to 51 inches, 114 to 130 cm), with the recommended height limit for mares being (50 inches, 127 cms) and that for stallions and geldings . A few reach 13.2 hands
With a stocky, powerful build, the Exmoor pony is strong for its height, and noted for its hardiness and endurance. The chest is deep and the back broad, the croup level. The legs are short, with good bone and hard hooves. Although many sources state that the Exmoor has a distinctly different jaw structure from other horse breeds, which includes the beginnings of development of a seventh molar, this is a misunderstanding based on an incorrect translation of a German study. The study refers to an extra branch of blood supply to the jaw and speculates that this might have been the early stages of evolving an extra molar. However the feature is found in a number of horse breeds with sizable lower jaws, so its presence in the Exmoor pony is unremarkable.
The head is somewhat large in proportion to the body, with small ears, and has a special adaptation called a "toad eye" (raised flesh above and below the eyes) which helps to deflect water and provide extra insulation. As with most cold-weather adapted pony breeds, the Exmoor grows a winter coat consisting of a highly insulating woolly underlayer and a topcoat of longer, oily hairs that prevent the undercoat from becoming waterlogged by diverting water down the sides of the animal to fall from just a few drip areas. The mane and tail are thick and long, and the dock of the tail has a fan of shorter, coarse hairs, called a "snow chute" that deflects rainwater away from the groin and underbelly areas to fall from the long hairs on the back of the hind legs.
## Use
Prior to the arrival of agricultural mechanisation, Exmoor ponies removed from the moorland herds, tamed and trained, were used primarily in hill farming. Tasks undertaken were ploughing/harrowing, shepherding and transport of feed. They were both ridden and driven, providing transport for Exmoor inhabitants. Some were sold away from the moor to work in harness elsewhere, possibly a small number as pit ponies.
Since these past roles ceased, surplus moorland-bred foals and ponies bred in-ground (on farms, studs etc.) are used for a variety of leisure activities including showing, long-distance riding, driving, and agility. In 2003 Stowbrook Jenny Wren was the first Exmoor to win the NPS Bailey's Horse Feeds Ridden Mountain & Moorland Championship at the Olympia Christmas Show; Exmoor ponies won both divisions at the International Horse Agility Championships in 2011, and took a third title at the 2012 Championships. The breed's hardiness, dentition and varied diet makes it suitable for conservation grazing, and it contributes to the management of many heathland, chalk grassland and other natural pasture habitats, as well as to the conservation of Exmoor itself.
In January 2015, fourteen Exmoor ponies, from breeders within Exmoor National Park were exported to the Czech Republic's former military base of Milovice, to improve biodiversity by conservation grazing. According to the annual count of 2019, this population has increased to 111 ponies. |
65,277,834 | William B. Jordan | 1,171,111,913 | American art historian | [
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"21st-century American writers",
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"Philanthropists from Tennessee",
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"Southern Methodist University people",
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"Writers from Nashville, Tennessee"
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| William Bryan Jordan Jr. (May 8, 1940 – January 22, 2018) was an American art historian who facilitated acquisitions, curated exhibitions, and authored publications on Spanish artists and still life paintings, particularly from the Golden Age.
Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, and later in San Antonio, Texas, Jordan studied at Washington and Lee University and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. He became the founding director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in 1967. With Algur H. Meadows' financial support, Jordan helped the museum acquire around 75 artworks and is credited for turning its collection into one of the most prominent collections of Spanish art outside Spain. He was also the chair of fine arts at the Meadows School of the Arts and an adjunct curator of the Dallas Museum of Art.
After leaving the Meadows Museum, Jordan served as the deputy director and chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum from 1981 to 1990, and worked on several still life exhibitions and publications, including Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650 (1985) and Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya (1995). Jordan's research of over 40 years on Juan van der Hamen culminated in his 2005 book Juan van der Hamen y León & the Court of Madrid. He was on the board of various museums and art institutes, and was made an honorary trustee of the Prado Museum in 2017.
Known for his connoisseurship, Jordan worked as an acquisition and attribution expert, and maintained a private collection with his husband Robert Dean Brownlee. Jordan purchased a then-misattributed painting — that he believed was by Diego Velázquez — for £1,000 in 1988. After Velázquez's attribution was confirmed, he donated the painting, then titled Portrait of Philip III (1623–31) and valued at around US\$6 million, to the Prado Museum in 2016. Following his death, several artworks from Jordan and Brownlee's collection were bequeathed to various museums by their estate.
## Early life
William Bryan Jordan Jr. was born on May 8, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee, to Dixie Owen Jordan and William Bryan Jordan. He had three sisters: Ettie Lu Jordan Soard, Frances Jordan Hearn-Rigney, and Sue Jordan Rodarte. They relocated to San Antonio, Texas in 1945, where he attended Alamo Heights High School. Over the summers, he worked at the McNay Art Museum and was mentored by its first director John Palmer Leeper.
Jordan graduated cum laude in 1962 with a bachelor's degree from Washington and Lee University, and completed his master's and doctorate in the history of Spanish art from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University in 1964 and 1967, respectively. Under the supervision of the Spanish art historian José López-Rey [es], Jordan focused on Juan van der Hamen for his doctoral thesis. He spent eleven months evaluating archives in Spain, and discovered new painting records and biographical details of van der Hamen. Jordan compiled an illustrated catalog and a monograph on the painter in his two-volume 1967 dissertation, Juan van der Hamen y León.
## Career
### 1967–1981: Meadows Museum
When Jordan was offered the post of the director of the recently opened Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, the museum was struggling with an art scandal that had damaged its reputation; 44 paintings in the their collection had turned out to have been forgeries, including counterfeits by Elmyr de Hory. Jordan visited the museum with López-Rey, and concluded that he would have to "essentially build [the collection] from scratch". Algur H. Meadows, the museum's founder and benefactor, pledged over US\$1 million (equivalent to US\$ million in ) to rebuild their Spanish art collection, and Jordan accepted the position.
Jordan became the founding director of the Meadows Museum and chair of fine arts at the Meadows School of the Arts in 1967. The museum closed for a few months, and Jordan began evaluating its collection with help from López-Rey and Diego Angulo Íñiguez. Jordan revamped the collection by auctioning off paintings he deemed insignificant for a museum collection and acquiring new works before the museum reopened; the collection included Yard with Lunatics (1794) by Francisco Goya, and works of Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. In a 1968 Art Journal article, Jordan discussed their recent additions and wrote that the museum had begun an acquisitions program to further expand their collection; he followed up with the 1974 collection catalog, The Meadows Museum: A Visitor's Guide to the Collection.
In 1971–72, Jordan organized an exhibition on a collection of works related to Dennis Hopper, and a postwar art exhibition of works by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Wallace Burnett at the University Gallery of Southern Methodist University. He oversaw Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco 1950–65 (1974), an exhibition on international contemporary arts, at the University Gallery and Dallas Museum of Arts. In 1975, Jordan was appointed a full professor at the Meadows School of the Arts, where he taught courses on Spanish art history and connoisseurship.
Jordan was a founding member and general secretary from 1976 to 1978 of the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies. He joined the Dallas Museum of Art as the adjunct curator of European art in 1977, a post he held until 1982. He curated Dallas Collects: Impressionist and Early Modern Masters (1978) for the 75th anniversary of the museum, assembling 115 works from local private collections, and authored its exhibition catalog. In subsequent years, Jordan became a member of the Board of Trustees, and member and chairman of the Committee on Collections of the Dallas Museum of Art.
With Meadows' financial support, Jordan acquired several prominent works at auctions and from art dealers, and significantly expanded the Meadows Museum's collection. The collaboration continued until Meadows' death in a car accident in 1978. Jordan organized 20th Century Sculpture: Mr. and Mrs. Raymond D. Nasher Collection, the first exhibition of Patsy and Raymond Nasher's sculpture collection, at the University Gallery in 1978. He oversaw contemporary art exhibitions Paintings and Drawings by Cy Twombly and Livres d'Artiste by Braque, Matisse, and Picasso from the Collection of the Bridwell Library at the same venue in 1980.
During his tenure, Jordan acquired around 75 artworks, and helped develop the museum's sculpture collection at the "Elizabeth Meadows Sculpture Garden". His acquisitions included works by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Murillo, six paintings by Goya from the 18th and 19th centuries, and 20th-century works of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Juan Gris. Jordan is widely credited for turning the Meadows Museum's collection into one of the most prominent collections of Spanish art outside Spain. He left the museum in 1981, but remained involved in their activities; he donated most of the Spanish paintings in his private collection to the museum by 2016, and was a member of the executive board of the Meadows School of the Arts until 2018.
### 1981–1990: Kimbell Art Museum
In 1981, Jordan became the deputy director and chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. According to Jordan, the museum had not hosted exhibitions of its own artworks before he joined, and they "began an aggressive exhibitions campaign to rebuild and expand the collection." Jordan curated his first major exhibition at the museum with Craig Felton, professor of art at Smith College, Jusepe de Ribera, lo Spagnoletto, 1591–1652 in 1982.
Jordan chaired the scholars' committee that planned and selected works for El Greco of Toledo (1982–83); with 66 paintings gathered from several countries, it contained the most extensive collection of paintings by El Greco. The exhibition was displayed at the Prado Museum, National Gallery of Art, Toledo Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art, and curated by Jonathan Brown, Jordan, Richard L. Kagan and Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez [es]. Jordan also authored descriptive texts for the works in the accompanying catalog.
In 1985, Jordan curated Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650 at the Kimbell Art Museum and Toledo Museum of Art, the first exhibition in the United States to focus on still life paintings. The exhibition and its catalog, which analyzed the early history of still life paintings and artists of the Spanish Golden Age, were noted by Jordan's contemporaries for being one of the earlier scholarly works in the study of the genre. Jordan was on the Art Committee of the Hispanic Society of America in 1986, and was knighted in the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government at the Embassy of Spain, Washington, D.C. for his contributions to Spanish art history on February 18, 1986.
In collaboration with director Edmund Pillsbury, Jordan had helped the museum acquire over 40 paintings of European origin by 1987. He wrote an introductory essay on the museum's collection the same year, published as a part of In Pursuit of Quality: The Kimbell Art Museum: an Illustrated History of the Art and Architecture. Jordan served as an editor of A Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous Still Life in the Netherlands, 1600–1700, authored by Dutch biologist and art historian Sam Segal [nl]. The book focused on Dutch still life paintings, and accompanied an eponymous exhibition at the Museum Het Prinsenhof, Fogg Art Museum and Kimbell Art Museum in 1989.
During his term, Jordan acquired notable Spanish paintings Portrait of Don Pedro de Barberana y Aparregui (1631–33) by Velázquez, Four Figures on a Step (1655–60) by Murillo, Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets (1760) by Luis Egidio Meléndez, and Portrait of Heriberto Casany (1918) by Miró, and wrote descriptive labels for all European works in the museum. Jordan retired in 1990 at age 50, following in his father's footsteps who had retired at 49.
### 1990–2018: Independent work
Jordan worked as a private art dealer to fund himself in retirement, and focused on independent publications and exhibitions. He curated La imitación de la naturaleza: los bodegones de Sánchez Cotán (The Imitation of Nature: The Still Life of Sánchez Cotán) at the Prado Museum in 1992, which included all six then-known bodegónes (still life paintings depicting pantry items) by Juan Sánchez Cotán, and one by Felipe Ramírez. He authored its exhibition catalog discussing life, influence and bodegónes of Cotán, and how Ramírez possibly imitated his work.
Jordan and Peter Cherry, lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, curated Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya (1995) at the National Gallery in London, which became the museum's most attended exhibition of the time. Praised for its comprehensiveness, the catalog described the development of still life genre, paintings and artists during the Spanish Golden Age, its decline, and how works of Meléndez, Goya and the Royal Academy revived interest in the subject.
Southern Methodist University awarded Jordan with a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa on May 20, 1995, "for his contributions to the world of arts and for the enrichment he has brought to the campus and the city of Dallas." In 1997, Jordan authored the catalog of An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, a Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery exhibition in New York City. He evaluated details of the paintings and biographies of the artists featured in the exhibition, and expanded upon his ideas and analysis from Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya. When Raymond Nasher was planning to expand their collection into the Nasher Sculpture Center following Patsy Nasher's death, Jordan became a member of the center's board and founding director of the Nasher Foundation in 2001.
Jordan's Juan van der Hamen y León & the Court of Madrid was published in 2005, summarizing results of his work of over 40 years on van der Hamen. Jordan focused on van der Hamen's role in the court of Philip IV during the 1620s, discussed his place among significant Spanish Baroque painters, and emphasized on his versatility by assessing his portraits and history paintings alongside his acclaimed still life work. He curated an eponymous exhibition — the first monographic exhibition on van der Hamen — at the Patrimonio Nacional in Madrid and Meadows Museum in 2005–06. The work was well received by art historians, with praise for Jordan's depiction of van der Hamen's complete artistic output and impact on the Spanish Golden Age. However, there were reservations about the extent of artistic merit Jordan assigned to van der Hamen's portraits and history paintings.
In 2010, Jordan headed the search committee of the Chinati Foundation — where he had been a past president — to find a new director, leading to the appointment of Thomas Kellein. To promote local collecting, he worked with Olivier Meslay at the Dallas Museum of Art to create an exhibition of modern European paintings in private collections of Dallas. They curated Mind's Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne in 2014 with over 120 works on paper of 70 artists from the 18th to 20th-century. The Prado Museum appointed Jordan as an honorary trustee in 2017.
Jordan died on January 22, 2018, at William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital from complications of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was buried at the Hillcrest Mausoleum and Memorial Park in Dallas. Jordan was compiling a catalogue raisonné of van der Hamen when he died.
## Connoisseurship
Jordan was an expert on Spanish artists and still life paintings, and art from the Golden Age. Recognized for his ability to assess and attribute historically significant paintings, he collaborated with various museums as an acquisition consultant and offered attributions to several paintings throughout his career.
### Acquisitions
Jordan noticed San Sebastián (1506) by Fernando Yáñez at a Madrid gallery in 1976. The painting was not published or attributed to Yáñez at the time, and there were no known records in Spanish art sources to support his attribution. However, Jordan was convinced that it was a Yáñez work, and he made the purchase with Meadows' support. Subsequent research established that the painting was indeed done by Yáñez, and it became one of the more important works in the Meadows Museum.
In 1979, Jordan helped the Dallas Museum of Art acquire Gustave Courbet's Fox in the Snow (1860), a painting that was outside his area of expertise. He was called as an expert by the San Diego Museum of Art during their acquisition of The Adoration of the Shepherds (1572–74) by El Greco and St. Sebastian (1604) by Cotán in 1990. St. Sebastian was then attributed to a "Flemish master", and was first discerned as a Cotán painting by Jordan. The museum purchased the painting after it was vetted and its attribution to Cotán was confirmed by Jordan and other experts.
### Attributions
Still Life with Grapes and Apples (1640) by Juan de Espinosa was reattributed to Juan Fernández el Labrador in Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650. Jordan reasoned that the painting exhibited softer undertones of grapes and apples, similar to the work of Fernández, and in contrast with Espinosa's sharper treatment of the same fruits. He explained the presence of the same components in still lifes of both artists and similarities in their factures by suggesting that Espinosa was likely inspired by Fernández and tried to emulate his works. While the assessment was positively received by American art historian Nina Ayala Mallory, the Prado Museum maintains the painting's original attribution to Espinosa.
Jordan proposed Juan de Zurbarán as the artist of Pears in a China Bowl (c. 1645), which was then attributed to his father Francisco de Zurbarán. He assessed that the painting shared technical and compositional motifs with Juan de Zurbarán's Still Life with Basket of Fruit and Cardoon (1645) and Basket of Apple and Quinces (1643–45), and that his approach was stylistically distinct from the works of his father. Pears in a China Bowl is now recognized as a work of Juan de Zurbarán.
Jordan described The Bodegón Keeper (1610–25) as "one of the persistent problems of attribution", and suggested that the painting could be an early work of Antonio de Pereda in Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650. Jordan was also skeptical of Pereda's authorship of The Knight's Dream (c. 1650), which Pérez Sánchez had reattributed to Francisco de Palacios. Jordan and Cherry affirmed Palacios as its potential artist in Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya. However, they were reluctant to attribute the painting to him, stating that "so little is known of Palacios' style at present that it is not possible to be certain that the painting in the Academia is his." Jordan's assessment of both paintings was met with criticism from his contemporaries. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where The Knight's Dream is located, continues to credit Pereda as its painter, and The Bodegón Keeper remains unattributed.
In Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, Jordan coined the term "Pseudo-Hiepes" to describe a then-unknown artist, and attributed around 40 paintings to them due to similarities in their style to the works of Tomás Hiepes. Against a contemporary opinion that the painter was based in Italy, Jordan argued that Pseudo-Hiepes most likely belonged to Aragon, owing to the antiquated themes of paintings from that region. The assessments were validated when Pewter Dish with Melons, Grapes, Apricots and Plums (1675–1700), a signed painting by Bernardo Polo of Aragon, was discovered in 2009. Jordan assessed the painting to be nearly identical in its facture and composition to the works of Pseudo-Hiepes, which also frequently contained elements unique to Pewter Dish with Melons, Grapes, Apricots and Plums. He concluded that Pseudo-Hiepes was Polo.
In Juan van der Hamen y León & the Court of Madrid, Jordan attributed Plate of Pears and Grapes (1626) to van der Hamen, in spite of the painting having the name "Giovanni Battista Crescenzi" inscribed on its back. He stated that the painting exhibited creative techniques and a motif similar to van der Hamen's Still Life with Fruit and Glassware (1629). While Cherry concurred with that assessment, he expressed doubts over some other attributions, in particular arguing that a portrait of Francisco de Quevedo, which Jordan had attributed to van der Hamen, should maintain its original authorship to Velázquez.
### Private collection
Jordan and his husband Robert Dean Brownlee maintained a visual arts collection at their residence in Turtle Creek, Dallas.
Jordan's most notable acquisition and attribution was of Portrait of Philip III (1623–31) by Velázquez. He purchased the piece for £1,000 at a London auction in 1988, where it was titled Portrait of a Gentleman, painted by a follower of Justus Sustermans. Jordan believed that the painting was a work of Velázquez instead, done in preparation of The Expulsion of the Moriscos (1627); the latter is considered by historians to have been burned in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid fire of 1734.
Jordan found that historical accounts of Philip III in The Expulsion of the Moriscos match the expression and direction of Portrait of Philip III; he added that Philip III looking upwards suggested that it was meant to be a part of another painting with a wider scene. He concluded that the style of Portrait of Philip III was similar to Velázquez's distinctive work from that period. Jordan kept the painting in his private collection, and sent it to the Prado Museum for authentication in 2015. After the museum confirmed its attribution, the painting became valued at around US\$6 million. In 2016, Jordan donated it to a non-profit organization, the American Friends of Prado Museum, which then gave the painting to the museum as a long-term deposit.
The Dallas Museum of Art created a Works on Paper Department and established The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Endowment from donations of Jordan and Brownlee's estate in 2019. They donated over 80 works of art to the museum; 58 of them were works on paper. Their bequest also included oil paintings and furniture from the 19th and 20th-century, and antiquities such as silver works, ceramics and sculptures. The museum organized an exhibition — Point, Line, Plane: The William B. Jordan and Robert Dean Brownlee Bequest — with around 50 of those works in 2021–22.
The National Gallery of Art received a bequest from Jordan and Brownlee containing works of Alberto Giacometti, Cy Twombly, Edgar Degas, Ellsworth Kelly, Eugène Delacroix, François-Marius Granet, František Kupka, Jacques-Louis David, John Cage, Odilon Redon, Pierre Bonnard, and Picasso in 2019. The bequest included a sketch, print, four medals, and 20 drawings. In 2020, Nasher Sculpture Center received sculptures by Claes Oldenburg, David McManaway, John Chamberlain, and Miró as a part of a bequest from Jordan and Brownlee. It included My Father's Watch (For Bill Jordan) by McManaway, who had made the sculpture using Jordan's father's watch in 1973.
## Honors
- Spain: Knight of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1986)
- Southern Methodist University: Doctor of Humane Letters (1995)
- Prado Museum: Honorary Trustee (2017) |
34,155,331 | Schoolin' Life | 1,172,711,024 | null | [
"2011 songs",
"Beyoncé songs",
"Song recordings produced by Beyoncé",
"Song recordings produced by Shea Taylor",
"Songs written by Beyoncé",
"Songs written by Carlos McKinney",
"Songs written by Shea Taylor",
"Songs written by The-Dream"
]
| "Schoolin' Life" is a song recorded by American recording artist Beyoncé for the deluxe edition of her fourth studio album, 4 (2011). It was written by Knowles, Terius Nash, Shea Taylor as well as Carlos McKinney while production was handled by Knowles, The-Dream, and Los Da Mystro. Jordan Young, also known by his stage name DJ Swivel, mixed the song at New York's Jungle City Studios. Containing elements of disco and dance-pop music, "Schoolin' Life" is an uptempo R&B song, in which Knowles employs guttural vocals and uses her head voice. Having a retro nature, the song is built on a 1980s-inspired dance beat, and is instrumentally complete with old school synthesizers, drum kits, electric guitars, and horns.
Lyrically, the song features Knowles schooling everyone from their 20s to their 50s. She gets feisty as she reflects on lessons she learned in her own life and affirms that she hasn't certified as a teacher, a preacher or a doctor, but is willing to perform their various duties regardless. "Schoolin' Life" was well received by contemporary music critics, who noted its aural resemblance to Prince's prime work, praised its production, and coined it as one of the catchiest upbeat songs Knowles has ever recorded. It appeared on several critics' lists of the best songs of 2011. Following the release of 4, "Schoolin' Life" charted at number 155 on the South Korean International Singles Chart. The song was used in the eighth season of the American television reality program and dance competition So You Think You Can Dance. It was part of Knowles' set list during her residency show Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live.
## Production and mixing
"Schoolin' Life" was written by Beyoncé Knowles, Terius Nash, Shea Taylor, and Carlos McKinney. Production was handled by Knowles, The-Dream, and Los Da Mystro. It was made available on the deluxe edition of 4, which was sold exclusively at Target until that edition was released to iTunes Stores on January 2, 2012. The deluxe edition consists of an additional two deluxe only tracks, "Dance for You" and "Lay Up Under Me" and three remixes of "Run the World (Girls)" (2011). Jordan Young aka DJ Swivel mixed the song at New York's Jungle City Studios. Describing "Schoolin' Life" as his favorite track on the album, Swivel told Sound on Sound that he was adamant about mixing the song:
> I spent a lot of time after [Knowles] left the studio tightening up the rough. In fact, I'm sure she let me mix it just because I loved the track so much! I mixed this in the fantastic penthouse room in Jungle City. This record was, of course, about the vocals — but a lot of it was about the production elements too. Everything had to be audible; there's some interesting percussion, and the hook had to feel nice and big.
Around 100 tracks were used on "Schoolin' Life"; they were roughly split with 50 for the music and 50 for the vocals. As stated by Swivel, musically the aim of the mix was to take a large number of tracks and create a perfect balance. So, he used Waves’ Metaflanger on the percussion and some of the snares, and spent some time EQ’ing. Swivel explained that there was much parallel processing on the lead vocal. The lead-vocal bus was muted to a second bus, and one of them was entirely crushed on a 50:1 compression ratio which was totally limited and with a very low threshold. He elaborated, "It creates a very gritty distorted sound in there, really low to taste, and it fills in the lead vocal very nicely. The crushed vocal runs quietly underneath."
After completing the lead vocals, Swivel decided to rework the 1980s sound on the snares as they were originally very tight. He therefore added a gated reverb for the snap sound which was long and drawn‐out snap sound. He also subbed in an additional kick underneath to add some real oomph to the bottom. Owing to the work Swivel had accomplished during production, the final mix took only a few hours. He said: "There were a lot of tracks, but I just enjoyed it, to be honest. I knew how I wanted it to sound, and it was pretty much the last song we cut; a lot of the mixing was nailed in the production as well, which helped. Dream did a great job producing this track." The bar one guitar track of "Schoolin' Life" was entirely programmed. Similarly, the live drum section in the hook was actually done with programmed drums. Once the mixing was over, Swivel's impression were as follows:
> ['Schoolin' Life] absolutely had to have its own space. There are percussion elements and a few random sounds in there too, plus the nice guitar track, but certainly the main challenge was for all of these tracks to be well balanced and individually audible. It really is very easy to overlook something like that, which can potentially completely change the sound of a record.
## Composition and lyrical interpretation
"Schoolin' Life" is an uptempo R&B, which contains elements of disco and dance-pop. Built on a 1980s-inspired beat, the song's instrumentation includes old school synthesizers, 1980s-sounding drum kits wailing electric guitars, and horns. Music critics, including Jamie Peck of MTV noted that "Schoolin' Life" was inspired by the prime work of Prince, particularly because of its lyrical content, the instruments used, and Knowles' style of singing on it. Lyrically, the song finds Knowles detailing her experiences as she was growing up. In the first verse, she employs guttural vocals to address many life lessons to "20-somethings", "30-somethings", "40-somethings", and "50-somethings". Knowles warns them against some consequences, affirming "time really moves fast" and that growing up fast will leave them wanting more. Knowles also talks about still excelling in a world where parents try to shield everything, "Mom and dad tried to hide the world / Said the world's just too big for a little girl / Eyes wide open can't you see / I had my first heels by the age of 13".
In the chorus, Knowles gives listeners a flashback to her friskier days and admits that she is certified neither as a teacher, a preacher nor a doctor, but is willing to perform their various duties regardless. She also sings, "I'm great at writing physical love letters", and "I'm a freak, all day all night". After asking, "Who needs a degree when you're schoolin' life?", Knowles echoes, "Oh oh oh oh oh oh woah oh oh". In the second verse, she continues to sing about the ins and outs of life to the "pretty somethings", "sexy somethings", "bitter somethings", and "little somethings": "Living in a fastlane, see you when you crash babe", "That body ain’t always gonna get you out of everything", and "Stop living in regret, it’s not over yet". In the bridge, she commands, "Make your life what you decide / Baby, party till the fire marshal shuts this sucker down". The song ends with Knowles giving one her final lessons, "Don’t stop running until it’s finished — it’s up to you, the rest is unwritten".
## Critical reception
"Schoolin' Life" received positive reviews. Jamie Peck of MTV described "Schoolin' Life" as "[a] feisty lesson in fun... It's the perfect soundtrack for dancing on a fire escape or... playing in a busted open fire hydrant... Whatever, it's hot!". He concluded that Prince would be proud of the song's musical style and lyrical content. John Mitchell of the same publication found the song to be single-worthy. Choosing "Schoolin' Life" as one of the three best tracks on 4, Tyrone S. Reid of Blogcritics commented that the song offers a proper lesson in how "to make the old and new schools boogie together". He also noted that it is reminiscent of Prince's work. Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork Media viewed the song as an irresistible Prince tribute, which he considered to be much more motivational than "I Was Here". He called "Schoolin' Life" as one "among the proper album's finest moments". Daniel Koren of PMA noted that the song recalls some of The-Dream's most Prince-esque tracks, "Fast Car" and "Yamaha". Ian Walker of AbsolutePunk wrote:
> 'I Miss You' and bonus track 'Schoolin' Life' both showcase opposite sides of that magnificent decade's musical spectrum. The former is a stripped down track carried mostly by a hollow beat and dismal synthesizers, allowing Knowles and her morosely beautiful voice center stage ... The latter picks up the pace, peppered liberally with old-school horns and crashes. Knowles details her experiences growing up, but parallels can be drawn to the maturation she's going through on this very album. More than any song, 'Schoolin' Life' literally oozes confidence, providing an endearing edge to an already catchy track.
Becky Bain of Idolator wrote that "Schoolin' Life" is one of the catchier upbeat songs Knowles has ever recorded and felt that it deserves to be a future single. Casey Hamilton of the Boston website Gather wrote that credit for the song's "retro-radical nature" goes to producer The-Dream, but it is Knowles herself who "truly delivers the shock value, managing to make a lightly introspective, loosely insightful, and largely entertaining tune", before adding that it contains the sexiest lyrical content she has ever attempted. Hamilton concluded that Knowles' vocals effectively match the funky and fun vibe of "Schoolin' Life", and concluded that the latter showcases "a side of the singer that is nice to see and even nicer to hear". Duncan Cooper of The Fader magazine wrote that the song is "lyrically inspired, tough as hell and easily the best thing" on 4. Danielle Cheesman of MSN Music commented that "'Schoolin' Life' steals the whole entire spotlight", further noting that it channels the "trademark friskiness" of Prince. He commended how Knowles "unleashes her inner (and innate) freak singing". Cheesman concluded "how this isn't on the original is beyond me", before adding that there "maybe one extra single [on the deluxe edition of 4]".
### Recognition
The Guardian's critic Tom Ewing ranked "Schoolin' Life" at number nine on his list of The 10 Best Tracks of 2011. Priya Elan of NME placed the song at number five on her list of the 10 Best Pop Songs Of The Year, writing that it is the "most excellent, time-defying look at Beyonce's life so far". He added that if viewed from a stylistic perspective, "Schoolin' Life" may not have fit with 4 mature tone, but as a stand-alone track "it was one of the most fun of the year". The staff members of the website Popdust ranked "Schoolin' Life" as the 87th best song of 2011, commending Knowles for having pastiched it together "from decades-musty synths and rip-roar over it until it sounds completely current with a wink and a smirk."
## Live performances
In May 2012, Knowles performed "Schoolin Life" during her revue show Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live in Revel Atlantic City. The performance of the song was placed on the album Live in Atlantic City (2013) chronicling the concerts. It was previewed on Knowles' official YouTube page on November 25, 2013. A writer of Vibe magazine felt that the laser light show from the performance "brighten[ed] up Atlantic City". E! News' Natalie Finn praised Knowles for "tearing it up" onstage during the performance of the song with her backup dancers adding that her fans "are in for quite the education".
## Chart performance
For the week ending July 30, 2011, "Schoolin' Life" debuted at number 155 on the South Korean International Singles Chart, selling 4,006 digital downloads. |
1,060,482 | The Firebird | 1,170,506,913 | 1910 ballet by Igor Stravinsky | [
"1910 ballet premieres",
"1910 compositions",
"Ballets Russes productions",
"Ballets by George Balanchine",
"Ballets by Igor Stravinsky",
"Ballets by Jerome Robbins",
"Ballets by Michel Fokine",
"Ballets designed by Barbara Karinska",
"Ballets designed by Léon Bakst",
"Ballets designed by Marc Chagall",
"Compositions that use extended techniques",
"Music based on European myths and legends",
"New York City Ballet repertory",
"Orchestral suites",
"Stefan Zweig Collection",
"Works about legendary creatures"
]
| The Firebird (French: L'Oiseau de feu; Russian: Жар-птица, romanized: Zhar-ptitsa) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. The Firebird was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame, and leading to future Diaghilev-Stravinsky collaborations like Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).
The ballet opens in Koschei's garden with Prince Ivan chasing the Firebird, whom he captures and takes a feather from. Thirteen princesses enter the garden (all of whom are trapped by the evil Koschei), and Ivan falls in love with one; they perform a short dance. When the princesses are called back into Koschei's palace, Ivan tries to follow, but is stopped by Koschei at the gates. Before the evil king turns Ivan to stone, the prince summons the Firebird with the feather, and she makes Koschei and his subjects do an "Infernal Dance". After they fall asleep from exhaustion, Ivan steals the egg that holds Koschei's soul and destroys it, killing Koschei and freeing the king's subjects. The ballet ends with grand rejoicing among the freed subjects.
In the music, Stravinsky used a system of leitmotifs placed in the harmony he dubbed "leit-harmony" to distinguish mortal and supernatural beings. The composer made a point to use many unique effects in the orchestra, including with ponticello, col legno, flautando, glissando, and fluttertongue. Stravinsky later composed three concert suites: one in 1911, ending with the "Infernal Dance"; one in 1919, which remains the most popular today; and one in 1945, in which Stravinsky reorchestrated much of the work and changed the structure.
## History
### Background
Igor Stravinsky was the son of Fyodor Stravinsky, an operatic bass at the Imperial Opera in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Igor Stravinsky began learning piano at nine, and was later taught in harmony and counterpoint. He displayed great interest in music, attending his father's opera rehearsals during his teenage years and often reading through his father's scores. Despite his musical skill, Stravinsky's parents disapproved of a musical career, and in 1901, Stravinsky began studying law at Saint Petersburg University. He continued to take music lessons privately, and in 1902, began studying under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Under Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky completed several major works, including his first performed work, Pastorale (1907), and his first published work, the Symphony in E-flat (1907), which the composer categorized Opus 1.
In February 1909, a performance of Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice in Saint Petersburg was attended by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was intrigued by the vividness of Stravinsky's works. Diaghilev had founded the art magazine Mir iskusstva in 1898, but after it ended publication in 1904, he turned towards Paris for artistic opportunities rather than his native Russia. In 1907, the impresario presented a five-concert series of Russian music at the Paris Opera, and the next year, he staged the Paris premiere of Rimsky-Korsakov's version of Boris Godunov. By 1909, Diaghilev had connected with Michel Fokine, Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, and gained enough money to start his independent ballet company, the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to orchestrate music by Chopin for the ballet Les Sylphides, and the composer was finished by March 1909.
### Creation
As the Ballets Russes faced financial issues, Diaghilev wanted a new ballet with distinctly Russian music and design, something the French and otherwise Western audience had recently come to love. Benois recalled that Pyotr Petrovich Potyomkin, a poet and ballet enthusiast in Diaghilev's circle, brought forth the subject of the Firebird with the 1844 poem "A Winter's Journey" by Yakov Polonsky, which includes the lines:
> > And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back Riding along a forest path To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar In that land where a princess sits under lock and key, Pining behind massive walls. There gardens surround a palace all of glass; There Firebirds sing by night And peck at golden fruit.
Benois collaborated with Fokine, the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin, and the painter Aleksandr Golovin, among others, to concoct the full premise, drawing from several books of Russian fairy tales, including Alexander Afanasyev's collection and Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov's The Little Humpbacked Horse. Koschei, the immortal king, and the captive Princess were incorporated from a Muscovite anthology, which also helped determine the Firebird's role in the story. Originally, Tcherepnin was to compose the music, as he had previously worked on Le Pavillon d'Armide with Fokine and Benois, but he withdrew from the project soon after. In September 1909, Diaghilev asked Anatoly Lyadov to compose the ballet, and while Lyadov expressed interest in the production, it became clear he would not be finished by the 1910 season. After considering Alexander Glazunov and Nikolay Sokolov for the role, Diaghilev asked Stravinsky to compose the score upon encouragement from Tcherepnin and Boris Asafyev.
Stravinsky began work in October or November of 1909, traveling to the Rimsky-Korsakov household with Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov, the son of Stravinsky's teacher, and to whom Stravinsky dedicated the score. Because Stravinsky began work before Diaghilev officially commissioned him, the composer's sketches did not align with the scenario; this became known to him when he met with Fokine in December and received the ballet's planned structure. While the composer worked, Diaghilev arranged for a number of private performances of the piano score for the press. The French critic Robert Brussel, a friend of Diaghilev's, wrote: "By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencillings, revealed a masterpiece."
Rehearsals began in Ekaterininsky Hall, and Stravinsky attended every rehearsal to help with the music, often explaining the complicated rhythms to the dancers. Despite later lamenting about the "descriptive music of a kind I did not want to write," Stravinsky finished the work in nearly six months, and had it fully orchestrated by April; the orchestration was finished mid-May. Stravinsky arrived in Paris around the beginning of June for the premiere of The Firebird. It was his first visit to the city and the premiere of his first stage work.
The Ballets Russes season began on 4 June 1910 with stagings of Schumann's Carnaval, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, and short productions from the previous season. Upon arrival, Stravinsky attended the final rehearsals. Tamara Karsavina, who played the titular Firebird, later recalled, "Often he came early to the theatre before a rehearsal began in order to play for me over and over again some particularly difficult passage." In addition, Stravinsky worked closely with the conductor for the premiere Gabriel Pierné and the orchestra to "explain the music ... [but the musicians] found it no less bewildering than did the dancers." Two dress rehearsals were held to accommodate the dancers, many of whom missed their entrances due to the unexpected changes in the music, "which sounded quite different when played by the orchestra from what it had sounded like when played on a piano."
### Premiere and reception
Excitement for the premiere was great, particularly in Diaghilev's circle of Mir iskusstva collaborators. The sculptor Dmitri Stelletsky [fr], who helped develop the scenario, wrote to Golovin on 16 June, "I'm staying till Sunday; I must see The Firebird. I have seen your dazzling drawings and costumes. I like Stravinsky's music in the orchestra and the dances tremendously. I think the whole thing together with your sets will look spectacular. Serov has also put off his departure because of this ballet." Diaghilev remarked about Stravinsky during rehearsals, "Mark him well, he is a man on the eve of celebrity."
The Firebird premiered at the Palais Garnier on 25 June 1910, and was very well-received. Karsavina later told an interviewer, "With every performance, success went crescendo." Critics praised the ballet for the unity of the decor, choreography, and music. "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of the shimmering web of the orchestra," wrote Henri Ghéon in Nouvelle revue française, who called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician."
Many critics praised Stravinsky's alignment with Russian nationalist music, with one saying, "[Stravinsky is] the only one who has achieved more than mere attempts to promote Russia's true musical spirit and style." Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi hailed the young composer as the legitimate heir to The Mighty Handful. The ballet’s success also secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel, leading to the composition of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. However, Russian audiences held less favorable views towards the work; the Russian premiere was not well-received by much of the audience, according to a reviewer in Apollon; "Many deserted the Hall of Nobles during the performance of this suite." A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound... [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them." Nikolai Myaskovsky reviewed the piano reduction of the full ballet in October 1911 and wrote, "What a wealth of invention, how much intelligence, temperament, talent, what a remarkable, what a rare piece of work this is."
After the premiere and subsequent performances, Stravinsky claimed to have met numerous figures in the Paris art scene, including Marcel Proust, Sarah Bernhardt, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Ravel, André Gide, and Princesse Edmond de Polignac. Claude Debussy was brought on stage after the premiere, and he invited Stravinsky to dinner, beginning a friendship that Stravinsky wrote "lasted until the end of his life." Sergei Bertensson recalled Sergei Rachmaninoff saying of the music: "Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia!" Debussy later said regarding Stravinsky's score, "What do you expect? One has to start somewhere." Richard Strauss told the composer in private conversation that he had made a "mistake" in beginning the piece pianissimo instead of astonishing the public with a "sudden crash." Shortly thereafter he summed up to the press his experience of hearing The Firebird for the first time by saying, "it's always interesting to hear one's imitators." Sergei Prokofiev, who first heard the piano reduction at a gathering, told Stravinsky, "there was no music in [the ballet’s introduction] and if there was any, it was from Sadko."
In his 1962 autobiography, Stravinsky accredited much of the production's success to Golovin's set and Diaghilev's collaborators; he wrote that Fokine's choreography "always seemed to me to be complicated and overburdened with plastic detail, so that the artists felt, and still feel now, great difficulty in co-ordinating their steps and gestures with the music..."
### Subsequent productions
After the success of the premiere, Diaghilev announced another run of performances, which Stravinsky took his family to from their home in Ustilug. Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov quickly traveled to Paris to see the ballet, and he later praised the production in a letter to his mother. Following the initial run, Alexander Siloti conducted the Russian premiere on 23 October 1910, performing an early draft of the 1911 suite. This performance was not well-received by much of the audience, according to a reviewer in Apollon; "Many deserted the Hall of Nobles during the performance of this suite." A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound... [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them."
The debut London season of the Ballets Russes took place in 1912 at the Royal Opera House. The third ballet on the program was The Firebird, and it was well-received by the audience. The writer Osbert Sitwell wrote, "Never until that evening had I heard Stravinsky's name; but as the ballet developed, it was impossible to mistake the genius of the composer, or of the artist who had designed the setting..." The Ballets Russes revived the production in 1926 with new setting and costumes by Natalia Goncharova, using Fokine's original choreography. The revival was presented at the Lyceum Theatre in London. In 1916, the first productions of The Firebird and Petrushka in the Iberian peninsula took place; the Ballets Russes returned in 1921 for short season in Madrid.
Multiple companies presented their own choreographies and designs of The Firebird from 1927 to 1933, including the Berlin Staatsoper, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, and the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. In 1935 and 1940, Wassily de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo revived the Ballets Russes production with Fokine's choreography and Goncharova's designs. The New York City Ballet staged The Firebird in 1949, with Maria Tallchief as the Firebird, choreography by George Balanchine, and scenery and costumes by Marc Chagall. The company restaged it in 1970 for the David H. Koch Theater, with new costumes by Karinska based on Chagall's designs. Jerome Robbins collaborated with Balanchine to choreograph the restaging.
## Music
### General character
Critics praised the music of The Firebird's emotional character; Cyril W. Beaumont wrote, "[The Firebird] is a supreme example of how music, although having no meaning in itself, can, particularly with a programme hint of its intention, evoke a mood appropriate to the ballet concerned." Robert Craft described the music "as literal as opera," referring to the "mimetic specificity" with which the music follows the story, a trait Stravinsky later disliked and apologized for. The composer wrote that The Firebird became a centerpiece in his career; his conducting debut was a ballet performance of The Firebird in 1915, and he performed it "nearly a thousand times" more.
Throughout the score, Stravinsky used a system of leitmotifs placed in the harmony he later dubbed "leit-harmony". The idea of leit-harmony was likely introduced to the composer from Rimsky-Korsakov's operas The Golden Cockerel (1907) and Kashchey the Deathless (1902). In these works, mortal elements were associated with the diatonic scales while supernatural elements were associated with the chromatic scale. For example, Stravinsky describes Koschei's leit-harmony as consisting of "Magic Thirds"; the harmony begins with a major or minor third, and the lower voice ascends a tritone while the higher voice descends a half step. The title character's leit-harmony uses a chromatic descent of the first four notes of the introduction, then reversing those notes, giving the music an "iridescent sheen", as Eric Walter White described.
In addition, Stravinsky wrote that The Firebird may be the first appearance of "metrical irregularity" in his music. The passage is marked , with barlines dividing measures into sets of one and two. White wrote that the composer's earlier works made use of consistent musical pulses, "which was to be disturbed as little as possible by tempo rubato..." Stravinsky remarked that he composed The Firebird in "revolt against Rimsky," and that he "tried to surpass him with ponticello, col legno, flautando, glissando, and fluttertongue effects."
A performance of the full ballet lasts about 45 minutes.
### Instrumentation
The work is scored for a large orchestra with the following instrumentation:
- Woodwinds
- 2 piccolos (2nd doubles 3rd flute)
- 2 flutes
- 3 oboes
- English horn
- 3 clarinets in A (3rd doubles clarinet in D)
- bass clarinet in B
- 3 bassoons (3rd doubles 2nd contrabassoon)
- contrabassoon
- Brass
- 4 horns in F
- 3 trumpets in A
- 3 trombones
- tuba
- 3 onstage trumpets
- 2 onstage tenor Wagner tubas
- 2 onstage bass Wagner tubas
- Percussion
- bass drum
- cymbals
- triangle
- tambourine
- tamtam
- glockenspiel
- xylophone
- piano
- celesta
- 3 harps
- timpani
- Strings
- first violins
- second violins
- violas
- cellos
- double basses
Stravinsky described the orchestra as "wastefully large", but White opined that the orchestration allowed him to use a variety of effects, including horn and trombone glissandi borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of Mlada (1872).
### Structure
### Music and plot
The Firebird opens with a slow introduction into Koschei's enchanted garden, underlined by the low strings presenting the basis of the Firebird's leit-harmony. In the garden are Koschei's enemies petrified into statues. Crescendo and descrescendo phrases in the strings and woodwinds indicate the entrance of the Firebird, being pursued by Prince Ivan. The Firebird's capture by Ivan is depicted with sforzando chords in the horns, and exotic melodies in the oboe, English horn, and viola play as she begs to be released. After the Firebird is freed, Ivan takes one of her feathers, and thirteen enchanted princesses (all captives of Koschei) enter the garden to play a catching game. Ivan introduces himself to the youngest princess, with whom he has fallen in love, and they perform a slow khorovod. The melody for the khorovod is taken from a Russian folk song that Rimsky-Korsakov used in his Sinfonietta on Russian Themes. Offstage trumpets call the princesses back into the palace, but when Ivan pursues her, bells ring out and Koschei appears in front of the gates, signaled by roars in the timpani and bass drum.
Before Koschei turns Ivan into stone, the prince summons the Firebird with the feather, and she enchants Koschei and his subjects and begins the famous "Infernal Dance". Another Rimsky-Korsakov reference, the melody is borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov's parts of Mlada, adding synopation and startling strikes throughout the theme. As the dance winds down, Koschei and his subjects fall asleep from exhaustion. The bassoon introduces the Firebird's tranquil lullaby. Ivan is instructed to destroy the egg that holds Koschei's soul. The music jostles around as Ivan tosses the egg from hand to hand.
When Ivan crushes the egg, Koschei dies and his subjects and enemies are freed from their enchantments. The finale opens with a solo horn announcing the break of dawn, another theme borrowed from Rimsky-Korsakov. The theme grows in the orchestra, building into a triumphant celebration among the freed subjects.
## Suites
Shortly after the completion of The Firebird, Stravinsky wrote a piano solo reduction of the whole ballet. The composer later arranged three suites for concert performance, dated 1911, 1919, and 1945.
### 1911 suite
1. Introduction – Koschei's Enchanted Garden – Dance of the Firebird
2. Supplication of the Firebird
3. The Princesses' Game with Apples
4. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)
5. Infernal Dance of all Kashchei's Subjects
The first suite, titled "suite tirée du conte dansé 'L'oiseau de feu'", was composed in 1911 published by P. Jurgenson the following year. The instrumentation is essentially the same as that of the ballet. The score was printed from the same plates, with only the new endings for the movements being newly engraved. A performance of the 1911 suite lasts about 21 minutes.
### 1919 suite
1. Introduction – The Firebird and its dance – The Firebird's variation
2. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)
3. Infernal dance of King Kashchei
4. Berceuse (Lullaby)
5. Finale
This suite was composed in Morges, Switzerland for a smaller orchestra. Walsh alleged the suite was composed to re-copyright the work, as Stravinsky sold the new suite to his publisher J. & W. Chester, despite the original ballet still being in copyright. The score contained many errors; Stravinsky wrote in 1952 that "the parts of the 1919 version were ... full of mistakes ..." Regardless, the 1919 suite remains the most popular today. A performance of the 1919 suite lasts about 26 minutes.
### 1945 suite
1. Introduction – Prelude and Dance of the Firebird – Variations (Firebird)
2. Pantomime I
3. Pas de deux: Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich
4. Pantomime II
5. Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses
6. Pantomime III
7. Rondo (Khorovod)
8. Infernal Dance
9. Lullaby (Firebird)
10. Final Hymn
In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky was contacted by Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets in order to recopyright them in the United States. The composer agreed and proceeded to fashion a new suite based on the 1919 version, adding to it and reorchestrating several minutes of the pantomimes from the original score. The only instrumentation change was the addition of a snare drum. A performance of the 1945 suite lasts about 28 minutes.
## Recordings
Stravinsky received multiple commissions to transcribe his works for player pianos, some from the London Aeolian Company and some from the Paris Pleyel Company. In 1928, the Aeolian Company published an "Audiographic" piano roll of The Firebird, which contained both the piano reduction and comments on the work by Stravinsky. The composer identified many of the leit-harmonies in the opening comments of the roll, proving it an invaluable resource for information on the ballet.
The first orchestral recording of The Firebird was released by Columbia Records with Stravinsky conducting L'Orchestre des Concerts Straram in 1928. The 78 RPM record consisted of the 1911 suite with the Lullaby and Finale from the 1919 suite, as well as a recording of The Rite of Spring. James H. North writing in Fanfare was impressed by the quality of the recording, but disappointed by the "rough and awkward" playing and poor sound of the strings. In 1933, Stravinsky and the violinist Samuel Dushkin recorded a reduction of the "Scherzo" and "Lullaby" for His Master's Voice. The first recording of the 1945 suite was recorded in 1946 by the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York, and the first recording of the full ballet was recorded by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in 1961. As of 2023, there were over 150 commercially available recordings of various parts of The Firebird. |
799,382 | River Torrens | 1,170,099,330 | River in Australia | [
"Adelaide Plains",
"Physiographic sections",
"Rivers of Adelaide"
]
| The River Torrens /ˈtɒrənz/, (Karrawirra Parri / Karrawirraparri) is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows 85 kilometres (53 mi) from its source in the Adelaide Hills near Mount Pleasant, across the Adelaide Plains, past the city centre and empties into Gulf St Vincent between Henley Beach South and West Beach. The upper stretches of the river and the reservoirs in its watershed supply a significant part of the city's water supply.
The river is also known by the native Kaurna name for the river—Karrawirra Parri or Karrawirraparri (karra meaning redgum, wirra meaning forest and parri meaning river), having been officially dual-named in 2001. Another Kaurna name for the river was Tarndaparri (Kangaroo river). The river was thought to be a reflection of the Milky Way ("wodliparri"), and was the heartland of the Kaurna people, who lived along its length and around the tributary creeks.
At its 1836 exploration by William Light, an inland bend was chosen as the site of the Adelaide city centre and North Adelaide. The river was first named the Yatala by the initial exploration party, but later renamed to honour Robert Torrens senior, chairman of the board of Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia from 1834 to 1841 (when he was sacked). From March 1837 settlers camped in tents and makeshift huts along the west end of the River Torrens and freely used the river's resources. A Native Location was created on the north banks of the Torrens and indigenous labour was often used by the settlers for tasks such as hewing wood or delivering water. During the early years of settlement, the river acted as both the city's primary water source and main sewer, leading to outbreaks of typhoid.
Since European settlement the river has been a frequently touted tourist attraction. The river's long linear parks and a constructed lake in the lower stretch are iconic of the city. The river's flora and fauna have been both deliberately and accidentally impacted since settlement. In the 19th century, native forests were cleared, gravel removed for construction and many foreign species introduced. With construction of the linear parks, many species native to the river have been replanted, and introduced species have been controlled as weeds.
The river and its tributaries are highly variable in flow, and together drain an area of 508 square kilometres (196 sq mi). They range from sometimes raging torrents, damaging bridges and flooding city areas, to trickles and completely dry in summer. Winter and spring flooding has prompted the construction of flood reduction works. A constructed sea outlet, landscaped linear parks and three holding reservoirs contain peak flow.
## Physiography
The River Torrens runs largely westward from the Adelaide Hills, through the centre of Adelaide to the Gulf St Vincent. It originates close to the eastern fault scarp of the Mount Lofty Ranges, near Mount Pleasant, approximately 480 metres (1,575 ft) above sea level. It runs predominantly along faulted north-south ground structures, which were formed over 250 million years ago during the Paleozoic era then further dislocated during the Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary. There is a 400-metre (1,300 ft) subsidence along the Para Fault which also affects the rivers flow. This subsidence was formed in the last two million years, after the Pliocene era.
From its origin to Birdwood the river follows rolling, relatively level country before entering a hilly section that continues to Gumeracha. The river then follows sedimentary rock strata before entering a gorge after Cudlee Creek. It flows through the gorge to Athelstone, passing over the Eden Fault Zone of the Adelaide Hills face and associated escarpment. After the scarp it flows over sedimentary rocks of varying resistance to erosion, which has led to interspersed narrows and broad basins. From the base of the Adelaide Hills to the Adelaide central business district it runs in a shallow valley with a terraced floor, then down the slope of its own alluvial fan. The structure of this fan shows that the river formerly entered Gulf St Vincent via the Port River. Over time the Torrens deposited sediment, choking its own outflow; becoming locked behind coastal sand dunes and forming the swampy areas of the Cowandilla Plains and The Reedbeds.
### Tributaries
The Torrens is fed by numerous seasonal creeks, which are dry for most of the year in their lower reaches, but prone to occasional flooding during the winter and spring. There are five main creeks that join it from the southern side as it crosses the Adelaide Plains east of Adelaide, and at least five more in its path through the Adelaide Hills.
The plains tributaries, known as First to Fifth Creeks, lie to the east of the city, with First being the most southerly and the rest numbered consecutively northward. They were once named Greenhill, Hallett, Todd, Anstey and Ormsby rivulets respectively, and had Kaurna names before European settlement.
First, Second and Third Creeks have been particularly heavily modified. Some sections have been converted to concrete channels; others run through landscaped private gardens and some run in underground pipes. Much of the original vegetation has disappeared from the creeks, particularly those closest to the city. Introduced species including olives, bamboo, boxthorn, watsonia and blackberries have displaced native flora. There is some risk of flooding from all of these eastern suburbs creeks, as shown by the Floodplain Study, which includes plans and maps drawn up by the City of Burnside and neighbouring councils.
First Creek begins in Cleland Wildlife Park on the western side of Mount Lofty and Crafers, flows north-west through the south-eastern suburbs, past a drop at the Waterfall Gully falls, through Hazelwood and Tusmore Parks, and Marryatville High School, before discharging into the Torrens near Adelaide Zoo. Much of its course through the suburbs has been canalised, some underground. About 7.5% of its flow is diverted as it flows through the Adelaide Botanic Garden to create the First Creek Wetland, a scheme set up to ensure water security and to encourage diversity of flora and fauna in the area, thus helping to maintain healthy urban environments. Botanic Creek runs through the eastern Adelaide parklands from south to north, into the Adelaide Botanic Garden before joining First Creek.
Second Creek arises in the Summertown area of the Adelaide Hills, north of First Creek, and flows through Greenhill, through Slape Gully, entering the more populated suburbs as it flows through the Michael Perry Reserve in Stonyfell and onwards through the eastern suburbs of Erindale, Marryatville, Kensington (open at Borthwick Park) and Norwood, much of it canalised underground as far as St Peters. The St Peters section is an open canal shortly before it joins the Torrens. It was once called Hallet's Rivulet. Stonyfell Creek, arising on the eastern boundary of Stonyfell, flows through Kensington Gardens, including an open stretch in the Reserve before again being piped underground under West Terrace, passing under Kensington Park and Beulah Park. It joins Second Creek near the junction of Magill and Portrush Roads.
First and Second Creeks come within about 46 metres (50 yd) of each other in Marryatville, with formerly only flat land between them.
Third Creek arises near Norton Summit and flows through the suburbs of Magill, Tranmere, Trinity Gardens and Payneham, much of the way underground, before discharging into the Torrens at Felixstow.
Fourth Creek, or Morialta Creek, arises on the other side of Norton Summit, with various tributaries flowing into it from Marble Hill and Lobethal. It is most well known for its falls in Morialta Conservation Park. "Moriatta", a Kaurna word meaning "ever flowing", is now the official name of Fourth Creek. This name has been adapted to Morialta, which is now the name of an electoral district, school and the park through which the creek flows.
Fifth Creek arises within the Morialta Conservation Park, runs alongside Montacute Road for some way and discharges into the Torrens at Athelstone.
The largest catchment of the Torrens is Sixth Creek in the Adelaide Hills, which joins the Torrens at Castambul on Gorge Road.
### Water flow
At the time of European settlement the river was a summertime chain of waterholes bounded by large gum trees. Flowing through the area where the city of Adelaide is sited the river was sometimes invisible beneath its gravel stream bed. It frequently flooded in winter and did not reach the sea, instead ending at coastal dunes where its waters created a vast but shallow freshwater wetlands. These wetlands, known as The Reedbeds after the dominant vegetation, occupied a large area of the western Adelaide Plains and were also fed by other waterways.
The river only flowed to the sea through the Port River, Barker Inlet, and Patawalonga River following heavy rain.
The river's catchment area of approximately 500 km<sup>2</sup> (193 sq mi) is the largest of any waterway within the Adelaide region. The upper reaches are used to create a potable water supply for metropolitan Adelaide with the river supplying three of Adelaide's eight reservoirs. The upper catchment has an average annual rainfall of between 575 millimetres (22.6 in) at its eastern end to 1,025 millimetres (40.4 in) near Uraidla. The Torrens has a very variable flow leaving early settlers to use trial and error in determining bridge heights, with many bridges consequently being washed away. Due to the variability of Adelaide's climate, flow rates can change from a trickle to flood conditions quickly. On 5 June 1889, prior to major flooding, the flow rate before it entered the suburbs was 0.7 cubic metres per second (25 cu ft/s), rising to 129.1 m<sup>3</sup>/s (4,560 cu ft/s), eight days later.
> What the River Torrens may be capable of performing for a week or two of the rainy season beyond sweeping down to the swamp the summer filth of Adelaide we cannot guess; but the Torrens at other times is not a river at all, but merely a chain of fresh water pools. At the present moment, its running water may be spanned with the hand and sounded with the forefinger
Since settlement it has repeatedly flooded, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Adelaide's western suburbs were especially prone to flooding due to their location on the river's alluvial fan. As development of Adelaide progressed the amount of rainfall required for flooding decreased and consequent damage increased. Increased stormwater runoff, modification of the river's banks and other changes all served to exacerbate the problem. Work done by various groups to minimise flooding was often counter productive with the creation of levees, moving and widening channels and other works simply shifting the flooding elsewhere.
Two early floods were, 18 September 1841 which resulted in two people drowning while trying to cross the river at Klemzig, and 22 September 1844, the largest recorded since settlement began, when "Shands' Brewery" was washed away after the river undermined its foundations. The 1899 flood was particularly widespread with extensive flooding of both the river and its tributaries, after a year with 785.6 millimetres (30.93 in) of rain compared to the Adelaide average of 530 millimetres (21 in). The river flooded market gardens and farms throughout its hills course causing extensive damage. Norwood was inundated to The Parade, Adelaide to Pirie and Rundle Streets, and many areas west of the city were left in a shallow lake. The river ran 9 feet (2.7 m) deep over the weir near Thorndon Park Reservoir, 3 feet (0.9 m) over the Torrens Lake Weir and 1 foot (0.3 m) over the Morphett Street Bridge. The Underdale (or Holbrooks) Bridge was destroyed, the Torrens Lake weir's bridge damaged, and the Felixstow Bridge over the Fourth Creek washed away.
## European exploration and naming
The first European sighting of the river was in November 1836 by an exploration party comprising Lieutenant W.G. Field, John Morphett and George Strickland Kingston. The river was named "The Yatala" by the party but later renamed by Surveyor General Colonel William Light after Robert Torrens, chairman of the South Australian Colonisation Commission. On 29 December 1836 Light announced the location of the new city of Adelaide, 6 miles (9.7 km) inland on the river's banks. The first Europeans to explore the Torrens Gorge to the headwaters and sources of the river were Dr George Imlay and John Hill in January 1838.
In recent years the river has been dually known by the indigenous Kaurna people's name of Karra wirra-parri (meaning river of the Red Gum forest), referring to the dense eucalyptus forest that lined its banks prior to clearing by early settlers. This name, alternatively Karra-weera, only referred to the lake section of the river, between Adelaide and North Adelaide. It was known as Karrundo-ingga at Hindmarsh, Witoingga near the reed beds, and Yertala everywhere when in flood, which has survived as Yatala in the naming of various places in Adelaide.
Pirltawardli, now within Park 1/Pitawardli, a location next to the river near the weir, on the western side of North Adelaide, is an area of great historical significance, as the location of a Kaurna camp and later the first Christian mission and school in South Australia. The missionaries documented the Kaurna language, which formed the basis of the 21st-century language revival of the language. The "native location" and school moved from the southern side of the river (now Bonython Park) to the northern side several times.
## Changes after 1836
During early years of colonisation, the surrounding trees were cut down and the river's gravel used in road making and construction of buildings. As the natural environment was removed, the banks were eroded and the riverbed gradually levelled as waterholes filled. By 1878 the river was noted to be a malodorous, black sewer rather than the sylvan stream of the 1830s.
> ...anything in the guise of a river more ugly than the Torrens would be impossible to either see or describe...
Much of the river's catchment area consists of cleared farmland with run-off captured in private dams to sustain farming over Adelaide's dry summer. Combined with the river's use for potable water this has greatly reduced the overall flow especially in the lower river.
### Flood mitigation
A flood mitigation bill was passed in 1917 to not only combat the damage caused by floods but also the public health risk due to the lack of mains sewerage in the western suburbs. Popular opinion favoured diverting the flood waters into their "natural" outlets of the Port and Patawalonga Rivers. The chief engineer of the department of works favoured a cutting through sand dunes near Henley Beach allowing the river an outlet, mitigating floods and preventing silting of the Port River. He also advocated the construction of a reservoir where the Kangaroo Creek Reservoir is now, to both mitigate floods and provide summer irrigation water for market gardens. Unfortunately the bill lapsed with no action as the government and local councils were unwilling to fund the works. The Millbrook Reservoir opened in 1918 as a summer water source, and flood mitigator if required. A bill was passed in 1923 to enact the earlier plan of cutting through the dunes and adding an upstream regulating weir. Again the bill lapsed due to a lack of commitment from parties on payment.
A major flood in 1931 and another in 1933 led to the latest in a series of government enquiries. In 1934 the "Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works" recommended that an outlet for the river be created to accommodate flows of up to 370 m<sup>3</sup>/s (13,000 cu ft/s), covering a 1-in-60-year flood. The work was partly financed by a Commonwealth Government grant with the State Government arranging for the balance. The State Government, western and eastern local councils and the Municipal Tramways Trust shared interest costs. The scheme was enacted in 1935 with the construction of the Breakout Creek (also sometimes Breakout Channel) to take the Torrens westwards to the sea, completed in 1937. The scheme involved diversion of the river at Lockleys (near Adelaide Airport), with the original channel blocked and a new channel created to the sea. The reedbeds and swamps were subsequently drained and some of their area is now the site for the suburb of West Lakes.
Based on recommendations in a 1925 report on flood mitigation, work began in the 1960s on the building of the Kangaroo Creek Reservoir, opened in 1969 with a capacity of 24.4 megalitres (860,000 cu ft). It remains the only reservoir damming the river rather than being fed from weirs. The "River Torrens Committee" was formed in 1964 to advise the minister of works on preserving and enhancing the river's natural beauty, and developing it for recreational uses. The "River Torrens Acquisition Act 1970–72" was passed, authorising the purchase of land, in some cases 60 metres (200 ft) back from the top of the river's banks.
By 1980, further development along the riverbanks and removal of levées had reduced the outlet's capacity to a 1-in-35-year flood. A study showed that a 1-in-200-year flood would inundate 13,000 properties; so the Kangaroo Creek dam's level was raised, its spillway modified, the Breakout Creek channel capacity increased and some bridges reinforced. A development plan was approved in 1981 to purchase land along the length of the river, create a flood mitigating linear park and also to modify the Kangaroo Creek dam further. The sea outlet was enlarged to a capacity of 410 m<sup>3</sup>/s (14,000 cu ft/s) which now covered a 1-in-200-year flood. When the O-Bahn Busway was opened, the bridges were designed to cope with this scale of flood, although the two bridges in St Peters would likely be awash.
### Torrens Lake
The 470 ML (17 million cu ft) Torrens Lake was created in 1881 with the construction of a weir, landscaping of Elder Park and modification of the river's bank and surrounds into an English formal park. The lake forms a centrepiece of many Adelaide events and postcard scenes. Elder Park with its iron rotunda was opened on 28 November 1882. The Rotunda is a largely Glasgow built 9-metre-high (30 ft) iron bandstand which was funded by Sir Thomas Elder, the park being named after him.
In 1867, prison labour from nearby Adelaide Gaol was used to build a wooden dam near the site of the current weir. The dam was poorly constructed and almost immediately the Torrens washed it away. Construction of a permanent concrete weir was begun in November 1880 and completed, at a cost of £7,000, in 1881. The sluice gates were closed to begin filling the 12-hectare (30-acre) Torrens Lake on 1 July 1881. At the lake's official opening on 21 July 1881 an estimated 40,000, almost the entire population of Adelaide, attended. During the 1889 flood, the weir was overwhelmed, its gates jammed, and in trying to free them the weir's designer John Langdon was crippled. The weir was rebuilt from 1928 to 1929 with its footbridge relocated and the centre section replaced. The gates can now be fully raised and the river allowed to flow unimpeded.
The "Popeye" boats are privately owned recreational ferries that operate on the lake between Elder Park and the Adelaide Zoo. The first boat was launched on the Torrens Lake by Gordon Watts in 1935. It was a 25-foot (7.6 m) boat, built on the banks of the Torrens to hold up to 20 passengers and named Popeye 1. Watts purchased a former Glenelg cruise boat in 1948 and placed it in service as Popeye 2. Over the next two years three new jarrah hulled boats were built at Port Adelaide; carrying 40 passengers each they were numbered Popeye 3 through Popeye 5. Trips on the Popeyes from Elder Park to the zoo became a treasured family outing and the boats hosted weddings and other events. In March 1962 Keith Altman, owner of riverside eatery "Jolley's Boathouse", took over the Popeyes and introduced recreational paddle boats to the river. The Popeyes had a brush with royalty in March 1977 with Popeye 5 ferrying Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip followed by a choir in Popeye 4. Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser officially launched three new fibreglass models named Popeyes I, II and III in 1982 as the wooden boats' replacements.
### Water use
In the early days of Adelaide, the Torrens was used for bathing, stock watering, rubbish disposal, water supply and as a de facto sewer and drainage sump. This led to a range of health issues until finally, in 1839, when a dysentery outbreak killed five children in one day, Governor Gawler forbid bathing, clothes washing and the disposal of animal carcases in the Torrens within 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) of town. The quality of the river's water was not helped by water supply methods. Carters used to drive water carts into the Torrens to refill. To prevent this the State Government built a facility with steam powered pumps and water storage in 1852, from which the carters then filled.
The "Waterworks Act" of 1856 was passed to enable damming of the upstream Torrens for water supply purposes. The resulting "Water Commission" arranged the following year for foundations to be laid for a water supply weir 11 kilometres (7 mi) from Adelaide near Campbelltown. Unsuitable geology and shoddy work by contractors Frost & Watson led to it being washed away in July 1858 and the site abandoned. Engineer Hamilton was replaced by John England. Government then created a Waterworks Department, which started construction of a weir 16 kilometres (10 mi) from the city and reservoir at Thorndon Park in 1859. The weir was completed on 4 June 1860 and the reservoir began supplying piped water in December. Engineer England was found by a Select Committee to have overpaid the contractors and forced to resign. The water was captured at the weir, piped for storage to the Thorndon Park Reservoir then to a water tower at Kent Town. Water from Kent Town storage was distributed via a manually controlled water system, unmetered for its first six years. Within six years 20,000 citizens in Adelaide and Port Adelaide were connected to reticulated water from the Torrens. By 1872, the 2,840 ML (620 million imp gal; 750 million US gal) Hope Valley Reservoir in the foothills of the Adelaide Hills was completed as a storage reservoir, supplied via an aqueduct and tunnel.
Public baths were built in 1861 just north of the current Parliament House. They were supplied with reticulated water from the Torrens and progressively upgraded with the last change a 1940 remodelling including an Olympic-size swimming pool and diving tower. The baths were demolished in 1970 to make way for the Adelaide Festival Centre. The 16,500 ML (3.6 billion imp gal; 4.4 billion US gal) Millbrook Reservoir was constructed high in the Adelaide Hills from 1913 to 1918 submerging the town of Millbrook. An earth bank dam fed by mile long tunnel from a weir on the river at Gumeracha, its elevation allows gravity supply of water to Adelaide's eastern suburbs.
### Bridges
Due to the river's path through the centre of Adelaide, transport necessitated the construction of many bridges. Prior to the bridges all crossings had been via fords which proved a dangerous practice in winter and spring. The first bridge was one of timber built in 1839 approximately 500 metres (1,600 ft) west of the current City bridge, but destroyed by floods in September 1844. In 1849 £6,000 was allocated to bridge the Torrens. Within four years three wooden bridges had been built and subsequently destroyed in floods. The bridges listed below are from up-river to down-river.
## Flora and fauna
The river was formerly a food source with yabbies, mussels and small fish, however the reduction in water quality, changing of the river's habitat, and introduction of European fish species has led to a reduction in fauna quantity and diversity. Exotic pest species such as the European carp, redfin perch and trout have greatly reduced native fish populations like the big headed gudgeon (Philypnodon grandiceps) but native waterfowl are common along the river with Pacific black ducks, Australian wood ducks, black swans, ibis, egrets and herons amongst the more than 100 species seen. The number of exotic waterfowl species such as mallards has reduced in recent years. In places the steep banks of the river are an ideal habitat for long-necked tortoises.
The river, and its tributaries, had a population of water rats (Hydromys chrysogaster) and Australian swamp rats (Rattus lutreolus). Water rats remain in reduced numbers, but the introduced black rat (Rattus rattus) and brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) have largely supplanted the natives. The house mouse (Mus musculus) is now the most common mammal of the Torrens environ.
Widely found native reeds, sedges and rushes along the upper river are bulrush, knobby club rush, spike rush, common reed, sea rush and pale rush. River red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and blue gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon) trees are found along the riverbanks, although sparser than the forest that was seen by European discoverers. Still present are many of the original vegetation species like: Sheoak (Casuarina stricta), native cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis), native pine (Callitris preissii) and Australia's floral emblem the golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha)
## Today's river
From its source the river flows westwards through Birdwood and Gumeracha. It then continues down through Torrens Gorge entering suburban Adelaide at Athelstone with some of its path paralleled by the O-Bahn Busway. It passes between the city centre and North Adelaide, forming the Torrens Lake between the Adelaide Zoo and a weir opposite Adelaide Gaol. The river then continues the remaining eight kilometres to the sea at Henley Beach South, emptying into Gulf St Vincent via a constructed outlet.
Hope Valley, Millbrook and Kangaroo Creek Reservoirs, which provide water storage for Adelaide, capture the river's flow. These reservoirs form part of the Adelaide Hills catchment, which supplies 60% of Adelaide's water needs in an average year. Adelaide City Council uses water from the lower river to irrigate the city's surrounding parklands. Rubbish accumulation in the lower river is controlled with numerous collection racks, and sediments and other pollutants are filtered through constructed wetlands.
The earliest linear river park in Australia bounds the suburban end of the river. The park is 35 km long with numerous playgrounds walkways and bicycle tracks. On the south bank of the lake, adjacent to the Adelaide Festival Centre, Elder Park is used for the annual Tasting Australia festival, mass singing of christmas carols at the annual "Carols by Candlelight", and other public events throughout the year. The Popeye tourist boats, small paddle boats and Black Swans of the lake are icons of the area and frequently featured in postcard photographs of the city. Due to now-limited natural river flow and stormwater born organic material, the lower river, (particularly the lake), is often polluted with algal blooms and significant levels of E. coli bacteria in spring and summer. Numerous taskforces have been formed to improve the river's water quality, including one created in 2006 by the Minister for the Environment and Conservation.
The river is a used by many for recreation, with the footpaths on the riverbanks often filled with cyclists and joggers. Rowers use the lake for training all year round, and many clubs such as the Adelaide University Boat Club, the Adelaide Rowing Club, and the boat houses of the secondary schools which participate in the annual Head of the River are located upon its banks. Several rowing regattas are held on the Torrens Lake course in the summer months of each year, contested by both club and school crews.
## See also |
26,668,070 | 2013 Tour de France | 1,166,570,235 | Grand Tour cycling race in 2013 | [
"2013 Tour de France",
"2013 UCI World Tour",
"2013 in French sport",
"July 2013 sports events in France",
"June 2013 sports events in France",
"Sport in Corsica",
"Tour de France by year"
]
| The 2013 Tour de France was the 100th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started on the island of Corsica on 29 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 21 July. The Tour consisted of twenty-one stages and covered a total distance of 3,403.5 km (2,115 mi). The overall general classification was won by Chris Froome of . Second and third respectively were Nairo Quintana () and the rider Joaquim Rodríguez.
Marcel Kittel () was the first rider to wear the general classification leader's yellow jersey after winning stage one. He lost the lead the next day to Jan Bakelants of , who managed to obtain a one-second lead from a late solo attack. Simon Gerrans gained the race lead after his team, , won the stage four team time trial. Gerrans passed the lead on to teammate Daryl Impey after the fifth stage. Froome took the lead from Impey after a dominant performance in the eighth stage, the first classified as mountainous. Froome maintained his lead for the remainder of the race by consolidating his lead through solid performances in the individual time trials and another dominant win on Mont Ventoux, while defending his GC lead in the mountains of the final week from his nearest challenger, the white jersey and eventual King of the mountains, Nairo Quintana.
Froome became the second consecutive British cyclist to win the Tour de France, after Bradley Wiggins accomplished the feat the year before. In the race's other classifications, rider Quintana took the mountains classification with a summit victory in the final mountain stage edging out Froome, and also finished as the best young rider in the general classification, finishing in second place overall; Peter Sagan of the team was the winner of the points classification, with finishing as the winners of the team classification. Christophe Riblon () was given the award for the most combative rider. Kittel won the most stages, with four.
## Teams
Twenty-two teams participated in the 2013 edition of the Tour de France. The race was the 18th of the 29 events in the UCI World Tour, and all of its nineteen UCI ProTeams were entitled, and obliged, to enter the race. On 27 April 2013, the organiser of the Tour, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the three second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams given wildcard invitations, all of which were French-based. The presentation of the teams took place at the harbour of Porto-Vecchio on the island of Corsica on 27 June, two days before the opening stage held in the town. Each team arrived by boat to the stage, before being introduced to the crowd.
Each squad was allowed a maximum of nine riders, therefore the start list contained a total of 198 riders. Of these, 54 were riding the Tour de France for the first time. The riders came from 34 countries; France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Australia, Belgium and Germany all had 10 or more riders in the race. Riders from ten countries won stages during the race; German riders won the largest number of stages, with six. The average age of riders in the race was 29.45 years, ranging from the 19-year-old Danny van Poppel () to the 41-year-old Jens Voigt (). Of the total average ages, was the youngest team and the oldest.
The teams entering the race were:
UCI ProTeams
UCI Professional Continental teams
## Pre-race favourites
In the run up to the 2013 Tour de France, Chris Froome () was widely considered as the top pre-race favourite for the general classification, with his closest rivals thought to be Alberto Contador () and Joaquim Rodríguez (). 's Vincenzo Nibali was also a possible contender after getting his first Tour podium in 2012 but he had focused on the 2013 Giro d'Italia. The other riders considered contenders for the general classification were riders Cadel Evans and Tejay van Garderen, Richie Porte (), Jurgen Van den Broeck (), Thibaut Pinot (), Ryder Hesjedal (), Robert Gesink (), and riders Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana.
The 2012 Tour de France winner, Bradley Wiggins of , had focused on the Giro d'Italia, but retired early due to illness, subsequently pulling out because illness and injury had left him insufficient time to train for the Tour de France and chose not to ride. This left Froome, runner-up in 2012, the undisputed leader of . He had shown his form so far in 2013 season by winning four of the five stage races he had ridden: Tour of Oman, Critérium International, Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné. Two-time Tour winner (2007 and 2009) Contador returned to the race having been suspended from the 2012 race; he had won the 2012 Vuelta a España and his best major result of the season was second in Oman. Rodríguez had podium finishes in both the Giro and Vuelta in 2012, as well as winning the UCI World Tour. He had top-ten placings in three major stage races in the season.
The sprinters considered favourites for the points classification and wins in bunch sprint finishes were Mark Cavendish (), Peter Sagan (), André Greipel (), Matthew Goss () and riders Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb. Cavendish won the points classification at the 2013 Giro and had shown his form with thirteen wins in the season. In the previous year's Tour, Sagan won the points classification and had won the same at the Tour de Suisse in the month preceding the Tour. Greipel, whose team manager Marc Sergeant claimed he had the best sprint train, came into the Tour with nine wins in the season, including three at the Tour Down Under. Goss only had one victory in the season, but had a team of strong and experienced riders. Kittel, as with Greipel, would arrive with a team dedicated for the sprints and he had accumulated eleven wins in the season. His teammate Degenkolb won five stages at the 2012 Vuelta and it was thought he was most likely to be used for the hillier stages.
## Route and stages
On 24 November 2011, the ASO announced Corsica would host the 2013 edition's opening stages (known as the Grand Départ), the first time the Tour has visited the island. The route of the race was unveiled on 24 October 2012 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The Tour was the first to be completed entirely on French soil since 2003 and included ten new start or finish locations. The Grand Départ in Corsica consisted of three stages. The ASO chartered the Mega Smeralda cruiseferry in Porto-Vecchio to house members of the organisation, media and others who work on the Tour and to host press conferences. It featured a final set of stages which were described by journalist William Fotheringham as "brutal", including three Alpine stages in the last week along with a "viciously hard" time trial. As the 100th edition of the race, the race featured some of the famous climbs from the history of the race, Mont Ventoux and Alpe d'Huez, which was climbed twice in a stage for the first time.
The opening stage left Porto-Vecchio and ended in Bastia, with next two stages ending in Ajaccio and Calvi respectively. The race then moved to mainland France at Nice. Stages five to eight formed a four-stage journey that navigated westwards finishing at the Ax 3 Domaines ski resort in the Pyrenees. Stage nine took place between Saint-Girons to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, before a long transfer moved the race to the north-west of the country. Stage ten finished in the port city of Saint-Malo, with the next finishing at the Mont Saint-Michel island commune in Normandy. The following four stages, 11 to 15, crossed the centre of the country back to the south-east finishing atop Mont Ventoux. The next five stages took place in and around the Alps, before a second long transfer took the Tour to the finish with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris.
There were 21 stages in the race, covering a total of 3,403.5 kilometres (2,115 mi), 93.4 km (58 mi) shorter than the 2012 Tour. The longest mass-start stage was the fourth at 228.5 km (142 mi), and stage 20 was the shortest at 125 km (78 mi). Eight stages were officially classified as flat, three medium mountain, seven high mountain, two individual time trial and one team time trial. There were four summit finishes: stage 8, to Ax 3 Domaines; stage 15, to Mont Ventoux; stage 18, to Alpe d'Huez; and stage 20, to Semnoz; The highest point of elevation in the race was the 2,001 m (6,565 ft)-high Port de Pailhères mountain pass on stage eight. It was among seven hors catégorie (English: beyond category) rated climbs in the race. The final stage ending on the Champs-Élysées was an evening finish for the first time. There were ten new stage start or finish locations. The rest days were after stage 9, in Saint-Nazaire, and 15, in Vaucluse.
## Race overview
### Opening week and Pyrenees
In the first stage, the team bus had become stuck under the finishing arch in Bastia, Corsica, and with the peloton (the main group) 10 km (6.2 mi) away, the race officials moved the finish to the 3 km (1.9 mi) to go marker. As the peloton closed in, the bus was freed, and the decision was reversed. Marcel Kittel took the victory from the bunch sprint, putting him in the race leader's yellow jersey; he also became the first leader of the points classification, with Juan José Lobato () taking the polka dot jersey as the leader of the mountains classification. Two crashes occurred in the stage; the first with 37 km (23 mi) remaining and the second in the final kilometers, which included a contender for the stage, Mark Cavendish. The second stage 's Jan Bakelants launched an attack from a breakaway group in the final kilometer to win in Ajaccio, one second ahead of the encroaching peloton. The yellow jersey switched to Bakelants, and Pierre Rolland of claimed the polka dot. Simon Gerrans () won the third stage, the final in Corsica, from a bunch sprint in Calvi. Peter Sagan took over the points classification. won stage four's 33 km (20.5 mi) team time trial in and around Nice, putting Gerrans in the yellow jersey. came in second place, one second in arrears, with a further two.
The fifth and sixth stages ended in bunch sprints, with Cavendish and André Greipel the victors respectively. After stage six, Daryl Impey became the first South African rider to wear the yellow jersey. His teammate Gerrans ensured it for him by holding back at the finish allowing Impey – who was second overall – the time necessary to replace him at the top of the general classification. Sagan claimed the seventh stage from a bunch sprint in Albi, with rider Blel Kadri talking the polka dot jersey. In stage eight, the Tour's first mountain stage, which ended at the Ax 3 Domaines, Froome attacked a select five-rider group, which included Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde, as they passed the lone leader Nairo Quintana with 5 km (3.1 mi) remaining. Froome took the stage win, fifty-one seconds ahead of his teammate Richie Porte, with Valverde third a further seventeen down. Contador and Quintana finished one minute forty-five seconds behind Froome. Froome's victory win put him in the lead of the general and mountains classifications, ahead of Porte. In the ninth stage, Froome managed to subdue attacks from his rivals, although his team's efforts left him isolated for the majority of the stage. After a descent from the mountain pass of La Hourquette d'Ancizan, a group of twenty-three riders came into the finish in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, where Dan Martin () beat Jakob Fuglsang () from sprint, twenty seconds ahead of the group. Porte lost eighteen minutes, dropping from second overall to thirty-third, with Valverde moving up to second. Rolland took back the polka dot jersey. The next day was the first rest day of the Tour.
### North-west and journey south
Kittel took his second stage of the Tour win from the bunch sprint in the tenth stage, with his compatriot Greipel second. Stage eleven's individual time trial between Avranches and Mont Saint-Michel was taken by 's Tony Martin. Froome came second with a deficit of twelve seconds, over two minutes ahead of the second placed overall Valverde, extending his lead to over three minutes. Two flat stages ending with bunch sprints then followed; the first, stage twelve, was won by Kittel, ahead of Cavendish, who came back to win the next. The stage saw Valverde suffer a punctured tyre and lose almost ten minutes, struggling to match the pace set by Cavendish's team at the head of the race. Stage fourteen was taken by 's Matteo Trentin from a large breakaway that held off the peloton.
Stage fifteen, finishing on Mont Ventoux, saw Froome's Team Sky set a brutal pace on the opening kilometres of the Ventoux, so that all of the leading contenders, with the exception of Froome and Contador, dropped on the early part of the final climb. Froome then moved away from Contador and quickly caught Quintana, who had attacked earlier in the climb. The pair worked together to put time into their rivals, before Froome attacked with 1.2 km (0.7 mi) remaining and soloed to the finish for a second stage win. This gave Froome a lead of four minutes and fourteen seconds over Mollema in second place, with Contador, who had cracked completely in the final kilometre, a further eleven seconds back. Froome regained the lead in the mountains classification. The following day was the Tour's second rest day.
### Alps and finale
The sixteenth stage saw a twenty-six rider breakaway reach the final climb, the Col de Manse, where Rui Costa () attacked and then descended on his own to the finish in Gap. Froome won stage seventeen's time trial, finishing the 32 km (19.9 mi) course from Embrun to Chorges in 51 minutes and 33 seconds, with Contador coming in nine seconds behind, in second place. Contador moved up to second overall, four minutes and thirty-four seconds down, with teammate Roman Kreuziger third. In the Tour's queen stage, the eighteenth, early breakaway riders Christophe Riblon () and Tejay van Garderen led on the second ascent of Alpe d'Huez. Van Garderen attacked on the early slopes, opening up a margin of forty-five seconds on Riblon in the second part of the climb, before Riblon passed with 2 km (1.2 mi) remaining and took the stage win by fifty-nine seconds. Quintana and Rodríguez came in fourth and fifth respectively, over two minutes in arrears. With 5 km (3.1 mi) to go, Porte and Froome, who came in under minute after the aforementioned pair, were penalised twenty seconds as Porte went back to the team car to retrieved an energy gel and water bottle for Froome outside the designated zone. Froome extended his lead over Contador by thirty-seven seconds.
Costa repeated his feat of three stages previous by taking victory in stage nineteen, by attacking on the final climb of Col de la Croix Fry and soloing to the finish in Le Grand-Bornand. There were no major changes at the head of general classification. Stage twenty, the penultimate stage, saw the leaders of the general classification still together at the head of the race with 8 km (5 mi) remaining of the final climb of Mont Semnoz. Quintana and Rodríguez then attacked, with Froome the only rider able to bridge, and again the pair pulling away, with Quintana managing to hold off Rodríguez by eighteen seconds to take the stage win, with Froome a further eleven down. Contador came in seventh, two minutes and twenty-eight in arrears, dropping to fourth overall, with Rodríguez moving up to third. With the double points gained with his win Quintana secured the mountains classification.
The final stage was won by Kittel on the Champs-Élysées, his fourth stage win of the race. Froome finished the race to claim his first Tour de France, becoming the second British rider to win the race. He beat second-placed Quintana by four minutes and twenty seconds, with Rodríguez third, a further forty-four seconds down. Sagan won his second consecutive points classification with a total of 409, 100 ahead of Cavendish in second. Froome placed second behind Quintana in the mountains classification, with Rolland third. The best young rider was Quintana, followed by Andrew Talansky () and Michał Kwiatkowski () respectively. finished as the winners of the team classification, eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds ahead of second-placed . Of the 198 starters, 169 reached the finish of the last stage in Paris.
## Classification leadership and minor prizes
There were four main individual classifications contested in the 2013 Tour de France, as well as a team competition. The most important was the general classification, which was calculated by adding each rider's finishing times on each stage. There were no time bonuses given at the end of stages for this edition of the Tour. If a crash had happened within the final 3 km (1.9 mi) of a stage, not including time trials and summit finishes, the riders involved would have received the same time as the group they were in when the crash occurred. The rider with the lowest cumulative time was the winner of the general classification and was considered the overall winner of the Tour. The rider leading the classification wore a yellow jersey.
The second classification was the points classification. Riders received points for finishing among the highest placed in a stage finish, or in intermediate sprints during the stage. The points available for each stage finish were determined by the stage's type. No points were awarded for the team time trial on stage four. The leader was identified by a green jersey.
The third classification was the mountains classification. Points were awarded to the riders that reached the summit of the most difficult climbs first. The climbs were categorised as fourth-, third-, second-, first-category and hors catégorie], with the more difficult climbs rated lower. Double points were awarded on the summit finishes on stages 5, 15, 18 and 20. The leader wore a white jersey with red polka dots.
The final individual classification was the young rider classification. This was calculated the same way as the general classification, but the classification was restricted to riders who were born on or after 1 January 1988. The leader wore a white jersey.
The final classification was a team classification. This was calculated using the finishing times of the best three riders per team on each stage, excluding the team time trial; the leading team was the team with the lowest cumulative time. The number of stage victories and placings per team determined the outcome of a tie. The riders in the team that lead this classification were identified with yellow number bibs on the back of their jerseys and yellow helmets.
In addition, there was a combativity award given after each stage to the rider considered, by a jury, to have "made the greatest effort and who has demonstrated the best qualities of sportsmanship". No combativity awards were given for the time trials and the final stage. The winner wore a red number bib the following stage. At the conclusion of the Tour, Christophe Riblon won the overall super-combativity award, again, decided by a jury.
A total of €2,023,300 was awarded in cash prizes in the race. The overall winner of the general classification received €450,000, with the second and third placed riders got €200,000 and €100,000 respectively. All finishers of the race were awarded with money. The holders of the classifications benefited on each stage they led; the final winners of the points and mountains were given €25,000, while the best young rider and most combative rider got €20,000. Team prizes were available, with €10,000 for the winner of team time trial and €50,000 for the winners of the team classification. There was also a special award with a prize of €5,000, the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, given in honour of Tour founder Henri Desgrange to first rider to pass the summit of the highest climb in the Tour, the Port de Pailhères. This prize was won by Nairo Quintana on stage eight.
- In stage two, Alexander Kristoff, who was second in the points classification, wore the green jersey, because Marcel Kittel wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during that stage. Additionally, Danny van Poppel, who was second in the young rider classification, wore the white jersey, because Marcel Kittel wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during that stage.
- In stage nine, Pierre Rolland, who was second in the mountains classification, wore the polka dot jersey, because Chris Froome wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during that stage. Froome and Rolland both had collected 31 points up to this point, but Froome claimed the polka dot jersey, because he had crossed the line as first on first category mountains more often than Rolland.
- In stage thirteen, the combativity award was voted to by the jury to recognize the contributions of the entire team. Mark Cavendish was then selected to represent the team on the podium.
- In stages sixteen to eighteen, Mikel Nieve, who was third in the mountains classification, wore the polka dot jersey, because Chris Froome wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during those stages, and Nairo Quintana wore the white jersey as leader of the young rider classification during the same stages.
- In stage nineteen, Christophe Riblon who was third in the mountains classification, wore the polka dot jersey, because Chris Froome wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during those stages, and Nairo Quintana wore the white jersey as leader of the young rider classification during the same stages.
- In stage twenty, Pierre Rolland, who was second in the mountains classification, wore the polka dot jersey, because Chris Froome wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification during that stage.
- In stage twenty-one, Andrew Talansky, who was second in the young rider classification, wore the white jersey, because Nairo Quintana wore the polka dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification.
## Final standings
### General classification
### Points classification
### Mountains classification
### Young rider classification
### Team classification
## UCI World Tour rankings
Riders from the ProTeams competing individually, as well as for their teams and nations, for points that contributed towards the World Tour rankings. Points were awarded to the top twenty finishers in the general classification and to the top five finishers in each stage. The 587 points accrued by Chris Froome put him in to the lead of the individual ranking, with Peter Sagan dropping to second. retained their lead of the team ranking, ahead of second-placed . Spain remained as leaders of the nation ranking, with Great Britain second.
## See also
- 2013 in men's road cycling
- 2013 in sports |
30,387,889 | Comeback (Glee) | 1,171,423,363 | null | [
"2011 American television episodes",
"Glee (season 2) episodes",
"Television episodes written by Ryan Murphy (filmmaker)"
]
| "Comeback" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of the American musical television series Glee, and the thirty-fifth overall. It was written by series creator Ryan Murphy, directed by Bradley Buecker, and premiered on Fox on February 15, 2011. In the episode, glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) allows cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) to join the McKinley High glee club in an attempt to ease her depression. Club member Sam (Chord Overstreet) creates a tribute band to teen singer Justin Bieber in order to win the heart of Quinn (Dianna Agron), and is later joined by the group's other male members, minus co-captain Finn (Cory Monteith), to recreate Bieber's "Somebody to Love" and woo their significant others.
Prior to broadcast, Murphy dismissed rumors that "Comeback" would serve as a tribute to Bieber, and stated that such episodes are reserved for artists with extensive musical catalogs. "Comeback" was met with mixed reception from critics, who deemed it neither bad nor a standout. Critics such as Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle appreciated the episode's early Glee aesthetic. Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times felt that the episode lacked substance. Sue's storyline, which focuses on her depression and a suicide attempt with Flintstone gummies, was widely criticized for its inappropriateness. The other storylines had mixed to positive reviews, as many critics deemed the Bieber-related subplot the strongest. James Poniewozik of Time compared it favorably to the Madonna tribute episode "The Power of Madonna".
The episode features six musical performances, five of which were released as singles. Upon its initial airing, "Comeback" was watched by over 10.53 million US viewers, and acquired a 4.2/12 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. Unlike the story itself, most critics received the musical numbers with acclaim. The Glee take on Bieber's songs was praised, as were the vocals of cast members Amber Riley and Lea Michele in their duet of "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent, and the confidence and performance of Ashley Fink in "I Know What Boys Like".
## Plot
After her cheerleading squad loses a competition for the first time in seven years, coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) becomes depressed, and stages an apparent suicide by "overdosing" on gummy vitamins. Her colleague, school guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), suggests that she temporarily join the school glee club, New Directions, to lift her spirits. Hoping to create discord within the group, Sue pits members Mercedes (Amber Riley) and Rachel (Lea Michele) against one another. Her plan backfires when a duet between the two results in a deepening of their respect for one another vocally. In an attempt to bring out the good in Sue, club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) takes her to a pediatric cancer ward, where they sing "This Little Light of Mine" with the patients.
Club member Sam Evans (Chord Overstreet) establishes a one-man tribute band to teen singer Justin Bieber, which he calls "The Justin Bieber Experience", in the hope of winning over his girlfriend Quinn (Dianna Agron), whom he suspects still has feelings for her ex-boyfriend Finn (Cory Monteith). Sam performs Bieber's "Baby" for the glee club, and dedicates it to Quinn; the performance also excites the other girls in the club. Several of the male members—Puck (Mark Salling), Artie (Kevin McHale) and Mike (Harry Shum Jr.)—are impressed by the effect he has on the girls, and convince him to let them join his tribute band. The foursome then perform "Somebody to Love", and recreate the music video for the song in the auditorium, which makes the girls go crazy. Quinn chooses Sam over Finn, but when Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) convinces Sam that Quinn cheated on him, he breaks up with her and begins dating Santana.
Meanwhile, Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink) enlists Puck to help her with her first glee club solo. With Puck's assistance, she performs "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses, and using a trick he taught her, imagines the club members in their underwear for confidence. Later, Sue suggests that the club perform the anthem "Sing" by My Chemical Romance, as they must present an anthem at the forthcoming Regionals competition. They rehearse the song, and it is well received by most of the members, who disregard Rachel's suggestion that they should instead compose an original anthem. Her week with New Directions over, Sue reveals that she has become the vocal coach for one of the glee club's Regionals competitors, Aural Intensity.
## Production
In January 2011, rumors began to circulate that Glee was planning a Justin Bieber tribute episode, similar to "The Power of Madonna" for Madonna, and "Britney/Brittany" for Britney Spears. Series creator Ryan Murphy refuted the claims, and stated that such episodes are reserved for artists with extensive musical catalogs. He confirmed, however, that Bieber's music would be used in an episode in season two as a "small plot point", and Overstreet's Sam would perform a song by the artist for Quinn's approval. On the red carpet at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, cast member Riley confirmed to MTV News that Bieber's songs "Baby" and "Somebody to Love" would be featured in the upcoming episode, and the singer would receive a tribute similar to Lady Gaga in "Theatricality"—a tribute, but without a full episode devoted to his catalog. Via his official Facebook page, Bieber stated that he was "truly honoured" to have his music covered on Glee. Prior to broadcast, Overstreet and Bieber interacted via the social networking website Twitter, where Bieber told him "we just gotta work on those moves", and to "kill it!"
In addition to "Baby" and "Somebody to Love", the episode featured cover versions of "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses performed by Fink, "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent performed by Michele and Riley, "Sing" by My Chemical Romance, and an acoustic performance of the gospel children's song "This Little Light of Mine". The pediatric oncology scenes were filmed at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles' Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases, where eleven real patients performed alongside Morrison and Lynch. Bailey, the pediatric ward nurse, was played by guest-star Charlene Amoia, who had worked for the series' sound department during the first season. In June 2011, she deemed her "Comeback" appearance her favorite guest role in any series, due to working alongside the children, whom she was "so touched by". Amoia expanded: "They were the most vibrant, energetic kids. It was a really awesome storyline to be a part of. I was really moved by everything." Though she was not initially aware that the role would involve singing, Amoia was part of the "This Little Light of Mine" group number. The episode's recurring guest cast members were Overstreet as Sam, Iqbal Theba as Principal Figgins, Shum Jr. as Mike and Fink as Lauren.
## Reception
### Ratings
"Comeback" was watched by 10.53 million US viewers. It attained a 4.2/12 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic, which made it the highest rated show of the night. It was the third most-watched scripted show of the week amongst adults aged 18–49, and placed 21st amongst all viewers. The episode declined by 9 percent and 1.12 million viewers on the previous episode, "Silly Love Songs".
With its Canadian broadcast, also on February 15, 2011, "Comeback" attained 1.75 million viewers and placed 18th in the weekly program rankings. It was again down on "Silly Love Songs", which ranked tenth and was watched by 2.08 million viewers. In Australia, where the episode aired on February 28, 2011, it was watched by 909,000 viewers and was the 11th most-viewed show of the night. Viewership was marginally down on the previous episode, which attracted 921,000 viewers and also placed 11th. In the UK, the episode was broadcast on April 4, 2011. It attained 2.57 million viewers—2.14 million on E4, and 427,000 on E4+1—and was the most-watched show on cable for the week. Viewership again declined slightly from the previous episode, which drew 2.63 million viewers.
### Critical response
The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Bobby Hankinson of the Houston Chronicle and E! Online's Jenna Mullins were pleased by how "Comeback" reminded them of early episodes of Glee—Mullins hailed the return of familiar characterization, and Hankinson commented: "It felt like old times, and it felt good." Though he observed that the episode was light on plot, Hankinson praised the writing and comedy. CNN's Lisa Respers France found the episode's title apt, as Glee was "firing on all cylinders" with little room for improvement. Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone was "pleasantly surprised", as she had anticipated a decline in quality from the previous episode, and Kevin Fallon of The Atlantic commented that apart from the Bieber jokes, "the rest of the episode was sharply written and loaded with self-referential jokes". Other critics found "Comeback" mediocre. Entertainment Weekly's Sandra Gonzalez wrote that it was "a bit off", The A.V. Club's Emily VanDerWerff felt that "something was missing, making the whole thing stultifying, lifeless, and boring", and Robert Canning of IGN deemed it "fine and inoffensive", but ultimately forgettable. Amy Reiter of the Los Angeles Times was "a little disappointed" in the episode for a lack of substance, creativity and emotional maturity. James Poniewozik of Time deemed it amongst his least favorite episodes, for "not even [being] bad in a memorable way". He noted that "Comeback" was "essentially a collection of subplots", and questioned its purpose.
The Sue storyline garnered many unfavorable reviews. Reiter criticized her inconsistent characterization, which made her actions seem "like fragments pasted together to form a disjointed collage". While VanDerWerff was more favorable, he wrote that Sue's jokes about committing "Sue-icide" were "neither dark enough to provoke a startled burst or laughter nor funny enough to overcome their central tastelessness", and called the scene in the pediatric oncology ward "woefully misjudged and inappropriately hilarious". The Atlantic's Meghan Brown found the use of seriously ill children "borderline offensive", and called Sue's suicide attempt "in totally bad taste". Miriam Krule of NPR felt that Glee treated suicide too lightly, and in doing so sent a mixed message to its youth audience. Poniewozik wrote that Sue has become "a burden on the show", and described her as "a breakout character who's broken out of the constraints of recognizable character". He questioned the point of her arc, and suggested that the attempt at humanizing her was redundant, as viewers already know Sue to be capable of compassion.
Other storylines received a more mixed response. Canning disliked the focus placed on Sam and his thin, "loveable dope" characterization. He found that the love-triangle plot made little sense, and as such was hard to invest in. In contrast, Poniewozik called Sam's Bieber subplot the episode's strongest element, and deemed it fun if inessential. He praised Glee for capturing the "disposable fun" of Bieber's music, "without either sneering at it or making it more than it is", and called it better in this respect than "The Power of Madonna". Lauren received several positive reviews. While VanDerWerff found her relationship with Puck "a lot less assured" than in "Silly Love Songs", Mullins and Gonzalez praised their "endearing" dynamic. Reiter felt that in "Comeback", while new characters like Sam and Lauren "managed to shine", established favorites fared less well: "Finn continues to be dismayingly drained of all that once made him so adorable, and Rachel, too, has been deprived of the depth and sex appeal she so carefully developed over time." Several critics raised similar criticism of Rachel—Gonzalez found her need for Brittany's help "too much of a regression", and disliked her return to "old, desperate habits" after several episodes of personal growth. Canning felt that the storyline was forced, and Poniewozik observed that the episode "seemed to be trying less to advance her character [than] simply to give her something to do." VanDerWerff wrote that Rachel appeared to have five different subplots, none of which came together cohesively, and that it reflected the awkward construction of the episode.
### Music and performances
The episode's musical covers and performances were mostly well received by critics. Hankinson wrote that the songs "blended all of the show's best charms", which he listed as "kitschy suprise [sic]", "slick production" and "raw vocal ability". Futterman also praised all of the music.
The Bieber numbers received a mostly positive reception. Mullins complimented them both, particularly Overstreet's performance of "Baby". Futterman said this performance was impressive, "a total pop star package that recalled the Biebs' swag". She found this element "smooth[ed] over" in "Somebody to Love", but called the recreation admirable nonetheless. Gonzalez highlighted the Bieber songs as the best of the episode; she gave "Baby" and "Somebody to Love" grades of "A" and "B+", respectively. On the former song, Gonzalez enjoyed Sam's performance, particularly his "übercorny dance moves that made [her] ache for the boy-band era." Although she complimented the male vocalists and their "almost perfect re-creation" of the video, Gonzalez was disappointed the show chose to repeat, rather than reinterpret, the choreography. Fallon praised the two songs: he called Sam "quite charming while channeling Bieber" and said "the acoustic opening to 'Baby' was actually very sweet, just as it was when Biebs stripped down the tune to open his Grammy performance". He added that the dancing "stood out" in "Somebody to Love". Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal expressed disappointment in the Bieber performances "displayed so awkwardly and so undynamically" by Sam. On "Baby", he opined that Overstreet lacked "swagger", coordination and charm. He was more impressed by the rendition of "Somebody to Love", but noted that Sam was vocally overshadowed by Artie.
The performance of the duet "Take Me or Leave Me" elicited praise from Brown and Fallon, who both deemed it the highlight of the episode. Brown noted that "it had that addictive Glee quality of actually feeling like high school, and watching Mercedes and Rachel have a blast blasting each other was a treat." Gonzalez gave the duet a "B", as, while there was "so much to swoon for", she is more partial to ballads because they "discourage oversinging throughout the entire song". Futterman wrote that while Mercedes had more sass than Rachel, "both ladies sang". VanDerWerff did not see how the song was relevant, and felt that Michele's voice was ill-suited to it.
Flandez called Lauren's "I Know What Boys Like" the highlight of the episode, and VanDerWerff praised it as the best musical number. He complimented her confidence, but said the underwear joke was "unnecessary and overstated". In contrast, Gonzalez cited the underwear shots as a factor in raising her grade to a "C−" for a song without "basic musicality". Patrick Burns of The Atlantic was also unimpressed, and questioned Lauren's spot in glee club, as "her brazen character never ceases to please, but it's just not believable that she would join the glee club if she cannot sing." In December 2012, TV Guide named the cover one of Glee's worst performances.
On the New Directions collaboration with Sue on "Sing", Futterman wrote, "By turning down the rock and bringing in a choral element, the song actually came off as a great anthem for the bunch of misfits that is the New Directions. We kind of wish they had put on their choir robes instead and fully embraced the arrangement." Although Gonzalez gave the performance a "B", she called it "lacking" and not "regionals material": "We need to be blown away." TV Guide also listed this rendition as one of Glee's worst performances.
### Chart history
Of the five cover versions released as singles—the cover of "This Little Light of Mine" was not released—four debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, and appeared on other musical charts. These same four songs were also featured on the sixth soundtrack album of the series, Glee: The Music, Volume 5. On the Hot 100, the show's rendition of "Baby" debuted at number forty-seven; it was at number fifty-two on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100. The Glee cover version of "Sing" debuted on the Hot 100 at number forty-nine, placing higher than the original by My Chemical Romance, which climbed from number ninety-two to number fifty-eight, its best showing to that point; in Canada, both versions debuted on the Canadian Hot 100 in the same week, with the Glee version at number thirty-seven, the highest of the four Glee singles there, while the original charted twenty slots below it at number fifty-seven. The other two songs on the Hot 100 were "Take Me or Leave Me" at number fifty-one, which also made number sixty on the Canadian Hot 100, and "Somebody to Love" at number sixty-two, which also made number fifty-three on the Canadian Hot 100. "I Know What Boys Like" did not chart. |
16,353,970 | 82nd Sustainment Brigade | 1,158,241,242 | null | [
"Military units and formations established in 2006",
"Military units and formations in North Carolina",
"Sustainment Brigades of the United States Army"
]
| The 82nd Airborne Division Sustainment Brigade is a sustainment brigade of the United States Army based at Fort Liberty, North Carolina. It provides logistical support to and is part of 82nd Airborne Division.
Formed out of the Division Support Command of the 82nd Airborne Division, the brigade has a long history of supporting the 82nd Airborne Division in numerous contingencies throughout the world. The sustainment brigade supported the division in operations including Operation Just Cause, Operation Urgent Fury, Operation Power Pack and Operation Desert Storm. Recently, the brigade has seen multiple deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The brigade's mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan came to an end when responsibility was handed to the 101st Sustainment Brigade during a ceremony at Bagram Airbase on 2 December 2010. For the first time since the Global War on Terror began in 2001, with the exception of Delta Detachment, 82nd Finance, all the elements of the 82nd Sustainment Brigade were home in Fort Bragg. Since then, the 82nd Sustainment Brigade has once again been called upon to assist in OEF Afghanistan by establishing and controlling CENTCOM Materiel Recovery Element (CMRE) operations. On 21 May 2015, the brigade realigned back under the 82nd Airborne Division and became the 82nd Airborne Division Sustainment Brigade.
## Organization
The 82nd Airborne Division Sustainment Brigade is composed of a special troops battalion, a financial management support unit, and a combat sustainment support battalion:
- Special Troops Battalion, 82nd Sustainment Brigade
- 82nd Financial Management Support Unit
- 189th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion
- 11th Quartermaster Company
## History
### Origins
The 82nd Sustainment Brigade traces its lineage to the 82nd Support Group, which was constituted 1 September 1957 at Fort Bragg. It was composed of units with long histories with the 82nd Airborne Division, dating back to World War I and World War II.
On 25 May 1964 the unit reorganized as the 82nd Division Support Command, or DISCOM. It was merged with the 82nd Airborne Division's band. A year later, the unit deployed to the Dominican Republic with the 82nd Airborne Division in support of Operation Power Pack. The Division was charged with the mission of quelling civil unrest and restoring order to the country, and the DISCOM provided logistical support during this mission. In 1972, the band was removed from the Division Support Command.
In 1983, the unit again deployed to combat, this time to Grenada in support of Operation Urgent Fury. It provided logistical support to the 82nd Airborne Division as the division deployed in the island, supporting US Special Forces operating within. Then in 1989, the unit supported the first combat jump since World War II while supporting Operation Just Cause in Panama. It provided logistical efforts to the division once again in the region.
In August 1990, during Operation Desert Shield, paratroopers from the unit protected the XVIII Airborne Corps' left flank during the subsequent Operation Desert Storm. It then advanced on the western flank of the invasion force along with the 82nd Airborne Division, 101st Airborne Division, and other units of the XVIII Airborne Corps, striking some of the deepest incursions into Iraq of the war. The Division eventually advanced to Tallil while the majority of the attacking force moved into Kuwait. The formation earned its first campaign streamers for this action.
The unit returned to combat again in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom I. The 101st Airborne Division and the 3rd Infantry Divisions made the main attacks into Iraq, while elements of the 82nd Airborne Division supported them. The initial push was a rapid success, but the insurgency that followed saw convoys become a primary target for Iraqi insurgents. For the first time, these service and support paratroopers found themselves on the front lines, as supply convoys became the central target of resistance fighters.
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 provided a unique and unexpected mission for the paratroopers of the unit, as they were deployed to provide assistance to the citizens of Louisiana. The supporting units were deployed to New Orleans International Airport along with the division's 3rd Brigade and division Artillery units, a force of some 5,000 soldiers. They conducted security operations and search and rescue missions throughout New Orleans, Louisiana.
### Activation
On 16 February 2006 the unit reorganized as the 82d Sustainment Brigade under the Army's modular transformation redesign. As a part of this redesign, the brigade was removed from the command of the 82d Airborne Division and made a separate, independent unit. It would continue to support the 82d Airborne Division, but it would be able to take on different missions when deployed. Instead, its mission is to support all US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) units stationed at Fort Bragg while generating sustainment capabilities to meet rotational demand and respond to future contingencies.
In August 2006, the newly reorganized unit deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom VI. On 26 September 2006, it uncased its colors at Tallil Airbase in Iraq, to provide support services for coalition forces and Iraqi security forces in southern Iraq. They took this responsibility from the 16th Sustainment Brigade, which was rotating out of the theater. Throughout the deployment and into 2007, the brigade's medical staff was rotated into hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq for thirty day tours for each unit. The medical staff, including many of the brigade's field medics, treated American forces injured in fighting around Baghdad. In August 2007, the brigade participated in a large coalition athletic competition hosted by the US Air Force's 407th Air Expeditionary Group at Ali Air Base, Iraq. The brigade took second place in the competition, in which it competed in various sports against other US military units as well as Australian and Romanian forces.
During its deployment to Iraq, the brigade undertook many responsibilities, including providing logistics for airdrops and major combat operations including Operation Marne Torch. The brigade also created a Combat Logistics Patrol academy, training for combat situations during convoy operations, including improvised explosive device detection and removal, and first aid. The brigade also dispatched optometry teams to soldiers in the region to ensure they had all the eyesight testing they needed. The brigade returned to the continental United States in early 2008 along with the rest of the 82d Airborne Division, and was recognized by President George W. Bush in a welcome home speech.
The brigade received its shoulder sleeve insignia on 19 March 2007 and its distinctive unit insignia on 8 November 2007. The insignia alludes heavily to the unit's history with the 82d Airborne Division. In 2015 the brigade ceased being a separate unit and became part of the 82d Airborne Division. As a division unit, its personnel adopted the division's shoulder sleeve insignia and the maroon beret with a brigade-specific flash; however, most of the brigade's personnel are not on jump status and only wear the maroon beret and shoulder sleeve insignia because these are unit uniform items.
On 29 February 2008 the 82d Sustainment Brigade added the 264th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion as a subordinate unit. The 264th has a long history of supporting the United States Army in a myriad of campaigns dating back to World War II. On 16 December 2007 the brigade was detached from the 82d Airborne Division and attached to the XVIII Airborne Corps as a separate brigade. One month later, the 507th Support Group (Corps), XVIII Airborne Corps, was inactivated and three of its battalions were reassigned to the 82d Sustainment Brigade. This addition gave the brigade a total of five battalions, making it the largest brigade on Fort Bragg, and one of the largest in the United States Army.
New building facilities for the 82d Sustainment Brigade have been completed. Two new barracks built specifically for the unit are now occupied by the Soldier who spent the past 12 months at Bagram Army Airfield.
## Honors
### Unit decorations
### Campaign streamers |
2,679,635 | Lights and Sounds | 1,166,127,830 | null | [
"2006 albums",
"Albums produced by Neal Avron",
"Albums recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders",
"Capitol Records albums",
"Concept albums",
"Yellowcard albums"
]
| Lights and Sounds is the fifth studio album by American rock band Yellowcard, released on January 24, 2006, in the United States through Capitol Records. Lights and Sounds is Yellowcard's first concept album, which was inspired to reflect what the band was feeling at the time of production and how they have matured in the process. Lights and Sounds also departs from the sounds on Yellowcard's previous album, Ocean Avenue (2003), which broke away from its pop punk sound to a more alternative rock album.
Lights and Sounds debuted to mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, receiving criticism as the album fell short from the standard set by its predecessor, Ocean Avenue. Upon the album's release, it charted at number five on Billboard's 200 and Top Internet Albums' charts, making it the band highest charting album to date. The album accumulated sales of just over 315,000 copies, which failed to match the 2 million sales of their previous album. Yellowcard went on to explain that the disappointment of the sales were due to their going "a bit too far" with the expectations they had thought the album would exceed. Lights and Sounds was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The album yielded two singles, "Lights and Sounds" and "Rough Landing, Holly". While the band was promoting the album, lead guitarist Ben Harper parted ways with the band. Following Harper's departure, the band revealed that they had entered their "highest and lowest" points because of Harper's departure from the band. To accommodate the album's promotion, Yellowcard replaced Harper with guitarist Ryan Mendez.
## Background and production
After almost two years of touring in support of their 2003 album, Ocean Avenue, Yellowcard took a few months off. In December 2004, vocalist Ryan Key and bassist Peter Mosely moved to New York City to write songs for their upcoming album, while the rest of the band remained in Los Angeles.
As Key and Mosely stayed in New York, they admitted that there was a delay when it came to start writing songs for the album. Key, however, did explain that they were writing "weird, obscure, not-too-mellow" tracks and working on notebooks that he compiled while the band was touring. He also noted that he was able to write for a couple of hours and would receive over "15-20 ideas" that he could take out for the band, so once they all got together, they can start collaborating on the record. Mosely, also in discussion of this, added that the reason it took them so long was because they were "scared to death" with the writing. Mosely concluded that once the writing had begun, the process was easier on them. It was also during this time that Key and Mosely began to turn their apartment into a studio, adding a drum kit, guitar amps, and even including a piano. While Key and Mosely began the development of the songs, the rest of the members would occasionally fly to New York to check on the progress.
In April 2005, the band met in Los Angeles and began working at the Sunset Sound studios. The following month in an interview with MTV News, lead guitarist Ben Harper revealed that the writing process was finished. In addition, Harper commented that the band recorded 19 songs for the album, 13 of which made the final cut. Sessions were held at Sunset Sound in May and June 2005, with producer Neal Avron. Recording was handled by Bradley Cook and Avron, with assistance from Bill Mims and Pro Tools engineer Travis Huff. Tom Lord-Alge mixed the recordings, with assistance from Femio Hernández, at South Beach Studios in Miami, Florida. Ted Jensen mastered the album at Sterling Sound in New York City.
## Music
### Musical style
With Lights and Sounds, Yellowcard broke away from their original pop punk sound to a more alternative rock album. The album is somewhat of a concept album, made to reflect what Yellowcard was feeling at the time of production. Ryan Key, in discussion of this, said that Ocean Avenue was about "finding your place in the world" and explained that Lights and Sounds was about "realizing that you've gotten lost". The band has cited Radiohead's Kid A (2000) and Guns N' Roses' 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II as major influences for the album. Yellowcard also credit Aphex Twin, Mouse on Mars and Explosions in the Sky for inspiration, regarding the music sound in the album.
In an interview in August 2005, Key explained that the album was a "definite departure" and "more political" than what Ocean Avenue had contained. In discussion of the album, Key said that the band had matured and that the music in Lights and Sounds would be different from their previous album. Though, Key added, "...we have to be careful, we have to try and write songs [in the style of the ones] we wrote before. We have to make a conscious effort not to think about the fact that we went from being a nothing band ... to having a bunch of hit singles in like, one year." Printz Board of The Black Eyed Peas collaborated with Yellowcard on the song "Two Weeks from Twenty" where he played a trumpet solo. The song, "How I Go", features a duet with the Chicks' lead vocalist Natalie Maines, and features a twenty-five piece orchestra, which was conducted by violinist Sean Mackin. According to Peter Mosely, the band liked the Chicks' and even thought of collaborating with Maines on Ocean Avenue for the song "View from Heaven". Mosely also revealed that the band approached Maines about singing on "How I Go"; "The original plan was just for her to sing back-up (on the song). [But] it ended up turning into a duet." He also added that Maines took a demo of the song and returned to the studio, Sunset Sound, where the band were working, in addition to the Chicks working on their album, with lyrics and vocals of her own.
Mackin also composed an entire string section and conducted an orchestra in the album. In an interview with Daily Nexus in June 2006, Mackin revealed that the conducting was the easy part and that the composing part was much harder. In this interview, Mackin also commented, "composing was getting so frustrating since I wasn’t writing as fast as my mind was thinking, so going back I wanted to make sure that each of my arrangements for this album and the 12 different songs were completely different".
### Lyrical content
Lights and Sounds primarily focuses on the band coping with the success they were enduring when writing songs for the album. The album also goes with what Key described as when he was preoccupied with making Lights and Sounds. Key said that one of the common themes that were written in the album was the band's hatred in living in Los Angeles. Key said that the songs have "lost that adolescent bounciness -- they've come into adulthood a bit". In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Key revealed that during the time he and Mosely spent in New York, he said it "brought out some darker places" in them and that it was "not in a 'now I'm going to start wearing eyeliner' kind of way, but emotionally darker." In addition, many of the song's themes deal with Key's battle with drugs and alcohol.
While making the album, Yellowcard had also developed a character, Holly Wood, who served as a narrator and protagonist for the album's storyline. The character is featured in the songs "Rough Landing, Holly" and "Holly Wood Died". The band explained the meaning of the title track, which they said is based on a "whirlwind rocker about the pressures on the band members" and how they have changed as they have aged after the release of Ocean Avenue. Key also commented that when he was preoccupied with making the album, there were distractions while in the process; he simply referred to the distractions as "lights and sounds", which ultimately resulted in the band naming the album just that. He also says that the main reason behind that was how it affected the band during that particular time.
During discussion of the track listing in Lights and Sounds, Yellowcard revealed that "Two Weeks from Twenty" stretched the "limits" for them and explained that it was a "jazz-lounge anti-war song". The band also explained that the song is a narrative of a young soldier named Jimmy, from New Jersey, who is killed in the Iraq war. Other songs such as "Down on My Head", "City of Devils", and "Holly Wood Died", had a theme that spoke about bitterness and disillusionment. "How I Go" is based on both lament of a father over the life that has flowed past him and the 2003 film, Big Fish. Another song, "Words, Hands, Hearts", is written about the events that occurred during the September 11 attacks.
## Release and promotion
In August 2005, Yellowcard announced the songs, "Lights and Sounds", "Sure Thing Falling", and "Two Weeks from Twenty", that were going to be featured in the album. In September 2005, the band played a few festivals in Japan, before embarking on a tour of Canada with Rufio and Moneen. That same month, their next album was announced for release in four months' time. "Lights and Sounds" debuted as part of the soundtrack to Burnout Revenge, before made available for streaming through the band's website on September 14, 2005. Later in September, the band announced the album's title and revealed that the title track, "Lights and Sounds", was confirmed to be the first single from the album, with a video shot in Van Nuys, California and a release date of November 15.
Between October and December 2005, Yellowcard went on a cross-country US tour with Acceptance and the Pink Spiders. In November 2005, it was announced that guitarist Ben Harper had parted ways with the band. Key explained that the band went through "a lot of the highest and lowest points" and that making an album "would be on the highest list, and losing a member would be on the lowest." He also added, "It's really been a long journey together, you know, so obviously, parting ways with Ben was a really unpleasant experience. It was either go on without him, or don't go on at all. And, at the core, we decided that we had something too great to let go of, and that we had to kind of make a last resort and move on without him." Harper was replaced by Ryan Mendez of Staring Back, who broke up upon Mendez leaving.
The music video for the title-track was featured on a Verizon Wireless Vcast commercial around the time of the album's release. Lights and Sounds was released on January 24, 2006 through major label Capitol Records. In January and February the band went on a tour of the US. On March 21, 2006, the music video for "Rough Landing, Holly" was posted online. In April and May, the band embarked on the Virgin College Mega Tour alongside Mae, Over It, and Strike Fire Fall. Following this, they appeared at the HFStival. In June, the band went on a summer tour alongside Matchbook Romance and Hedley. During this, a video for "Sure Thing Falling" was posted on the band's Myspace profile. They then appeared at the San Diego Street Scene festival in August 2006, and played a few shows in Brazil. In September 2006, the band went on a headlining tour of the US with support from Anberlin and Reeve Oliver, and appeared at the X96 Big Ass Show and Bamboozle Left festivals.
## Critical reception
The reviews for Lights and Sounds were mostly mixed upon release, particularly from mainstream media, but some critics have stated that the album had fallen well short of the standards of Ocean Avenue, the album's predecessor. Kelefa Sanneh of the New York Times, in review of the album, wrote: "To listeners on either side of rock's latest generational divide, there's a big difference -- the difference of a decade -- between being a loser and being a twerp ... Lights and Sounds is Yellowcard's attempt to split that difference." Sanneh reports that the song "Two Weeks from Twenty", one of the band's anti-war song, "sounds suspiciously like Green Day; the lyrics echo the plot of the video for Green Day's 'Wake Me Up When September Ends'." Despite this, Sanneh goes on to say that Yellowcard is still "pretty good" at "writing sweeping, upbeat punk-rock love songs". Ben Breier of Kent News wrote: "One thing is certain: The Yellowcard you grew to know and love circa Ocean Avenue is no longer with us. The band has vastly matured when compared to past records, but it comes at a price – members forgot what made them occasionally catchy and addictive in the first place. It's clearly the right direction for the band, but Yellowcard needs to further refine its new style before it can come up with something above average." Mike Schiller of PopMatters, who was somewhat displeased with the album, wrote that the album does not "make up for the overabundance of flaccid mediocrity on display throughout most of the album". Schiller went on to say, "Lights and Sounds may be Yellowcard’s attempt at a big, serious album, but the band doesn’t sound even remotely ready." Nick Cowen from Drowned in Sound wrote: "Those who register for Pop-Punk 101 will receive Yellowcard’s Lights And Sounds as their first set-work; the Jacksonville quintet's new album would be the perfect teaching aid, as it's technically proficient while being boring and forgettable enough not to inspire the temptation to plagiarise." Cowen concluded that the album "is a substandard, second-tier album with some strings thrown in for good measure. It's really not worth the money in your wallet – even if that wallet is attached to a very long chain." Now magazine claimed that the band "may be in the right place, it's clear they're simply incapable of realizing this clumsy faux magnum opus."
Despite the mixed reaction, many critics were fond of the album. Rolling Stone's music critic Jenny Eliscu wrote that the album "has made what ends up being one of the best straight-up pop-rock albums of 2006". Elicsu also complimented the band, writing: "Like the Goo Goo Dolls ... Yellowcard have rightfully recognized the transcendent value of a big, fist-pumping anthem coated with a light dose of romantic schmaltz." Alternative Press gave the album a perfect rating, saying, "It may be one of the least 'punk' albums a pop-punk band will make this year--but it's probably one of the best, too." Sputnikmusic gave the album 3.5 out of five stars, writing: "It's pop-punk, and fairly unambitious stuff at that ... What keeps this record on its feet is the lyricism, the production and the simplicity of it all." Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote: "On Lights and Sounds, Yellowcard sounds light years away from its One for the Kids/Where We Stand days. Granted, the band still trades in the immediate melodies and heart-on-sleeve lyrics that they've used since the beginning, but major-label success suits them well." Though, Phares went on to add that the band "ends up sounding self-assured instead of compromised in its big-budget surroundings." Billboard magazine gave the album 8 out of 10 stars, and claimed that Yellowcard made a "strong effort that trades sunny-sounding rockers and breakup songs for weightier concerns of war and family, 'Lights' conveys that maturity without seeming strained." Dan McClanahan of Iowa State Daily wrote: "...This disc will likely change people's opinion of Yellowcard. Much more angst and a drastically matured sound make for a pleasant surprise." McClanahan revealed that he was not looking forward to listen to the album, but admitted once he heard he knew it embraced the band's "strengths" and that they "greatly expanded the subject matter of its songs."
## Commercial performance
Lights and Sounds debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and Top Internet Albums' charts, and sold over 95,000 copies in its first week of release. Since June 2006, Lights and Sounds has sold over 315,000 copies in the United States. The album did not exceed the expectations of Ocean Avenue, which approached 2 million in record sales. Internationally, Lights and Sounds peaked at number four on the Canadian Top Album Chart, making it Yellowcard's highest debut in Canada. It also debuted at number six in the Australian chart, in which it spent six weeks, before retiring in the number 49 position. In the New Zealand chart it peaked in the number 11 position. Lights and Sounds charted on the number 59 spot in the United Kingdom and spent one week on the chart. In the United States, the album was certified gold by the RIAA on March 15, 2006, indicating shipment of 500,000.
When asked about the disappointment of sales that Lights and Sounds received, Sean Mackin said:
> I think that the band went on ... maybe not a tangent, but we had a goal in mind, and at the end of the recording process, we were so proud of how artistic we were. And I think we showed too much. I think maybe we were a little too jaded and a little too dark, and I think that the lack of hope and faith that we put on this record made us a little less sparkly and light to people. But I think that it's all part of our evolution. We all went a bit too far.
Mackin also insisted that the band did not see the album as a mistake, but more of a "learning experience", so that it would not happen again whey they work on their next project.
Two singles were released from Lights and Sounds. The first, "Lights and Sounds", the title track, was released on November 25, 2005. The song peaked at number four on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. The song also appeared on the Hot Digital Songs chart on the number 26 position. It also charted in Billboard's Hot 100 and Pop 100, respectively. The second single, "Rough Landing, Holly", was released on May 6, 2006, reached 27 on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks, and peaked at number 49 on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) chart.
## Track listing
All lyrics by Ryan Key, except where noted. All music by Key, Sean Mackin, Ryan Mendez, Pete Mosely, and Longineu W. Parsons III, except where noted.
## Personnel
Personnel per booklet.
Yellowcard
- Ryan Key – lead vocals, guitars
- Sean Mackin – violin, background vocals, string arranger
- Ben Harper – guitars (tracks 3–5, 8, 10–12 and 14), dobro (track 5)
- Peter Mosely – bass, keyboards, background vocals, guitars, string arrangement (track 8)
- Longineu W. Parsons III – drums
Production and design
- Neal Avron – producer, recording
- Bradley Cook – recording
- Bill Mims – assistant
- Travis Huff – Pro Tools engineer
- Tom Lord-Alge – mixing
- Femio Hernández – mix assistant
- Ted Jensen – mastering
- Chris Bilheimer – art direction, photography
- Max Vadukul – band photograph
Additional musicians
- Printz Board – trumpet (track 7)
- Natalie Maines – additional vocals (track 13)
- Christine Choi – string arrangement (track 13)
- Rodney Wirtz – string arrangement (track 13)
- Mark Robertson – violin
- Liane Mautner – violin
- Tritia Lee – violin
- Sam Fischer – violin
- Michaela Keating – violin
- Alyssa Park – violin
- Grace Oh – violin
- Paul Henning – violin
- Rodney Wirtz – viola
- Jerome Gordon – viola
- Brett Banducci – viola
- Christine Choi – cello
- Victor Lawrence – cello
- Paul Wiancko – cello
- Nick France – bass
- Cathy Cho – flute
- Amy Tatum – flute
- Don Foster – clarinet
- Teag Reves – horns
- Danielle Ondarza – horns
- Dave Costello – trumpet
- Nick Stoup – percussion
## Charts
Album
Singles
## Certifications |
17,215,077 | Sean Morrison (footballer) | 1,172,946,652 | English footballer | [
"1991 births",
"Cardiff City F.C. players",
"English Football League players",
"English men's footballers",
"English people of Irish descent",
"Footballers from Plymouth, Devon",
"Huddersfield Town A.F.C. players",
"Living people",
"Men's association football defenders",
"Plymouth Argyle F.C. players",
"Premier League players",
"Reading F.C. players",
"Rotherham United F.C. players",
"Southend United F.C. players",
"Swindon Town F.C. players"
]
| Sean Joseph Morrison (born 8 January 1991) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre back for Rotherham United.
He began his career as a youth player with Plymouth Argyle but was released in 2007, joining Swindon Town where he made his professional debut. He went on to make 50 appearances in the Football League for Swindon, spending time on loan with Southend United. In 2011, he signed for Championship side Reading, and had two spells on loan with Huddersfield Town during which he helped the club secure promotion to the Championship after winning the 2012 Football League One play-off final.
After returning to Reading, he made his Premier League debut for the side before being relegated at the end of the season. He made more than 40 appearances for the club before signing for Cardiff City in 2014. Morrison was appointed captain of Cardiff in September 2016 and helped the club win promotion to the Premier League in the following campaign after finishing as runners-up in the Championship during the 2017–18 season. After leaving Cardiff in January 2023, he signed for Rotherham United later that month.
## Club career
### Swindon Town
Born in Plymouth, Devon, Morrison was a keen sportsman as a teenager, playing football and competing in athletics events. He favoured the long jump and represented his county and the South-West England team in the event. At the age of fourteen, he gave up athletics due to the travelling involved and to focus on his football career. Morrison joined his hometown club Plymouth Argyle in 2006, playing in the club's youth system for a year. However, he was released by Plymouth at the age of sixteen after being told by coaches that he "didn't use (his) size well enough." He subsequently joined Swindon Town in the summer of 2007, after being spotted by youth team manager Paul Bodin, signing an 18-month professional contract in February 2008, before being promoted to the first team in March 2008. Swindon manager Maurice Malpas commented that he would like to see Morrison and fellow youth player Ben Joyce gain first team experience, and Morrison made his professional debut on 26 April 2008 against Gillingham at the age of seventeen, coming on as a first-half substitute for Jerel Ifil during a 1–1 draw. He made his first start for Swindon on the final day of the season, 3 May 2008, in a 2–1 victory over Millwall.
The following season, Morrison featured more frequently in the first team, making 23 appearances in all competitions and scored his first goal for the club on 25 October 2008, in a 2–0 league victory against Oldham Athletic. His performances led to several requests from Premier League sides to take Morrison on trial, which were rejected by Swindon, with new Swindon manager Danny Wilson describing him as "the future of the club." Morrison also won the club's Young Player of the Year award. In May 2009, Scottish side Celtic saw a joint bid of £1.2 million for Morrison and teammate Simon Cox rejected.
Having struggled to break into the first team at the start of the 2009–10 season, with Gordon Greer and Scott Cuthbert being preferred, Morrison signed a one-month loan deal with Southend United on 14 November 2009. He made his debut for Southend in a 1–0 defeat against Yeovil Town, being sent off for the first time in his career after 34 minutes for a professional foul. The loan deal was extended in December. Southend hoped to extend his loan in January 2010, although he eventually returned to Swindon later that same month after being recalled. Southend manager Steve Tilson later expressed his frustration over the decision, stating that "I'm not going to hide the fact that we're very disappointed." During his loan spell, Morrison appeared eight times for Southend but made only four further appearances for Swindon during the remainder of the season.
At the start of the 2010–11 season, Morrison was restored to the first team at Swindon with manager Danny Wilson praising Morrison's maturity at the start of the campaign. Having displaced Lecsinel Jean-François in defence, Morrison scored five times in the first half of the season, including a goal against his former club Plymouth in the FA Cup.
### Reading
On 14 January 2011, Swindon Town and Reading reached an agreement to transfer Morrison after a release clause in the player's contract was activated, with the deal completing four days later. Although the fee was officially undisclosed, it was reported to be between £250,000 and £300,000. Having failed to make an appearance for the club since signing, on 23 March 2011, he joined Huddersfield Town on loan until the end of the season, with Reading retaining 24-hour recall after the first month. Huddersfield had shown an interest in signing Morrison before his move to Reading, with the player favouring a move to his parent club. Signed as cover for the central defensive partnership of Peter Clarke and Jamie McCombe, Morrison was an unused substitute in four matches for Huddersfield but, after failing to make an appearance while on loan, Reading recalled Morrison from Huddersfield on 19 April. Despite never playing for the club, Huddersfield manager Lee Clark commented that he was "gutted" to lose Morrison, describing him as "a very good footballer and has shown a terrific attitude all the time." He made his Reading debut in a 2–1 defeat against Charlton Athletic in the second round of the League Cup on 23 August 2011, scoring a consolation goal in his first appearance for the club.
#### Huddersfield Town (loan)
On 24 January 2012, Morrison re-joined Huddersfield Town on loan until the end of the season. He made his debut four days later in their 1–1 draw against Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park and scored his first goal for the club in a 3–3 draw away to Bury on 3 March. Morrison made 19 appearances during the regular league season, helping Huddersfield finish in fourth place and qualify for the play-offs. He played in both legs of the club's 3–2 semifinal aggregate victory over Milton Keynes Dons and scored in the play-off final penalty shoot-out against Sheffield United, which Huddersfield won, promoting them to the Championship. With parent club Reading having been promoted to the Premier League, Morrison stated that he would be open to a permanent move to Huddersfield.
#### First team
After returning to Reading, Morrison's first appearance in the 2012–13 season came in a 3–2 League Cup victory over Queens Park Rangers (QPR) on 26 September where he came on as a second-half substitute. He then started against Arsenal in the next round on 30 October in a game which Reading lost 7–5. On 2 October, he signed a new four-year deal with Reading. He made his Premier League debut against QPR on 4 November 2012, helping the side record their first clean sheet of the season in their following match, a 0–0 draw with Norwich City. He scored his first league goal against Wigan Athletic two weeks later. After dropping out of the side midway through the season, Morrison finished the campaign in a defensive partnership alongside Adrian Mariappa under new manager Nigel Adkins. He finished the campaign with sixteen appearances in the Premier League as Reading suffered relegation back to the Championship after a single season.
In August 2013, Morrison was handed the Reading captaincy in the absence of regular captain Jobi McAnuff. He described the event as "an honour". On 10 December 2013, Morrison extended his contract with Reading until the summer of 2017. In November 2014, Morrison suffered a serious knee injury after damaging ligaments during a 1–1 draw with Queens Park Rangers. The injury kept him out for five months, making his return in a 1–1 draw with former club Huddersfield Town. He finished the season with 21 league appearances as Reading missed out on a play-off place on the final day of the season.
### Cardiff City
On 15 August 2014, Morrison signed a four-year contract with fellow Championship side Cardiff City for an initial fee of £3 million, with further add-ons based on appearances and future promotions. He made his debut for Cardiff four days later in a 1–0 victory against Wigan Athletic. Morrison opened his account for Cardiff scoring the opener in a 2–1 win over Sheffield Wednesday before scoring a brace against AFC Bournemouth.
Morrison was handed the captain's armband at the start of the following season, in the absence of club captain, David Marshall. Morrison was ever-present in Cardiff's starting eleven before suffering a knee injury during a 1–0 loss to Birmingham City on 19 December 2015, which was initially expected to rule him out for a month. However, his return was delayed until 5 March 2016, when he came on in place of Lee Peltier in a 2–0 win against Severnside rivals Bristol City. Morrison saw Cardiff miss out on a play-off place after losing to Sheffield Wednesday, before receiving an operation, meaning he would miss the final game of the season and potentially the start of the next season. Morrison returned in time for the new season and was named as captain in Cardiff's 1–0 loss to Bristol Rovers in the EFL Cup. In September, he was named as permanent club captain by manager Paul Trollope, following the sale of David Marshall. Morrison made a career-high 46 appearances, scoring four goals during the season.
During summer 2017, fellow Championship club, Sheffield Wednesday, submitted a £3 million bid for Morrison, which manager Neil Warnock stated "wouldn't even buy one of Morrisons legs", and an improved £5 million bid. Morrison later stated that he had no intention of leaving the club and committed to Cardiff, signing a three-year contract. His first goal of the season, against Sheffield United, led Cardiff to win their three opening games of the season, for the first time in their history. In February, Morrison scored three goals in five games, as well as helping his side record three clean sheets, which led to him being nominated for EFL Championship Player of the Month. Morrison was named Cardiff City Player of the Year as he captained the side to second place in the Championship, winning promotion to the Premier League. During the season, he made 43 appearances in all competitions, scoring a career-high seven goals, and his defensive partnership with Sol Bamba conceded jointly the fewest goals in the league and recorded 19 clean sheets.
Morrison suffered a broken nose during a 2–1 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion in November 2018 but rejected the chance to have surgery to rectify the injury, instead choosing to postpone the operation in order to keep playing. In January 2019, Morrison was admitted to hospital and underwent emergency surgery to remove a burst appendix. He had been suffering from severe pain in his abdomen and was instructed to go to hospital by Cardiff City club doctor Len Noakes who had been contacted by Morrison's wife after Morrison had refused to seek treatment. It was reported that Morrison was told that he had been "45 minutes from death." Prior to his operation, he had been ever-present in the Premier League for Cardiff, having started all 22 matches to that point. He remained sidelined for six weeks, before making his return in a 5–1 defeat to Watford on 22 February, and finished the season with 35 appearances in all competitions as Cardiff suffered relegation to the Championship.
Upon their return to the Championship, Morrison captained Cardiff to a 5th-placed finish before losing to Fulham in the playoff semi final. In February 2022 he was injured, ruling him out for the season, with the club directors to meet to discuss his future. By July 2022 his contract had expired, and he was undergoing rehabilitation for his injury. Having recovered from his injury, Morrison departed the club in January 2023.
### Rotherham United
On 10 January 2023, he signed for Championship club Rotherham United on a short-term deal until the end of the season.
## International career
At international level, Morrison is eligible to represent both England and the Republic of Ireland, qualifying to represent the nation as two of his grandparents are Irish.
## Style of play
Morrison is regarded as a big, physical centre-back who is noted for his aerial ability. He is also known for his tenacity, with Paul Abbandonato of WalesOnline describing him as "courageous, strong-willed, committed to the cause, passionate" and "Not the most aesthetic of footballers, no frills but talk about guts." He also possesses a long throw-in ability, which Huddersfield manager Lee Clark described as "a valuable attacking asset" during his time with the club. He has described himself as "a commanding centre-half who loves aerial battles and one-to-one duels. I don't shy away from the ugly stuff, but I also like to pass and play when the time is right."
## Career statistics
## Honours
Cardiff City
- EFL Championship runner-up: 2017–18
Individual
- Swindon Town Young Player of the Year: 2008–09
- Cardiff City Player of the Year: 2017–18 |
26,422,591 | Umar al-Aqta | 1,173,631,331 | Arab Emir of Malatya from the 830s to 863 | [
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"9th-century Arab people",
"9th-century monarchs in the Middle East",
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"Banu Sulaym",
"Emirs",
"Governors of the Abbasid Caliphate",
"History of Malatya",
"Monarchs killed in action",
"Year of birth unknown"
]
| ʿUmar ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Marwān or ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaydallāh ibn Marwān, surnamed al-Aqtaʾ (Arabic: الأقطع, lit. 'the one-handed'; μονοχεράρης, monocherares, in Greek), and found as Amer or Ambros (Ἄμερ or Ἄμβρος) in Byzantine sources, was the semi-independent Arab emir of Malatya (Melitene) from the 830s until his death in the Battle of Lalakaon on 3 September 863. During this time, he was one of the greatest threats to the Byzantine Empire on its eastern frontier, and became a prominent figure in later Arabic and Turkish epic literature.
## Biography
ʿUmar belonged to the Banu Sulaym tribe, which was established in the western Jazira at the time of the Muslim conquests and played an important role in the affairs of Malatya and the Jaziran frontier zone (thughur) with the Byzantine Empire as well as the Caucasian frontier with the Khazars. His father, ʿAbdallah or ʿUbaydallah, is little known, except that he was also emir of Malatya, and that ca. 810 he surrendered to the Byzantines the fortress of Kamacha to obtain the release of his son, who was held captive.
ʿUmar himself probably became emir of Malatya in the 830s, and first appears in 838, in the Amorium campaign of the Caliph al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842). The campaign was waged in retaliation for a large-scale raid in the previous year by the Byzantine emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) against the Arab border emirates, including Malatya, whose territory was laid waste and depopulated. During the Amorium campaign, ʿUmar took part with his men in the great Arab victory over Theophilos himself at the Battle of Dazimon in July 838. In the 840s, he provided refuge to the surviving members of the Paulicians, who were fleeing persecution in Byzantium, and allocated them the area around the fortresses of Tephrike, Amara and Argaoun. The Paulician leader Karbeas turned this into a separate Paulician principality, allied with ‘Umar and launching frequent expeditions against Byzantium, either in conjunction with ʿUmar or independently. In 844, ʿUmar's forces participated in a major raid that inflicted a heavy defeat upon an army led by the Byzantine chief minister, Theoktistos, at the Battle of Mauropotamos. In the late 840s, he was also engaged in warfare against a neighbouring Armenian lord named Skleros, whom he finally vanquished after a protracted and bloody conflict.
In the 850s, ʿUmar is recorded as having defeated an expedition led by the Byzantine emperor Michael III (r. 842–867) against Samosata, and to have carried out a number of successful raids into Byzantium. One of them swept through the themes of Thrakesion and Opsikion and reached up to the great Byzantine army base of Malagina in Bithynia. He was unable, however, to stop a retaliatory expedition launched in 856 by Petronas against Melitene and Tephrike, which raided all the way to Amida, taking many prisoners before returning home.
In 860, along with Karbeas, ʿUmar launched a major raid into Anatolia which reached the Black Sea port of Sinope, returning with over 12,000 head of captured livestock. Three years later, he was part of a major Abbasid force that invaded Anatolia through the Cilician Gates. After splitting off from the main force and repulsing a Byzantine army under Emperor Michael III at Mardj al-Usquf ("Bishop's Meadow") in Cappadocia, ʿUmar with his men headed north to sack the port city of Amisos. On his return, however, he was encircled by the Byzantines and killed at the Battle of Lalakaon on 3 September 863. Only a splinter of his army escaped under his son, but was then defeated and captured by the commander of the Charsianon district. According to al-Tabari, when the news of ʿUmar's death, along with that of another celebrated leader, Ali ibn Yahya al-Armani, arrived in Iraq, they provoked riots among the populace of Baghdad, Samarra, and other cities, angry at the Abbasid government's perceived incompetence.
Indeed, ʿUmar's death marked the end of Malatya as a military threat to Byzantium, although the city itself would remain in Muslim hands for 70 more years. ʿUmar himself was succeeded by his son, Abu Abdallah, and grandson, Abu Hafs, who was forced to surrender the city to the Byzantine general John Kourkouas in 934.
## Cultural legacy
Like many other protagonists of the Arab–Byzantine Wars, ʿUmar figures in both Arab and Byzantine legend. In the Arab epic romance "Tale of Delhemma and al-Battal" (Sīrat Ḏāt al-Himma wa-l-Baṭṭāl), he is a major figure, although his role has been diminished and he is often cast as almost a villain, due to the tale's bias in favour of the Banu Sulaym's rivals, the Banu Kilab, who furnish most of the heroic characters. Traditions about ʿUmar seem also to have influenced the story cycle around ‘Umar ibn al-Numan and his sons which became included in the One Thousand and One Nights, while ʿUmar himself features in later Turkish epic literature centred around the heroic figure of Battal Ghazi (inspired by the real-life Umayyad general Abdallah al-Battal), who is also one of the main heroes of the Delhemma.
In Byzantine literature, ʿUmar is regarded by modern scholars as the probable prototype for the emir Ambron, the grandfather of the eponymous hero in the epic poem Digenes Akritas, while the Greek scholar G. Veloudis suggested him as the origin of the eponymous hero of the Song of Armouris. The German scholar Hans-Georg Beck finds this identification unlikely, but points out the reference to a "short-armed" Arab leader in the same tale, which may reflect a folk tradition based on ʿUmar. Finally, the 10th-century scholar al-Mas'udi reports (The Meadows of Gold, VIII, 74–75) that ʿUmar was among the "illustrious Muslims" whose portraits were displayed in Byzantine churches in recognition of their valour. |
10,836,486 | Beach Games | 1,138,659,828 | null | [
"2007 American television episodes",
"The Office (American season 3) episodes"
]
| "Beach Games" is the twenty-third episode of the third season of the American version of The Office, and the 51st of the series. In this episode, the office goes to a nearby lake for some "beach games". It is revealed that Michael (Steve Carell) is being interviewed for a position at corporate and that the winner of the beach games will become regional manager. Meanwhile, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Angela (Angela Kinsey) sabotage Andy (Ed Helms), and Pam (Jenna Fischer) spends her day taking notes of the office workers' activities.
The episode was written by Jennifer Celotta and Greg Daniels and directed by Harold Ramis. Filming took place at a fake beach near Hansen Dam, as it was "the bleakest lake [they could] find." The crew had to deal with hot temperatures during the day and "frigid" weather at night. One of Helms' scenes involved him being trapped on a lake in a sumo wrestling outfit, forcing him to wear a harness and be pulled by a boat manned by a crew member. For the fire walk, orange and yellow gels and lava rocks were used, and gas lines were installed to produce flames.
An estimated 7.2 million viewers watched "Beach Games" on its first American broadcast on May 10, 2007, resulting in the episode placing fourth for the night in its timeslot. It received mainly positive reviews from television critics, and many cited the sumo suit scenes and the coal walk scene as particular highlights. Most critics praised Pam's speech at the end of the episode.
## Plot
When Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is invited by CFO David Wallace to interview for a position at Dunder-Mifflin corporate headquarters in New York City, he assumes he will get the job. So he decides to hold a Survivor-like competition at Lake Scranton to determine his successor. The entire office travels to the lake by bus, except for Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein), whom Michael will not allow to attend, much to Toby's disappointment because he anticipated getting to see Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) wearing her bikini.
Michael selects the "tribe" captains – Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) and Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker) – and instructs Pam to take detailed notes on the events of the day, which include games such as egg and spoon races and hot dog eating contests. Initially unaware of the purpose of the exercise, the employees do not all take it seriously. However, when Michael reveals he is interviewing for the job in New York, Andy and Dwight step up their efforts and Stanley tries to be enthusiastic but quickly gives up. David Wallace also asks Jim and Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) to interview for the same position that Michael is pursuing.
To support her secret lover Dwight, Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) sabotages Andy, leaving him adrift in the lake in an inflatable sumo wrestling costume. Michael's final event is a walk across hot coals. Initially, only Pam volunteers, but Michael refuses to let her walk across because she is not being considered to replace him. However, Michael cannot even bring himself to do it. Dwight throws himself on the coals, refusing to leave until he is given the job, and he writhes in agony until he is dragged off.
As a last-ditch effort to salvage the day, Michael assembles a "Tribal Council" stand-up comedy competition. Jim declines to participate, and reveals that he has applied for the position in New York. While they are doing this, Pam wanders off and runs barefoot across the hot coals. Feeling a new sense of confidence because of the experience, she interrupts the Tribal Council to berate her colleagues for treating her poorly, citing the fact that almost no one attended her art show. She rounds on Jim, and tells him that she called off her wedding because of him, that it is "fine" that he is with someone else now, but that she misses the fun that they had as best friends before he transferred. As she runs to cool her feet in the water, the cameraman turns to Jim who is now in a blank stare, shaken by the confession.
## Production
"Beach Games" was written by co-executive producer Jennifer Celotta and series creator Greg Daniels, and was directed by Harold Ramis, whose credits include the episodes "A Benihana Christmas" and "Safety Training". Celotta and Daniels came up with the idea for the opening scene while researching medical symptoms at WebMD; they began considering ideas for the episode's cold open, and decided to write on what "we're doing right now," resulting in Michael researching symptoms. Michael's later conversation with David Wallace set an important foundation for both the season and the series, as it established that several people would be competing for a corporate job and solidified the CFO as an important character. The actor who plays Wallace, guest star Andy Buckley, was then working at Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker.
Originally the crew sought to film at a lake that resembled Lake Scranton. However, upon arriving at one in the area they found that it was too beautiful, as they had wanted a lake that was the equivalent of the dour office: "the bleakest lake [they could] find." Eventually, much of the episode was filmed at a fake beach at the reservoir of Hansen Dam, where it was "a thousand degrees during the day and minus 40 at night," Celotta remarked in the DVD audio commentary. "We had tents pumping air conditioning that didn't work all day long," according to one crew member. And at night, the production crew set up heaters everywhere because the weather became "frigid".
Actress Kate Flannery later said that the days of filming were extremely "hot", and she became sick of hot dogs after eating many of them in the contest seen in the episode. Many cast members spit out the hot dogs after putting them in their mouths, an act that sometimes activated Ed Helms' gag reflex. The cast members found the sumo suits uncomfortable, both due to the hot weather and the inability to sit down. Actress Angela Kinsey previewed before the episode broadcast that she would "forever look at John Krasinski differently, because he looked so hilarious to me" wearing his sumo suit. For the scenes of Helms floating in the lake in his sumo suit, the actor wore a harness and a fishing line that snaked out through his sleeve, the purpose being to drag him farther out on the lake. A crew member pulled him in a row boat; the crew would film a take of the scene, and then would have to wait fifteen minutes to do it again.
To create a safe enough fire pit to allow the actors to walk on it, the crew used a "light box buried in the ground with orange and yellow gels on it, with lava rocks on top," according to Ramis. Gas lines were also buried in the sand to supply a steady stream of flames. Many of the scenes and lines of dialogue were improvised, such as Andy throwing a rock at a duck and Jim guiding an unsuspecting Karen into the water. For Pam's speech, Daniels and Celotta knew it was important, and discussed with Ramis for about 45 minutes about how best to shoot it. Many different takes were shot, and Celotta thought Fischer "was so amazing, take after take after take." Ramis believed the past 28 episodes had contained a slow build-up to this scene. Daniels wrote most of the speech, though Celotta did contribute some parts.
The third season DVD contains a number of deleted scenes. Notable cut scenes included Jim receiving a call informing him of the job opening, Michael annoying Pam when she's preparing the hot dogs by telling her to grill faster, Dwight sumo wrestling with Stanley, Ryan asking to participate in the fire walk, and Andy failing to flag down a passing car.
## Cultural references
On the bus, the cast sing songs such as the Kenny Rogers song "The Gambler" and the Flintstones theme song. Ramis encouraged them to sing, as he had never ridden on a bus where people did not sing. Also in the episode, Michael wears Sandals gear and a beaded necklace, a reference to his Jamaican vacation in "Back from Vacation". According to Helms and the episode's writers, the plot references the reality television series Survivor and The Bachelor, and The Apprentice. Before their work on The Office, the camera men used in this episode shot Survivor for four years. Several media outlets noted similarities between Michael and Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor.
## Reception
The episode first aired in the U.S. on May 10, 2007, attracting 7.2 million viewers and a 3.9/11 ratings share among adults aged 18 to 49. It ranked fourth in its timeslot behind episodes of Survivor: Fiji, Ugly Betty, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. It was a special 28-minute "supersized" episode.
Entertainment Weekly columnist Abby West considered Pam's speech to be "a terrific payoff for those of us invested (some might say too much) in the Jim-Pam-Karen love triangle." West also praised other aspects of the episode, such as the fire walk and the sequences with Stanley; to her, "everyone brought his or her A game (in hilarity, if not in effort) to the race to succeed Michael." IGN's Travis Fickett rated "Beach Games" 8.5/10, an indication of a "great" episode. Like West, he highlighted Stanley for praise, and also liked Helms being trapped on the lake. Fickett concluded that "while this episode's closing scene doesn't have the impact of Jim telling Pam he was in love with her at the end of Season 2, it is one of those long awaited moments that we knew was coming. And Jenna Fischer, as Pam, handles it perfectly. Once again the Scranton branch is facing some big changes, and the show has us eagerly awaiting the season finale."
Give Me My Remote writer Kath Skerry liked the cast's scenes with the sumo suits, but saved most of her praise for Pam's speech. She declared that it "was AMAZING. Jenna Fischer blew me away with that speech. It's what I have been hoping for since the first episode of this season. It didn't end with Jim swooping in and kissing Pam but there's still one episode left in the season. So that's what we have to ponder over the next week." Jay Black of AOLTV also enjoyed the episode. He wrote, "I thought that it was a bit more low key than some of the previous episodes (hilarious sumo outfits not withstanding) and that suited me just fine. I thought that Michael's ridiculousness, always a difficult balancing act, was reigned-in to just this side of believable where it belongs. I thought that it was filled with a great assortment of gags, both character-based and farcical." However, Black was critical of Pam's speech because it felt both "forced" and out of character for Pam to publicly state her feelings. |
1,446,135 | WrestleMania IX | 1,165,527,377 | 1993 World Wrestling Federation pay-per-view event | [
"1993 WWF pay-per-view events",
"1993 in Nevada",
"April 1993 events in the United States",
"Events in Paradise, Nevada",
"Professional wrestling shows in the Las Vegas Valley",
"WrestleMania"
]
| WrestleMania IX was the ninth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). The event took place on April 4, 1993, at Caesars Palace in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada. It was the first WrestleMania event held outdoors.
WrestleMania IX was built around two main storylines. The first was the seemingly unstoppable Yokozuna challenging Bret Hart for the WWF Championship in the main event, a right he earned by winning the 1993 Royal Rumble. The other major storyline was the return of Hulk Hogan, who had departed the WWF following WrestleMania VIII but returned to team with Brutus Beefcake against the WWF Tag Team Champions, Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster). Hogan and Beefcake lost the tag team match, but Hogan later faced Yokozuna for the title in an impromptu, unadvertised 22-second match after Yokozuna defeated Hart to win the championship. In addition, Shawn Michaels retained the Intercontinental Championship, though he lost his match against Tatanka.
The event has been panned by critics and fans alike. The most frequent criticism has been related to the match between The Undertaker and Giant Gonzalez, Hulk Hogan's title win, and the Roman togas worn by announcers. Both the pay-per-view buyrate and the attendance for the event dropped from the previous year's WrestleMania.
## Production
### Background
WrestleMania is considered the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) flagship pay-per-view (PPV) event, having first been held in 1985. It is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of the WWF's original four pay-per-views, which includes Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, which were eventually dubbed the "Big Four". WrestleMania IX was scheduled to be held on April 4, 1993, at Caesars Palace in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada.
Early TV promos for WrestleMania IX ticket sales, airing in December 1992, focused on shots of Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart, with quick shots of Doink the Clown, Razor Ramon, Crush, Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, and Randy Savage also shown. Hogan had notably not appeared on WWF TV since April of that year. Flair would not be on the roster at the time of the event.
This was the first WrestleMania held entirely outdoors, a concept the company did not use again until WrestleMania XXIV in 2008. Because WrestleMania IX was held in Caesars Palace, the WWF promoted the event as the "World's Largest Toga Party". The arena was made to look like a Roman coliseum, and the event featured guards, trumpeters, and several live animals. The company built on this theme by having the commentators, including debuting announcer Jim Ross, wear togas. Ring announcer Howard Finkel was also renamed "Finkus Maximus" for the day. Randy Savage came to the broadcast booth accompanied by women throwing flower petals and feeding him grapes while he rode on a couch carried by guards. Bobby Heenan made his entrance wearing a toga and riding a camel backwards.
Hulk Hogan's visibly damaged eye was explained in the storyline as the result of Ted DiBiase hiring a group of men to attack Hogan before the match. In reality, the cause of injury has been open to debate. One theory is that Randy Savage punched Hogan because he believed that his ex-wife Elizabeth Hulette had an affair with Hogan while Savage and Hulette were married (the couple divorced in September 1992). WWF officials claimed that the injury was the result of a jet ski accident.
A match was scheduled between Bam Bam Bigelow and Kamala, but it was canceled due to time constraints before the event began.
### Storylines
The buildup to the pay-per-view consisted of feuds scripted by the WWF's writers, and the matches that took place at the event had pre-determined outcomes that had been decided by the promotion.
One of the feuds heading into the event was between Tatanka and Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels. Tatanka was in the midst of an undefeated streak and had wrestled Michaels twice in the months leading up to WrestleMania IX. Tatanka pinned Michaels in a singles match on the February 13, 1993, episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling and later teamed with The Nasty Boys in a six-man match against Michaels and the Beverly Brothers; Tatanka pinned Michaels to win this match as well. Michaels was also feuding with Sensational Sherri, who stood in Tatanka's corner during the match. Sherri had been Michaels' valet. When Marty Jannetty tried to hit Michaels with a mirror, however, Michaels pulled Sherri in front of him to protect himself. Sherri's anger at getting hit over the head with a mirror caused her to turn on him at Royal Rumble 1993.
The match between The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner) and The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu) had little background, although Afa, who managed The Headshrinkers, claimed that his team would "tear [the Steiners'] heads off". Doink the Clown and Crush had been feuding since the January 2, 1993, episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling. After Crush's match on that show, he confronted Doink, who had thrown a ball at a child in the audience. Crush grabbed Doink by the arm and warned him not to play any more pranks on children. Doink, wearing a cast on the arm that Crush had supposedly injured by grabbing, came to ringside during Crush's match on the January 18 episode of WWF Monday Night Raw. He apologized to Crush and gave him a flower; when Crush walked away, Doink removed a prosthetic arm from his cast and attacked Crush, who was later taken away in an ambulance due to kayfabe (storyline) injuries. For storyline purposes, Crush was said to be too injured to compete in the 1993 Royal Rumble match. Doink continued his pranks by squirting Crush with a water pistol and recording video messages to Crush, which showed two Doinks on the screen.
The feud between The Mega-Maniacs (Brutus Beefcake and Hulk Hogan) and WWF Tag Team Champions Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster) stemmed from a legitimate parasailing accident in 1990 that forced Beefcake to undergo reconstructive surgery to his face. He was unable to wrestle again until the February 15, 1993, episode of Raw. He faced DiBiase in his return match, after which DiBiase and Schyster attacked him. DiBiase held Beefcake for Schyster to hit him in the face with a briefcase, but Jimmy Hart, who managed Money Inc., repeatedly got in the way before Schyster shoved him out of the ring. Schyster then hit Beefcake in the face with the briefcase. Hart later claimed that he felt the need to "step up and do the right thing" and that he "had a change of heart", and his intervention led to him becoming a babyface, or crowd favorite. Shortly thereafter, Hulk Hogan made his return to the WWF and joined with Beefcake, and manager Jimmy Hart, to form The Mega-Maniacs and challenge Money Inc. for the WWF Tag Team Championship.
Mr. Perfect's rivalry with Bobby Heenan dated back to Survivor Series (1992). Perfect and Ric Flair were managed by Heenan, but Perfect turned on Flair and Heenan by agreeing to face them as part of a tag team match at Survivor Series. Flair feuded briefly with Perfect but left the company to return to World Championship Wrestling. Lex Luger had joined Vince McMahon's World Bodybuilding Federation, but he signed with McMahon's WWF when the bodybuilding company failed. He made his debut at Royal Rumble 1993, where he was unveiled as Heenan's latest wrestler, Narcissus (although the ring name was changed to "The Narcissist" Lex Luger).
The Undertaker's feud with Giant Gonzalez was an offshoot of The Undertaker's feud with manager Harvey Wippleman. The Undertaker defeated Kamala, who was managed by Wippleman, at SummerSlam 1992. A rematch was held at Survivor Series 1992, and The Undertaker beat Kamala in a coffin match. Wippleman vowed revenge, and he introduced Gonzalez at Royal Rumble 1993 and instructed him to attack The Undertaker. The Undertaker was eliminated from the Royal Rumble match as a result of the interference, and a match was scheduled between The Undertaker and Giant Gonzalez for WrestleMania IX.
Beginning with his debut with the company in 1992, Yokozuna was pushed by the WWF as an unstoppable monster heel. Weighing over 500 pounds, he used the Banzai Drop, a move in which he jumped from the second rope and sat on his opponent's chest, to defeat several of the WWF's biggest stars. In a notable match on the February 6, 1993, episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, Yokozuna attacked "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and performed the Banzai Drop four times. Due to the kayfabe injuries from the attack, Duggan was unable to wrestle for over two months. Yokozuna earned a title shot against WWF Champion Bret Hart by winning the 1993 Royal Rumble match. During the contract signing, Yokozuna attacked Hart and performed the Banzai Drop on him.
## Event
Before the televised broadcast began, Tito Santana defeated Papa Shango in a dark match, which became available for viewing on April 4, 2019 in the Hidden Gems section on WWE Network and is also notable as the WWE debut of Jim Ross on commentary.
In the first match of the pay-per-view event, WWF Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels was accompanied to the ring by a new valet, Luna Vachon. Sensational Sherri followed Tatanka to the ring to prevent Vachon from getting involved in the match. During the match, Vachon approached Tatanka twice outside the ring, but Sherri was able to intervene and stop Vachon from interfering. Tatanka spent much of the match trying to injure Michaels with an armbar hold. Michaels gained the advantage and almost pinned Tatanka with a victory roll, but Tatanka escaped the pin attempt and performed a war dance to channel his energy. Michaels threw Tatanka out of the ring and tried to jump at him to attack, but Tatanka moved. Michaels was unable to return to the ring within ten seconds; he pulled the referee out of the ring. Tatanka was awarded the victory by countout but did not win the championship because titles can only change hands as a result of pinfall or submission. Vachon attacked Sherri after the match by pulling her off the ring apron and delivery a devastating clothesline, body slam and kicks to the ribs. Tatanka had to help Sherri make it back to the dressing rooms; however, she would be attacked again at the first aid station by Vachon, who choked her, hit her head against a wall, and dropped a machine on top of her and then Vachon was arrested by security.
In the next match, The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner and Scott Steiner) faced The Headshrinkers (Samu and Fatu). The advantage switched back and forth several times, as the Steiners threw The Headshrinkers with several suplex variations and used their aerial abilities to attack their opponents from the ring ropes. The Headshrinkers relied mainly on using their power to wear down the Steiners. At one point, Fatu picked Rick Steiner upon his shoulders so that Samu could attack Rick from the top rope. Rick caught Samu instead and performed a bodyslam on Samu from Fatu's shoulders. The match ended when Scott Steiner performed a Frankensteiner to pin Samu and win the match.
Crush attacked Doink the Clown outside the ring prior to the next match. After getting Doink inside the ring, Crush used his strength advantage to overpower Doink. Doink gained the advantage but missed two attacks from the top rope. Crush used more power moves to wear down Doink, and Doink tried to crawl under the ring. Crush forced Doink back into the ring and performed the Cranium Crunch, a head vice submission hold, on Doink. Doink pulled himself to the ropes and broke the hold. Doink hit the referee and knocked him unconscious; as a result of this staged ref bump, a second Doink the Clown (portrayed by Steve Keirn) was able to interfere. He hit Crush with a prosthetic arm, which enabled the first Doink to win by pinfall when the referee regained consciousness.
Razor Ramon faced Bob Backlund next. Ramon used his power to dominate the majority of the match, but Backlund used hip tosses to attempt a comeback. Ramon won the match in under four minutes by pinning Backlund with a small package.
In the following match, Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster) defended their WWF Tag Team Championship against The Mega-Maniacs (Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake). Beefcake wore a protective titanium facemask because of his injured face, and Hulk Hogan came to the ring with a black eye, which led the announcers to speculate about the cause. Money Inc. gained the early advantage, but DiBiase soon injured himself by hitting Beefcake's mask. Hogan and Beefcake brawled with their enemies and controlled the match until Money Inc. was counted out. Referee Earl Hebner announced, however, that he would strip them of their title if they did not return to the ring and continue the match. DiBiase returned to the ring and rendered Hogan unconscious with the Million Dollar Dream chokehold. Beefcake attacked DiBiase by applying a sleeper hold and then turned his attention to Schyster, but DiBiase hit him in the back with Schyster's briefcase. Money Inc. attacked Beefcake and removed his facemask, but Beefcake fought back and applied a sleeper hold to Schyster. The referee was accidentally knocked unconscious, and Hogan recovered and attacked both members of Money Inc. with Beefcake's facemask. He tried to make the cover for a pinfall, but the referee still unconscious. Manager Jimmy Hart turned his jacket inside-out to reveal a striped referee jacket; he made the three-count and declared The Mega-Maniacs the winners of the match. Referee Danny Davis came to the ring and disqualified Hogan for using the facemask as a weapon. Money Inc. won the match and retained their championship, but The Mega-Maniacs threw them out of the ring and opened Schyster's briefcase to reveal stacks of cash. They celebrated in the ring and threw the money into the crowd.
Lex Luger was accompanied to the ring by four women dressed in bikinis as he prepared to face Mr. Perfect. The match began with technical wrestling, and Perfect tried to injure Luger's knee while Luger worked on Perfect's back. Perfect took control of the match with a powerslam and tried to pin Luger after performing a dropkick from the top rope. Luger's foot was on the ropes, however, so the referee halted the three-count and continued the match. Luger gained momentum and pinned Perfect; Perfect's feet were on the rope, but the referee did not see them. Luger continued to attack Perfect after the match and hit him with his forearm, which contains a steel plate as the result of a legitimate motorcycle accident. When Perfect got up, he chased Luger but was attacked by Shawn Michaels backstage.
In the next match, The Undertaker faced Giant Gonzalez. Both men tried to use their size and power to control the match. Gonzalez used a reverse chinlock to wear The Undertaker down and attacked him outside the ring. The Undertaker regained control of the match and knocked Gonzalez onto his knees. Harvey Wippleman threw Gonzalez a rag soaked with chloroform, which Gonzalez used to knock The Undertaker unconscious. The referee disqualified Gonzalez for using a foreign object and awarded the match to The Undertaker. After the match, The Undertaker recovered and attacked Giant Gonzalez.
In the main event and final scheduled match on the card, Bret Hart defended the WWF Championship against Yokozuna. Hart tried to use his technical wrestling abilities against Yokozuna, while Yokozuna relied on his size advantage in the match. Hart gained control at the beginning, but Yokozuna came back with a clothesline, leg drop, and nerve hold. Hart regained the advantage when Yokozuna missed a running splash. Yokozuna applied another nerve hold but missed a running splash again. He recovered and carried Hart to the middle of the ring, but Hart removed the protective padding on the turnbuckle in the corner of the ring. He threw Yokozuna's head into the turnbuckle and applied the Sharpshooter, his signature submission hold that stretches the opponent's legs and back. Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna's manager, threw salt in Hart's eyes, which enabled Yokozuna to pin Hart and win the WWF Championship.
In an impromptu main event and the final match on the card, Hulk Hogan came to ring to check on Hart's condition. Hogan had stated during an interview earlier in the broadcast that he wanted to face the winner of the match, and Fuji challenged Hogan to face Yokozuna immediately in an impromptu bout. Hogan agreed and entered the ring. Fuji tried to throw salt in Hogan's eyes, but he missed and the salt hit Yokozuna. Hogan performed a leg drop and pinned Yokozuna to win the title in 22 seconds.
## Reception
The event was attended by 16,891 fans, who paid a total of \$1,100,000 in admission fees. This represents less than one-third of the number of fans at WrestleMania VIII, which had an attendance of 62,167. The pay-per-view drew a 2.3 buyrate, which was lower than the previous year's 2.8 buyrate. It was higher, however, than the buyrates for any of the following four WrestleManias.
WrestleMania IX received overwhelmingly negative reviews. The event has received criticism for what some reviewers have perceived as a poorly booked event. Writing for SLAM! Wrestling, John Powell states that, aside from the Intercontinental and Tag Team Championship matches and the scantily-clad women that accompanied Lex Luger to the ring, the rest of the broadcast was poor. He is also critical of some of the outfits worn for the event, notably Jim Ross's toga and Giant Gonzalez's spray-painted suit. Reviewing the event for Online Onslaught, Adam Gutschmidt claims that several of the matches flowed poorly and had ill-conceived conclusions. He also claims that the match between Giant Gonzalez and The Undertaker was a "dud" and that Hulk Hogan's ego made the conclusion the "worst WrestleMania ending ever". RD Reynolds, owner of the website WrestleCrap, has inducted the event into the site's list of "the very worst in pro wrestling". He cites Giant Gonzalez, Papa Shango, Luger's "narcissist" gimmick, and Jim Ross wearing a toga as his reasons for including the event in the list.
WWE places two events from WrestleMania IX in its top 50 WrestleMania moments: Bobby Heenan's entrance on the camel, which the company calls "one of the most hilarious moments in WWE history", and Hulk Hogan's title victory. Matt Anoa'i, who wrestled for WWE as Rosey, and was the brother of Roman Reigns, cousin of Yokozuna, Samu and Fatu, has identified The Headshrinkers performing a double splash on Scott Steiner at this event as his favorite moment at WrestleMania.
WrestleMania IX was released on VHS by Coliseum Video. It was then released as part of the WWF's WrestleMania: The Collection (1985–1997) box set in 1997. The video was re-released six years later in March 1999. That month, it was also released as part of the WWF's WrestleMania: The Legacy box set. It was also released on DVD for WWE's History of WrestleMania I-IX box set on September 14, 2004.
In the United Kingdom, the event was released on VHS on July 5, 1993. Packaged together with WrestleMania X, it was released on DVD for the WWE Tagged Classics series on May 8, 2006.
## Aftermath
A feud began between Shawn Michaels and Mr. Perfect after WrestleMania IX as a result of Michaels attacking Perfect. They faced each other at SummerSlam 1993, and Michaels won by countout after his new bodyguard, Diesel attacked Perfect. Perfect then feuded with Diesel until leaving the WWF.
Money Inc. lost the WWF Tag Team Championship to the Steiner Brothers on June 14, 1993. Money Inc. won the belts back in a rematch on June 16, but the Steiners won them again three days later. Money Inc. received several rematches but were unable to regain the title; they soon focused on singles competition, and DiBiase retired at the end of August.
The Undertaker continued to feud with Harvey Wippleman. On the June 12, 1993, episode of WWF Superstars of Wrestling, Wippleman, Giant Gonzalez, and Mr. Hughes attacked The Undertaker, and his manager Paul Bearer, and stole the urn that was said to be the source of his power. The Undertaker and Giant Gonzalez faced each other one final time at SummerSlam 1993 in a Rest in Peace match, in which neither wrestler could be disqualified. The Undertaker won the match to end the feud. After the match, a frustrated Gonzalez choke slammed Wippleman to the delight of the fans and turned face in the process.
Bret Hart later claimed that during a conversation with Vince McMahon, he was told that Hulk Hogan refused to drop the WWF Championship to him. However, Hulk Hogan stated that, during a conversation with Vince McMahon, a deal was made for Hogan to drop the belt to the top heel at the time, Yokozuna, at the following King of The Ring. All three men eventually wound up in a meeting, where McMahon outlined the plan to have Hogan drop the belt to Yokozuna and denied telling Bret that Hogan refused to drop the championship to him.
After regaining the title, Yokozuna challenged any American athlete to bodyslam him on the deck of the USS Intrepid on July 4, 1993. After many challengers failed, Lex Luger arrived by helicopter and bodyslammed Yokozuna. Luger became a fan favorite and changed his gimmick to an American patriot. He faced Yokozuna for the WWF Championship at SummerSlam 1993; he won the match by count-out but did not win the title. Lex Luger and Bret Hart each earned a title match against Yokozuna the following year at WrestleMania X. Luger was disqualified in his match, but Hart won the championship later that night.
## Results |
1,191,260 | Norway Debate | 1,172,723,205 | 1940 debate in the British House of Commons | [
"1940 in politics",
"1940 in the United Kingdom",
"Clement Attlee",
"Debates in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom",
"House of Commons of the United Kingdom",
"May 1940 events",
"Neville Chamberlain",
"Norwegian campaign",
"United Kingdom in World War II",
"Winston Churchill"
]
| The Norway Debate, sometimes called the Narvik Debate, was a momentous debate in the British House of Commons from 7 to 9 May 1940, during the Second World War. The official title of the debate, as held in the Hansard parliamentary archive, is Conduct of the War. The debate was initiated by an adjournment motion enabling the Commons to freely discuss the progress of the Norwegian campaign. The debate quickly brought to a head widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war by Neville Chamberlain's government.
At the end of the second day, there was a division of the House for the members to hold a no confidence motion. The vote was won by the government but by a drastically reduced majority. That led on 10 May to Chamberlain resigning as prime minister and the replacement of his war ministry by a broadly based coalition government, which, under Winston Churchill governed the United Kingdom until after the end of the war in Europe in May 1945.
Chamberlain's government was criticised not only by the Opposition but also by respected members of his own Conservative Party. The Opposition forced the vote of no confidence, in which over a quarter of Conservative members voted with the Opposition or abstained, despite a three-line whip. There were calls for national unity to be established by formation of an all-party coalition but it was not possible for Chamberlain to reach agreement with the opposition Labour and Liberal parties. They refused to serve under him, although they were willing to accept another Conservative as prime minister. After Chamberlain resigned as prime minister (he remained Conservative Party leader until October 1940), they agreed to serve under Churchill.
## Background
In 1937, Neville Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeded Stanley Baldwin as prime minister, leading a National Government overwhelmingly composed of Conservatives but supported by small National Labour and Liberal National parties. It was opposed by the Labour and Liberal parties. Since assuming power in Germany in 1933, the Nazi Party had pushed an irredentist foreign policy. Chamberlain initially attempted to avert war by a policy of appeasement, such as the Munich Agreement, but this was abandoned after Germany abandoned diplomatic means and became more overtly expansionist with the occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
One of the strongest critics of both appeasement and German aggression was Conservative backbencher Winston Churchill who, although he was one of the country's most prominent political figures, had last held government office in 1929. After Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany two days later. Chamberlain thereupon created a war cabinet into which he invited Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty. It was at this point that a government supporter (possibly David Margesson, the Government Chief Whip) noted privately:
> For two-and-a-half years, Neville Chamberlain has been Prime Minister of Great Britain. During this period Great Britain has suffered a series of diplomatic defeats and humiliations, culminating in the outbreak of European war. It is an unbroken record of failure in foreign policy, and there has been no outstanding success at home to offset the lack of it abroad. ... Yet it is probable that Neville Chamberlain still retains the confidence of the majority of his fellow country-men and that, if it were possible to obtain an accurate test of the feelings of the electorate, Chamberlain would be found the most popular statesman in the land.
Once Germany had rapidly overrun Poland in September 1939, there was a sustained period of military inactivity for over six months dubbed the "Phoney War". On 3 April 1940, Chamberlain said in an address to the Conservative National Union that Adolf Hitler, the German dictator, "had missed the bus". Only six days later, on 9 April, Germany launched an attack in overwhelming force on neutral and unprepared Norway after swiftly occupying Denmark. In response, Britain deployed military forces to assist the Norwegians.
Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had direct responsibility for the conduct of naval operations in the Norwegian campaign. Before the German invasion, he had pressed the Cabinet to ignore Norway's neutrality, mine its territorial waters and be prepared to seize Narvik, in both cases to disrupt the export of Swedish iron ore to Germany during winter months, when the Baltic Sea was frozen. He had, however, advised that a major landing in Norway was not realistically within Germany's powers. Apart from the naval victory in the Battles of Narvik, the Norwegian campaign went badly for the British forces, generally because of poor planning and organisation but essentially because military supplies were inadequate and, from 27 April, the Anglo-French forces were obliged to evacuate.
When the House of Commons met on Thursday, 2 May, Labour leader Clement Attlee asked: "Is the Prime Minister now able to make a statement on the position in Norway?" Chamberlain was reluctant to discuss the military situation because of the security factors involved but did express a hope that he and Churchill would be able to say much more next week. He went on to make an interim statement of affairs but was not forthcoming about "certain operations (that) are in progress (as) we must do nothing which might jeopardise the lives of those engaged in them". He asked the House to defer comment and question until next week. Attlee agreed and so did Liberal leader Archibald Sinclair, except that he requested a debate on Norway lasting more than a single day.
Attlee then presented Chamberlain with a private notice in which he requested a schedule for next week's Commons business. Chamberlain announced that a debate on the general conduct of the war would commence on Tuesday, 7 May. The debate was keenly anticipated in both Parliament and the country. In his diary entry for Monday, 6 May, Chamberlain's Assistant Private Secretary John Colville wrote that all interest centred on the debate. Obviously, he thought, the government would win through but after facing some very awkward points about Norway. Some of Colville's colleagues including Lord Dunglass, who was Chamberlain's Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) at the time, considered the government position to be sound politically, but less so in other respects. Colville worried that "the confidence of the country may be somewhat shaken".
## 7 May: first day of the debate
### Preamble and other business
The Commons sitting on Tuesday, 7 May 1940, began at 14:45 with Speaker Edward FitzRoy in the Chair. There followed some private business matters and numerous oral answers to questions raised, many of those being about the British Army.
With these matters completed, the debate on the Norwegian campaign began with a routine adjournment motion (i.e., "that this house do now adjourn"). Under Westminster rules, in debates like this which are held to allow for wide-ranging discussion of a variety of topics, the issue is not usually put to a vote.
At 15:48, Captain David Margesson, the Government Chief Whip, made the adjournment motion. The House proceeded to openly discuss "Conduct of the War", specifically the progress of the Norwegian campaign, and Chamberlain rose to make his opening statement.
### Chamberlain's opening speech
Chamberlain began by reminding the House of his statement on Thursday, 2 May, five days earlier, when it was known that British forces had been withdrawn from Åndalsnes. He was now able to confirm that they had also been withdrawn from Namsos to complete the evacuation of Allied forces from central and southern Norway (the campaign in northern Norway continued). Chamberlain attempted to treat the Allied losses as unimportant and claimed that British soldiers "man for man (were) superior to their foes". He praised the "splendid gallantry and dash" of the British forces but acknowledged they were "exposed ... to superior forces with superior equipment".
Chamberlain then said he proposed "to present a picture of the situation" and to "consider certain criticisms of the government". He stated that "no doubt" the withdrawal had created a shock in both the House and the country. At this point, the interruptions began as a Labour member shouted: "All over the world".
Chamberlain sarcastically responded that "ministers, of course, must be expected to be blamed for everything". This provoked a heated reaction with several members derisively shouting: "They missed the bus!" The Speaker had to call on members not to interrupt, but they continued to repeat the phrase throughout Chamberlain's speech and he reacted with what has been described as "a rather feminine gesture of irritation". He was eventually forced to defend the original usage of the phrase directly, claiming that he would have expected a German attack on the Allies at the outbreak of war when the difference in armed power was at its greatest.
Chamberlain's speech has been widely criticised. Roy Jenkins called it "a tired, defensive speech which impressed nobody". Liberal MP Henry Morris-Jones said Chamberlain looked "a shattered man" and spoke without his customary self-assurance. When Chamberlain insisted that "the balance of advantage lay on our side", Liberal MP Dingle Foot could not believe what he was hearing and said Chamberlain was denying the fact that Britain had suffered a major defeat. The backbench Conservative MP Leo Amery said Chamberlain's speech left the House in a restive and depressed, though not yet mutinous, state of mind. Amery believed that Chamberlain was "obviously satisfied with things as they stood" and, in the government camp, the mood was actually positive as they believed they were, in John Colville's words, "going to get away with it".
### Attlee's response to Chamberlain
Clement Attlee responded as Leader of the Opposition. He quoted some of Chamberlain's and Churchill's recent confident assertions about the likely victory of the British. Ministers' statements and, even more so, the press, guided (or deliberately left uncorrected) by the government, had painted far too optimistic a picture of the Norwegian campaign. Given the level of confidence created, the setback had generated widespread disappointment. Attlee now raised the issue of government planning which would be revisited by several later speakers:
> It is said that in this war hitherto there has never been any initiative from our side, and it is said also that there is no real planning in anticipation of the possible strokes that will be taken against us. I think we must examine this affair from that aspect.
Chamberlain had announced additional powers being granted to Churchill which amounted to him having direction of the Chiefs of Staff. Attlee seized on this as an example of government incompetence, though without blaming Churchill, by saying:
> It is against all good rules of organisation that a man who is in charge of major strategy should also be in command of a particular unit. It is like having a man commanding an army in the field and also commanding a division. He has a divided interest between the wider questions of strategy and the problems affecting his own immediate command. The First Lord of the Admiralty has great abilities, but it is not fair to him that he should be put into an impossible position like that.
Attlee struck a theme here that would recur throughout the debate – that the government was incompetent but not Churchill himself, even though he was part of it, as he had suffered from what Jenkins calls a misdirection of his talents. Jenkins remarks that Churchill's potential had not been fully utilised and, most importantly, he was clean of the stain of appeasement.
Chamberlain had been heckled during his speech for having "missed the bus" and he made his case worse by desperately trying, and failing, to excuse his use of that expression a month earlier. In doing so, he provided Attlee with an opportunity. During the conclusion of his response, Attlee said:
> Norway follows Czechoslovakia and Poland. Everywhere the story is "too late". The Prime Minister talked about missing buses. What about all the buses which he and his associates have missed since 1931? They missed all the peace buses but caught the war bus.
Attlee's closing words were a direct attack on all Conservative members, blaming them for shoring up ministers whom they knew to be failures:
> They have allowed their loyalty to the Chief Whip to overcome their loyalty to the real needs of the country. I say that the House of Commons must take its full responsibility. I say that there is a widespread feeling in this country, not that we shall lose the war, that we will win the war, but that to win the war, we want different people at the helm from those who have led us into it.
Leo Amery said later that Attlee's restraint, in not calling for a division of the House (i.e., a vote), was of greater consequence than all his criticisms because, Amery believed, it made it much easier for Conservative members to be influenced by the debate's opening day.
### Sinclair's response to Chamberlain
Sir Archibald Sinclair, the leader of the Liberals, then spoke. He too was critical and began by comparing military and naval staff efficiency, which he considered proven, with political inefficiency:
> It is my contention that this breakdown in organisation occurred because there had been no foresight in the political direction of the war and in the instructions given to the Staffs to prepare for these very difficult operations in due time, and that the Staffs were hastily improvising instead of working to long and carefully-matured plans.
He drew from Chamberlain the admission that whilst troops had been held in readiness to be sent to Norway, no troopships had been retained to send them in. Sinclair gave instances of inadequate and defective equipment and of disorganisation reported to him by servicemen returning from Norway. Chamberlain had suggested that Allied plans had failed because the Norwegians had not put up the expected resistance to the Germans. Sinclair reported that the servicemen "paid a high tribute to the courage and determination with which the Norwegians fought alongside them. They paid a particular tribute to the Norwegian ski patrols. Norwegians at Lillehammer for seven days held up with rifles only a German force with tanks, armoured cars, bombing aeroplanes and all the paraphernalia of modern war".
He concluded his speech by calling for Parliament to "speak out (and say) we must have done with half-measures (to promote) a policy for the more vigorous conduct of the war".
### No longer an ordinary debate
The rest of the first day's debate saw speeches both supporting and criticising the Chamberlain government. Sinclair was followed by two ex-soldiers, Brigadier Henry Page Croft for the Conservatives and Colonel Josiah Wedgwood for Labour. Derided by Labour, Croft made an unconvincing case in support of Chamberlain and described the press as "the biggest dictator of all".
Wedgwood denounced Croft for his "facile optimism, that saps the morale of the whole country". Wedgwood warned of the dangers inherent in trying to negotiate with Hitler and urged prosecution of the war by "a government which can take this war seriously".
Attending the debate was National Labour MP Harold Nicolson who was arguably the pre-eminent diarist of British politics in the twentieth century. He took special notice of a comment made by Wedgwood which, in Nicolson's view, transformed "an ordinary debate (into) a tremendous conflict of wills". Wedgwood had asked if the government was preparing any plan to prevent an invasion of Great Britain. A Conservative MP interrupted and asked him if he had forgotten the Royal Navy. Wedgwood countered that with:
> The British Navy could perfectly well defend this country if it had not gone to the other end of the Mediterranean to keep itself safe from bombing.
Moments later, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, the Conservative Member for Portsmouth North, arrived in the chamber and caused a stir because he was resplendent in his uniform with gold braid and six rows of medals. He squeezed into a bench just behind Nicolson who passed him a piece of paper with Wedgwood's remark scribbled on it. Keyes went to the Speaker and asked to be called next as the honour of the navy was at stake, though he had really come to the House with the intention of criticising the Chamberlain government.
### Keyes: "I speak for the fighting Navy"
When Wedgwood sat down, the Speaker called Keyes, who began by denouncing Wedgwood's comment as "a damned insult". The House, especially David Lloyd George, "roared its applause". Keyes quickly moved on and became the debate's first Tory rebel. As Jenkins puts it, Keyes "turned his guns on Chamberlain" but with the proviso that he was longing to see "proper use made of Churchill's great abilities".
Keyes was a hero of the First World War representing a naval town and an Admiral of the Fleet (though no longer on the active list). He spoke mostly on the conduct of naval operations, particularly the abortive operations to retake Trondheim. Keyes told the House:
> I came to the House of Commons to-day in uniform for the first time because I wish to speak for some officers and men of the fighting, sea-going Navy who are very unhappy. I want to make it perfectly clear that it is not their fault that the German warships and transports which forced their way into Norwegian ports by treachery were not followed in and destroyed as they were at Narvik. It is not the fault of those for whom I speak that the enemy have been left in undisputable possession of vulnerable ports and aerodromes for nearly a month, have been given time to pour in reinforcements by sea and air, to land tanks, heavy artillery and mechanised transport, and have been given time to develop the air offensive which has had such a devastating effect on the morale of Whitehall. If they had been more courageously and offensively employed they might have done much to prevent these unhappy happenings and much to influence unfriendly neutrals.
As the House listened in silence, Keyes finished by quoting Horatio Nelson:
> There are hundreds of young officers who are waiting eagerly to seize Warburton-Lee's torch, or emulate the deeds of Vian of the "Cossack". One hundred and forty years ago, Nelson said, "I am of the opinion that the boldest measures are the safest" and that still holds good to-day.
It was 19:30 when Keyes sat down to "thunderous applause". Nicolson wrote that Keyes' speech was the most dramatic he had ever heard, and the debate from that point on was no longer an investigation of the Norwegian campaign but "a criticism of the government's whole war effort".
### Jones and Bellenger
The next two speakers were National Liberal Lewis Jones and Labour's Frederick Bellenger, who was still a serving army officer and was evacuated from France only a month later. Jones, who supported Chamberlain, was unimpressive and was afterwards accused of introducing party politics into the debate. There was a general exodus from the chamber as Jones was speaking. Bellenger, who repeated much of Attlee's earlier message, called "in the public interest" for a government "of a different character and a different nature".
### Amery: "In the name of God, go!"
When Bellenger sat down, it was 20:03 and the Deputy Speaker, Dennis Herbert, called on Leo Amery, who had been trying for several hours to gain the Speaker's attention. Amery later remarked that there were "barely a dozen" members present (Nicolson was among them) as he began to speak. Nicolson, who expected a powerfully critical speech from Amery, wrote that the temperature continued to rise as Amery began and his speech soon "raised it far beyond the fever point".
Amery had an ally in Clement Davies, chairman of the All Party Action Group which included some sixty MPs. Davies had been a National Liberal subject to the National Government whip but, in protest against Chamberlain, he had resigned it in December 1939 and crossed the floor of the House to rejoin the Liberals in opposition. Like many other members, Davies had gone to eat when Jones began speaking but, on hearing that Amery had been called, he rushed back to the chamber. Seeing that it was nearly empty, Davies approached Amery and urged him to deliver his full speech both to state his full case against the government and also to give Davies time to collect a large audience. Very soon, even though it was the dinner hour, the House began filling rapidly.
Amery's speech is one of the most famous in parliamentary history. As Davies had requested, he played for time until the chamber was nearly full. For much of the speech, the most notable absentee was Chamberlain himself, who was at Buckingham Palace for an audience with the King. Amery began by criticising the government's planning and execution of the Norway campaign, especially their unpreparedness for it despite intelligence warning of likely German intervention and the clear possibility of some such response to the planned British infraction of Norwegian neutrality by the mining of Norwegian territorial waters. He gave an analogy from his own experience which illustrated the government's lack of initiative:
> I remember that many years ago in East Africa a young friend of mine went lion hunting. He secured a sleeping car on the railway and had it detached from the train at a siding near where he expected to find a certain man-eating lion. He went to rest and dream of hunting his lion in the morning. Unfortunately, the lion was out man-hunting that night. He clambered on to the rear of the car, scrabbled open the sliding door, and ate my friend. That is in brief the story of our initiative over Norway.
As tension increased in the House and Amery found himself speaking to a "crescendo of applause", Edward Spears thought he was hurling huge stones at the government glasshouse with "the effect of a series of deafening explosions". Amery widened his scope to criticise the government's whole conduct of the war to date. He moved towards his conclusion by calling for the formation of a "real" National Government in which the Trades Union Congress must be involved to "reinforce the strength of the national effort from inside".
Although sources are somewhat divided on the point, there is a consensus among them that Chamberlain had arrived back in the chamber to hear Amery's conclusion. Nicolson recorded Chamberlain as sitting on a "glum and anxious front bench". Amery said:
> Somehow or other we must get into the Government men who can match our enemies in fighting spirit, in daring, in resolution and in thirst for victory. Some 300 years ago, when this House found that its troops were being beaten again and again by the dash and daring of the Cavaliers, by Prince Rupert's Cavalry, Oliver Cromwell spoke to John Hampden. In one of his speeches he recounted what he said. It was this: I said to him, "Your troops are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters and such kind of fellows.... You must get men of a spirit that are likely to go as far as they will go, or you will be beaten still". It may not be easy to find these men. They can be found only by trial and by ruthlessly discarding all who fail and have their failings discovered. We are fighting to-day for our life, for our liberty, for our all; we cannot go on being led as we are. I have quoted certain words of Oliver Cromwell. I will quote certain other words. I do it with great reluctance, because I am speaking of those who are old friends and associates of mine, but they are words which, I think, are applicable to the present situation. This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go".
Amery delivered the last six words in a near whisper, pointing at Chamberlain as he did so. He sat down and the government's opponents cheered him.
Afterwards, Lloyd George told Amery that his ending was the most dramatic climax he had heard to any speech. Amery himself said he thought he had helped push the Labour Party into forcing a division next day. Harold Macmillan said later that Amery's speech "effectively destroyed the Chamberlain government".
### Later speeches
It was 20:44 when Amery sat down and the debate continued until 23:30. The next speech was by Archibald Southby, who tried to defend Chamberlain. He declared that Amery's speech would "certainly give great satisfaction in Berlin" and he was shouted down. Bob Boothby interrupted and said that "it will give greater satisfaction in this country".
Southby was followed by Labour's James Milner who expressed the profound dissatisfaction with recent events of the majority of his constituents in Leeds. He called for "drastic change" to be made if Great Britain was to win the war. Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton spoke next, commencing at 21:28. Although a Conservative, he began by saying that there was a great deal in Milner's speech with which he was in agreement, but almost nothing in Southby's with which he could agree.
The next speaker was Arthur Greenwood, the Labour deputy leader. He gave what Jenkins calls "a robust Labour wind-up". In his conclusion, Greenwood called for "an active, vigorous, imaginative direction of the war" which had so far been lacking as the government was passive and on the defensive because "(as) the world must know, we have never taken the initiative in this war". Summing up for the government was Oliver Stanley, the Secretary of State for War, whose reply to Greenwood has been described as ineffective.
## 8 May: second day and division
### Morrison: "We must divide the House"
It is generally understood that Labour did not intend a division before the debate began but Attlee, after hearing the speeches by Keyes and Amery, realised that discontent within Tory ranks was far deeper than they had thought. A meeting of the party's Parliamentary Executive was held on Wednesday morning and Attlee proposed forcing a division at the end of the debate that day. There were a handful of dissenters, including Hugh Dalton, but they were outvoted at a second meeting later on.
As a result, when Herbert Morrison reopened the debate just after 16:00, he announced that:
> In view of the gravity of the events which we are debating, that the House has a duty and that every Member has a responsibility to record his particular judgment upon them, we feel we must divide the House at the end of our Debate to-day.
Jenkins says the Labour decision to divide turned the routine adjournment motion into "the equivalent of a vote of censure". Earlier in his opening address, Morrison had focused his criticism on Chamberlain, John Simon and Samuel Hoare who were the three ministers most readily associated with appeasement.
### Chamberlain: "I have friends in the House"
Hoare, the Secretary of State for Air, was scheduled to speak next but Chamberlain insisted on replying to Morrison and made an ill-judged and disastrous intervention. Chamberlain appealed not for national unity but for the support of his friends in the House:
> The words which the right honourable Gentleman has just uttered make it necessary for me to intervene for a moment or two at this stage. The right honourable Gentleman began his speech by emphasising the gravity of the occasion. What he has said, the challenge which he has thrown out to the Government in general and the attack which he has made on them, and upon me in particular, make it graver still. Naturally, as head of the Government, I accept the primary responsibility for the actions of the Government, and my colleagues will not be slow to accept their responsibility too for the actions of the Government. But it is grave, not because of any personal consideration – because none of us would desire to hold on to office for a moment longer than we retained the confidence of this House – but because, as I warned the House yesterday, this is a time of national danger, and we are facing a relentless enemy who must be fought by the united action of this country. It may well be that it is a duty to criticise the Government. I do not seek to evade criticism, but I say this to my friends in the House – and I have friends in the House. No Government can prosecute a war efficiently unless it has public and Parliamentary support. I accept the challenge. I welcome it indeed. At least we shall see who is with us and who is against us, and I call on my friends to support us in the Lobby tonight.
That shocked many present who regarded it as divisive to be so explicit in relying on whipped support from his own party. Bob Boothby, a Conservative MP who was a strong critic of Chamberlain, called out: "Not I"; and received a withering glare from Chamberlain. The stress on "friends" was considered partisan and divisive, reducing politics at a time of crisis from national level to personal level.
Hoare followed Chamberlain and struggled to cope with many of the questions being fired at him about the air force, at one point failing to realise the difference between the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. He sat down at 17:37 and was succeeded by David Lloyd George.
### Lloyd George: "the worst strategic position in which this country has ever been placed"
Lloyd George had been prime minister during the last two years of the First World War. He was now 77, and it was to be his last major contribution to debate in the House in which he had sat for 50 years. There was personal animosity between Lloyd George and Chamberlain. The latter's appeal to friends gave Lloyd George the opportunity for retribution. First, he attacked the conduct of the campaign and began by dismissing Hoare's entire speech in a single sentence:
> I have heard most of the speech of the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary of State for Air, and I should think that the facts which he gave us justify the criticism against the Government and are no defence of the Government.
Lloyd George then began his main attack on the government by focusing on the lack of planning and preparation:
> We did not take any measures that would guarantee success. This vital expedition, which would have made a vast difference to this country's strategical position, and an infinite difference to her prestige in the world, was made dependent upon this half-prepared, half-baked expeditionary force, without any combination at all between the Army and the Navy. There could not have been a more serious condemnation of the whole action of the Government in respect of Norway. ... The right honourable Gentleman spoke about the gallantry of our men, and we are all equally proud of them. It thrills us to read the stories. All the more shame that we should have made fools of them.
Emphasising the gravity of the situation, he argued that Britain was in the worst position strategically that it had ever been as a result of foreign policy failures, which he began to review from the 1938 Munich agreement onwards. Interrupted at this point, he retorted:
> You will have to listen to it, either now or later on. Hitler does not hold himself answerable to the whips or the Patronage Secretary.
Lloyd George went on to say that British prestige had been greatly impaired, especially in America. Before the events in Norway, he claimed, the Americans had been in no doubt that the Allies would win the war, but now they were saying it would be up to them to defend democracy. After dealing with some interruptions, Lloyd George criticised the rate of re-armament pre-war and to date:
> Is there anyone in this House who will say that he is satisfied with the speed and efficiency of the preparations in any respect for air, for Army, yea, for Navy? Everybody is disappointed. Everybody knows that whatever was done was done half-heartedly, ineffectively, without drive and unintelligently. For three or four years I thought to myself that the facts with regard to Germany were exaggerated by the First Lord, because the then Prime Minister – not this Prime Minister – said that they were not true. The First Lord was right about it. Then came the war. The tempo was hardly speeded up. There was the same leisureliness and inefficiency. Will anybody tell me that he is satisfied with what we have done about aeroplanes, tanks, guns, especially anti-aircraft guns? Is anyone here satisfied with the steps we took to train an Army to use them? Nobody is satisfied. The whole world knows that. And here we are in the worst strategic position in which this country has ever been placed.
### Churchill and Chamberlain intervene in Lloyd George's speech
Dealing with an intervention at this point, Lloyd George said, in passing, that he did not think that the First Lord was entirely responsible for all the things that happened in Norway. Churchill intervened and said:
> I take complete responsibility for everything that has been done by the Admiralty, and I take my full share of the burden.
In answer, Lloyd George said:
> The right honourable Gentleman must not allow himself to be converted into an air-raid shelter to keep the splinters from hitting his colleagues.
Jenkins calls this "a brilliant metaphor" but wonders if it was spontaneous. It produced laughter throughout the House, except on the government front bench where, with one exception, all the faces were stony. A spectator in the gallery, Baba Metcalfe, recorded that the exception was Churchill himself. She recalled him swinging his legs and trying hard not to laugh. When things calmed down, Lloyd George resumed and now turned his fire onto Chamberlain personally:
> But that is the position, and we must face it. I agree with the Prime Minister that we must face it as a people and not as a party, nor as a personal issue. The Prime Minister is not in a position to make his personality in this respect inseparable from the interests of the country.
Chamberlain stood and, leaning over the despatch box, demanded:
> What is the meaning of that observation? I have never represented that my personality [Hon. members: "You did!"] On the contrary, I took pains to say that personalities ought to have no place in these matters.
### Lloyd George: Chamberlain "should sacrifice the seals of office"
Lloyd George responded to that intervention with a direct call for Chamberlain to resign:
> I was not here when the right honourable Gentleman made the observation, but he definitely appealed on a question which is a great national, imperial and world issue. He said, "I have got my friends". It is not a question of who are the Prime Minister's friends. It is a far bigger issue. The Prime Minister must remember that he has met this formidable foe of ours in peace and in war. He has always been worsted. He is not in a position to appeal on the ground of friendship. He has appealed for sacrifice. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has leadership, so long as the Government show clearly what they are aiming at and so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it are doing their best. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister should give an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory in this war than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.
There was silence as Lloyd George sat down and one observer said that all the frustrations of the past eight months had been released. Chamberlain was deeply perturbed and, two days later, told a friend that he had never heard anything like it in Parliament. Churchill was overheard saying to Kingsley Wood that it was going to be "damned difficult" for him (Churchill) doing his summary later on. Jenkins says the speech recalled Lloyd George in his prime. It was his best of many years, and his last of any real impact.
### Other speakers
It was 18:10 when Lloyd George concluded and some four hours later that Churchill began his summary to wind up the government's case ahead of the division. In the interim, several speakers were called to argue both for and against the government. They included long-serving Liberal National George Lambert, Sir Stafford Cripps, Alfred Duff Cooper, George Hicks, George Courthope, Robert Bower, Alfred Edwards, and Henry Brooke. The last of these, Brooke, finished at 21:14 and gave way to A. V. Alexander who wound up for Labour and put forward certain questions that Churchill as First Lord might answer. His final point, however, was to criticise Chamberlain for his appeal to friendship:
> Since the Prime Minister made his intervention to-day, I have had more than one contact with representative neutrals in London, who feel that if this matter were to be judged upon the basis of putting personal friendship and personalities before the question of really winning the war, we should do a great deal to alienate the sympathy that remains with us in neutral spheres.
Jenkins describes Alexander as someone who tried, despite being completely different in character and personality, to make of himself a "mini-Churchill". On this occasion, he did present Churchill with some awkward questions about Norway but, as with other speakers before him, it was done with genuine respect amidst severe criticism of Chamberlain, Hoare, Simon and Stanley in particular. There was some embarrassment for Churchill in that he was late in returning to the House for Alexander's speech and Chamberlain had to excuse his absence. He arrived just in time for Alexander's questions about Norway.
### Churchill winds up for the Government
Churchill was called to speak at 22:11, the first time in eleven years that he had wound up a debate on behalf of the government. Many members believed that it was the most difficult speech of his career because he had to defend a reverse without damaging his own prestige. It was widely felt that he achieved it because, as Nicolson described it, he said not one word against Chamberlain's government and yet, by means of his manner and his skill as an orator, he created the impression of being nothing to do with them.
The first part of Churchill's speech was, as he said it would be, about the Norwegian campaign. The second part, concerning the vote of censure which he called a new issue that had been sprung upon the House at five o'clock, he said he would deal with in due course.
Churchill proceeded to defend the conduct of the Norwegian campaign with some robustness, although there were several omissions such as his insistence that Narvik be blocked off with a minefield. He explained that even the successful use of the battleship HMS Warspite at Narvik had put her at risk from many hazards. Had any come to pass, the operation, now hailed as an example of what should have been done elsewhere, would have been condemned as foolhardy:
> It is easy when you have no responsibility. If you dare, and forfeit is exacted, it is murder of our sailors; and if you are prudent, you are craven, cowardly, inept and timid.
As for the lack of action at Trondheim, Churchill said it was not because of any perceived danger, but because it was thought unnecessary. He reminded the House that the campaign continued in northern Norway, at Narvik in particular but he would not be drawn into giving any predictions about it. Instead, he attacked the government's critics by deploring what he called a cataract of unworthy suggestions and actual falsehoods during the last few days:
> A picture has been drawn of craven politicians hampering their admirals and generals in their bold designs. Others have suggested that I have personally overruled them, or that they themselves are inept and cowardly. Others again have suggested—for if truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued—that I, personally, proposed to the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet more violent action and that they shrank from it and restrained it. There is not a word of truth in all that.
Churchill then had to deal with interruptions and an intervention by Arthur Greenwood who wanted to know if the war cabinet had delayed action at Trondheim. Churchill denied that and advised Greenwood to dismiss such delusions. Soon afterwards, he reacted to a comment by Labour MP Manny Shinwell:
> I dare say the honourable member does not like that. He skulks in the corner.
This produced a general uproar led by the veteran Scottish Labour member Neil Maclean, said to be the worse for drink, who demanded withdrawal of the word "skulks". The Speaker would not rule on the matter and Churchill defiantly refused to withdraw the comment, adding that:
> All day long we have had abuse, and now honourable members opposite will not even listen.
Having defended the conduct of the naval operations in the Norwegian campaign at some length, Churchill now said little about the proposed vote, other than to complain about such short notice:
> It seems to me that the House will be absolutely wrong to take such a grave decision in such a precipitate manner, and after such a little notice.
He concluded by saying:
> Let me say that I am not advocating controversy. We have stood it for the last two days, and if I have broken out, it is not because I mean to seek a quarrel with honourable (members). On the contrary, I say, let pre-war feuds die; let personal quarrels be forgotten, and let us keep our hatreds for the common enemy. Let party interest be ignored, let all our energies be harnessed, let the whole ability and forces of the nation be hurled into the struggle, and let all the strong horses be pulling on the collar. At no time in the last war were we in greater peril than we are now, and I urge the House strongly to deal with these matters not in a precipitate vote, ill debated and on a widely discursive field, but in grave time and due time in accordance with the dignity of Parliament.
Churchill sat down but the rowdiness continued with catcalls from both sides of the House and Chips Channon later wrote that it was "like bedlam". Labour's Hugh Dalton wrote that a good deal of riot developed, some of it rather stupid, towards the end of the speech.
### Division
At 23:00, the Speaker rose to put the question "that this House do now adjourn". There was minimal dissent and he announced the division, calling for the Lobby to be cleared. The division was in effect a no confidence motion or, as Churchill called it in his closing speech, a vote of censure. Of the total 615 members, it has been estimated that more than 550 were present when the division was called but only 481 voted.
The government's notional majority was 213, but 41 members who normally supported the government voted with the Opposition while an estimated 60 other Conservatives deliberately abstained. The government still won the vote by 281 to 200, but their majority was reduced to 81. Jenkins says that would have been perfectly sustainable in most circumstances, but not when Britain was losing the war and it was clear that unity and leadership were so obviously lacking. In these circumstances, the reversal was devastating and Chamberlain left the chamber pale and grim.
Among the Conservatives, Chips Channon and other Chamberlain supporters shouted "Quislings" and "Rats" at the rebels, who replied with taunts of "Yes-men". Labour's Josiah Wedgwood led the singing of "Rule Britannia", joined by Conservative rebel Harold Macmillan of the Noes; that gave way to cries of "Go!" as Chamberlain left the Chamber. Amery, Keyes, Macmillan and Boothby were among the rebels voting with Labour. Others were Nancy Astor, John Profumo, Quintin Hogg, Leslie Hore-Belisha and Edward Spears but not some expected dissidents such as Duncan Sandys, who abstained, and Brendan Bracken who, in Jenkins' words, "followed [Churchill's] example rather than his interest and voted with the government". Colville in his diary said the government were "fairly satisfied" but acknowledged that reconstruction of the Cabinet was necessary. He wrote that "the shock they have received may be a healthy one".
## 9 May: third day and conclusion
The debate continued into a third day but, with the division having been held at the end of the second day, the final day was really a matter of wrapping up. Starting at 15:18, there were only four speakers and the last of them was Lloyd George who spoke mostly about his own time as prime minister in the First World War and at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He concluded by blaming the democracies for not carrying out the pledges made at that time with the result that Nazism had arisen in Germany. When he finished, shortly before 16:00, the question "that this House do now adjourn" was raised and agreed to, thus concluding the Norway Debate.
## Aftermath
On 9 and 10 May, Chamberlain attempted to form a coalition government with Labour and Liberal participation. They indicated an unwillingness to serve under him but said they probably would join the government if another Conservative became prime minister. When Germany began its western offensive on the morning of 10 May, Chamberlain seriously considered staying on but, after receiving final confirmation from Labour that they required his resignation, he decided to stand down and advised the King to send for Churchill as his successor.
Gaining the support of both Labour and the Liberals, Churchill formed a coalition government. His war cabinet at first consisted of himself, Attlee, Greenwood, Chamberlain and Halifax. The coalition lasted until the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945. On 23 May 1945, Labour left the coalition to begin their general election campaign and Churchill resigned as prime minister. The King asked him to form a new government, known as the Churchill caretaker ministry, until the election was held in July. Churchill agreed and his new ministry, essentially a Conservative one, held office for the next two months until it was replaced by the first Attlee ministry after Labour's election victory.
## Place in parliamentary culture
The Norway debate is regarded as a high point in British parliamentary history, coming as it did at a time when Great Britain faced its gravest danger. The former prime minister, David Lloyd George, said the debate was the most momentous in the history of Parliament. The future prime minister, Harold Macmillan, believed that the debate changed British history, perhaps world history.
In his biography of Churchill, Roy Jenkins describes the debate as "by a clear head both the most dramatic and the most far-reaching in its consequences of any parliamentary debate of the twentieth century". He compares it with "its nineteenth-century rivals" (e.g., the Don Pacifico debate of 1850) and concludes that "even more followed from the 1940 debate" as it transformed the history of the next five years.
Andrew Marr wrote that the debate was "one of the greatest parliamentary moments ever and little about it was inevitable". The plotters against Chamberlain succeeded despite being deprived of their natural leader, since Churchill was in the cabinet and obliged to defend it. Marr notes the irony of Amery's closing words which were originally directed against Parliament by Cromwell, who was speaking for military dictatorship.
When asked to choose the most historic and memorable speech for a volume commemorating the centenary of Hansard as an official report of the House of Commons, former Speaker Betty Boothroyd chose Amery's speech in the debate, "Amery, by elevating patriotism above party, showed the backbencher's power to help change the course of history".
## Explanatory notes
## General and cited references |
57,317,058 | Wine Street, Bristol | 1,055,191,032 | Major street in Bristol, UK | [
"History of Bristol",
"Streets in Bristol"
]
| Wine Street, together with High Street, Broad Street and Corn Street, is one of the four cross streets which met at the Bristol High Cross, the heart of Bristol, England when it was a walled mediaeval town. From this crossroads Wine Street runs along a level ridge approximately 175m north-eastwards to the top of Union Street.
Wine Street was for centuries an important shopping street but, following wartime destruction and the decision to move Bristol's main shopping area to Broadmead, it now contains little notable architecture and acts as barrier between the Old City and Castle Park. Bristol City Council are now seeking to repair this by redeveloping the area.
## History
Wine Street, together with High Street, Corn Street and Broad Street, formed the earliest nucleus of Bristol. Ricart's Plan of 1479, one of the first English town plans, shows Wine Street with the High Cross at one end and Newgate at the other; the other three cross streets are also shown, each ending at their own gate in the city wall. The name Wine Street is thought to be a corruption of Winch Street, after a winch-operated pillory which stood at the eastern end of the street.
It was a commercial street from its earliest days: in 1286, Thomas de Westone and his wife Roysia took out a lease on two shops there for thirty years 'at a poetical rent of a rose at the feast of St John the Baptist yearly'. By the 14th century, the four cross streets and Bristol Bridge were a clearly defined shopping centre: Bristol Bridge, the prime site, was the location of jewellers and mercers; High Street was home to wool drapers; and linen drapers were to be found on Wine Street. Samuel Pepys, his wife and servants came to the Horse Shoe Inn on Wine Street for a day in 1668, and described Bristol as 'in every way another London', though he noted that there were 'no carts, it generally stands on vaults, only dog-carts'.
In the early 17th century an open-sided corn market was built in the middle of Wine Street. Shown on Millerd's Map of 1671, this was 18 feet (5.5 m) wide by 80 feet (24 m) long. It left only a narrow passageway on either side for those who wished to go along the street, and was demolished in 1727. Eventually a Cheese Market was erected between its former location and Mary le Port Street.
Thomas Cadell, who went on to make a fortune in bookselling and publishing, was born on Wine Street in 1742; his father, also Thomas Cadell, was a bookseller. Robert Southey, Poet Laureate from 1813 to 1843, was born on Wine Street in 1774; his father, also named Robert Southey, was a linen draper. Southey is commemorated by post-war Southey House, though Southey's birthplace was actually at the other end of the street.
By the 1820s, it seems the drapers of Wine Street were becoming complacent: William Ablett came from London to manage a shop here and wrote that 'trade was conducted in a droning sort of way', and shocked the local traders by his new-fangled ideas about window-dressing several times a week with lavish displays of shawls and bolts of fabric. Thomas Jones, whose department store started in Wine Street in 1843, was considered outrageous for selling not just drapery, but anything that would make a profit. His business grew into High Street and Mary le Port Street, and incorporated the Guard House, where soldiers had once been billeted during the Civil War.
At the turn of the 20th century, Wine Street still formed part of Bristol's chief shopping centre and contained many of Bristol's most exclusive shops and department stores. In 1915 the globes and lanterns of its street lamps were painted blue to dim their light as an air raid precaution; in the event Bristol suffered no aerial attacks during the First World War. Things were very different 25 years later, however: almost all buildings on Wine Street were destroyed or damaged beyond repair by aerial bombing on 24 November 1940, including the landmark Dutch House which stood on the corner of Wine Street and High Street. An eyewitness described the scene:
> ...looking up Clare Street, I was appalled at the view of Wine Street. I could see All Saints Church intact, but beyond the site of the old High Cross all detail was lost in one vast sheet of orange flame.
Wine Street had for many centuries been an important shopping area, and a key part of Bristol's pre-war shopping axis which ran from Queens Road and Park Street, through St Nicholas Market, Wine Street and Castle Street and onwards to Old Market Street and Stapleton Road; nonetheless post-war planners decided to move Bristol's main shopping area to Broadmead, where the larger sites required by the bigger retailers could be accommodated. Wine Street was widened in 1956, and new buildings were erected on the north side of the street. Plans for the area to the south of Wine Street to become a new Civic Centre, including a city museum and art gallery, were eroded by the leasing of the Bank of England and the Norwich Union sites and then dropped on the grounds of cost. Finally, it was decided to create a 'really splendid' park. Hugh Casson, Neville Conder and Partners produced a plan for this, but in the end the Parks Department laid out their own 'emasculated' version of the park.
## Wine Street today
The north side of Wine Street now has just three buildings: The Prudential Building, now let out as office suites; across The Pithay, the Vintry Building which also offers rental office suites; and Southey House, now a block of 38 flats.
Andrew Foyle, in his Pevsner Architectural Guide to Bristol, describes Wine Street as 'perhaps the saddest post-Blitz transformation'. He is dismissive of the buildings on the north side, berating the Prudential Building's 'dull stripped classicism' and describing the Vintry Building and Southey House as 'singularly unimaginative'. He is scornful of the Bank of England building on the south side, 'merely occupying the land, with bleak fenestration and a puny entrance', its 'weak' extension 'weakly set back over a parking access ramp'.
Bristol City Council is seeking redevelopment of the area south of Wine Street and around Mary le Port Street, to help connect the markets area with the shopping quarter at Broadmead. This would include reducing the width of Wine Street to more closely resemble its historic proportions. The redevelopment of this area 'offer[s] perhaps the greatest potential of any site in the city to demonstrate the ambition of Bristol and to realise a connected and coherent historic core'.
Wine Street is within the Old City and Queen Square Conservation Area.
## Listed buildings
There are no listed buildings on Wine Street. There is, however, one unlisted building of merit:
## Gallery |
5,299,641 | Holnicote Estate | 1,154,690,854 | Estate in Selworthy, England | [
"Exmoor",
"Former manors in Somerset",
"Grade II* listed buildings in West Somerset",
"National Trust properties in Somerset",
"Nature reserves in Somerset",
"Tourist attractions in Somerset"
]
| Holnicote /ˈhʌnɪˌkʌt/ (pronounced "Hunnicutt") in the parish of Selworthy, West Somerset, England, is a historic estate consisting of 12,420 acres (5,026 hectares) of land, much situated within the Exmoor National Park.
There have been several houses on the estate over the last 500 years. In 1705 a new mansion was built which was burned down in 1779. It was rebuilt as a hunting lodge and survived until another fire in 1851 and replaced ten years later. It became one of the centres for the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. The main building was damaged by another fire in 1941. The house and surrounding estate were given to the National Trust in 1944 by Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet. The house is now operated as an hotel. The surrounding land which includes Dunkery and Selworthy Beacons, and the villages and hamlets of Selworthy, Allerford, Bossington, Horner and Luccombe as well as the Dunkery and Horner Woods National Nature Reserve contains more than 240 kilometres (150 mi) of footpaths and bridleways.
In the 13th and 14th centuries the estate was held by the de Holne family. During the 17th century the Staynings were lords of the manor and in the 18th descendants of FitzMartin by then known as the Martyn family had taken over. William Martin sold Holnicote to William Blackford and it descended through his family and then passed to the Dyke family. Sir Thomas Acland married into the family and added the surname to become Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet and it remained in his family until the donation in 1944.
## History
### Early
Alternative derivations of the name Holnicote, which was spelled variously as Honecote, Hunecote or Hunecota, have been suggested. It may relate to holegn, the Anglo-Saxon word for holly. Eilert Ekwall supports the claim that places which start Holne come from the Old English holegn meaning holly, while Stephen Robinson, in his book on local place names prefers an explanation "The Honey Cottage" from the Old English honeg and cot. In the 19th century, the Rector of Selworthy, the Rev. F. Hancock, who was said to have extensively studied the place-names of his parish, preferred the old English personal name Hùn for the first element.
There are several references in the Domesday Book to Honecote, Hunnecota or Hunecota in the hundred of Carhampton. One records land held by one William of the tenant-in-chief, Roger de Corcelle; prior to the Norman Conquest, this land belonged to two theigns called Aluric and Bristeuin. Odo, son of Gamelin, held a detached portion of this land. The second record shows two nuns holding two and half virgates. The local historian and lawyer Charles Chadwyck-Healey identifies these manors with modern Holnicote, the National Archives agrees with him in their catalogue, and the Open Domesday project lists them under Holnicote, but the editors of the Victoria County History series only identify the land held by the nuns with Holnicote and state that de Corcelle's manor was actually Huntscott in Wootton Courtney. According to records of the Heralds' Visitations of Devon and research by the Victorian historian J. L. Vivian, this William Martyn lived in Oxton in the parish of Kenton, Devon; he was Susanna Martyn's great-nephew and died in 1710, aged 30. He sold the estate to William Blackford, a Master in Chancery. Blackford then bought the manors of Bossington and Avill, the latter from Anthony Stocker and his wife, Sarah; this estate extended from the ridge of Grabbist nearly to the sea-shore and also included land in the parishes of Dunster, Carhampton, Crowcombe, Stogumber, Timberscombe and St. Decumans. He married Elizabeth, a daughter of John Dyke of Pixton, and died in 1728. His son, William, succeeded him and married Henrietta Collet (died 1727), a daughter and co-heiress of Joseph Collet of Hertford Castle in Hertfordshire. However, he died only three years after his father. Their only daughter and heiress, Henrietta Blackford, inherited the estate as an infant, but died aged 7 in 1733. The estates were divisible upon a great-aunt, Elizabeth Dyke (died 1737), and a second cousin, Elizabeth, a daughter of Thomas Dyke of Tetton and Mary, a daughter of Elizabeth Dyke (died 1737). Later in 1733, Elizabeth Dyke (died 1737) conveyed her share in the estate to her only surviving son, Edward Dyke (died 1746) who in turn conveyed his portion to his niece in 1744, making her the sole owner of the entire estate.
### Acland family
Elizabeth Dyke married Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet (1722–1785) of Killerton in Devon and Petherton Park in Somerset in 1745. A prominent member of the West Country gentry, Acland was a famous staghunter who used his wife's Exmoor estates of Holnicote and Pixton as his hunting seats. He built kennels for the North Devon Staghounds and kept his own pack of dogs. He became forester or ranger of Exmoor under grant from the Crown, a title for the king's chief officer of the royal forest. According to the Victorian author, Charle Palk Collyns, he "hunted the country in almost princely style. Respected and beloved by all the countryside, he was solicited at the same time to allow himself to be returned as member of Parliament for the counties of Devon and Somerset. He preferred, however, the duties and pleasures of life in the country, where he bore without abuse the grand old name of gentleman". Although he had three of his own kennels, he had a further method of keeping hounds at Holnicote, Jury and Highercombe, whereby he made the keeping of one hound a term a stipulation of many of the tenancies he granted. In his manor of Bossington (near Holnicote) alone an estate survey of 1746–1747 lists twelve tenements let, either by Acland or Dyke, with the requirement to keep a hound.
In 1775 he handed over the mastership to the then Major Basset, and in 1779 his beloved collection of stag heads and antlers at Holnicote was lost in a fire which also destroyed the house. He declared that "he minded the destruction of his valuables less bitterly than the loss of his fine collection of stags' heads". He was known on his estates as "Sir Thomas his Honour" (as later was his son the 9th Baronet) and was renowned for his generous hospitality at Holnicote or at Pixton, whichever was closest, to all riders "in at the death", and it is said that by the architect Anne Acland that "open house was kept at Pixton and Holnicote throughout the hunting season".
Acland's eldest son died as a result of wounds aged 34. His grandson died at the age of 7 a few weeks after inheriting the baronetcy and so his second son, Thomas Dyke Acland (1752–1794), became the ninth Baronet. Like his father, he was known locally in Devon and Somerset as "Sir Thomas his Honour" and they shared a passion for staghunting. He followed him into the Mastership of the North Devon Staghounds and virtually abandoned the family's main seat of Killerton in mid-Devon to live at Holnicote and Highercombe, near Dulverton, on the north and south edges respectively of the ancient royal forest of Exmoor, renown for its herds of red deer. During the period 1785 to his death in 1794 he killed 101 stags, the heads and antlers of many of which are still displayed in the stables at Holnicote. He was a stern employer of his hunt-staff, and on one occasion when his hounds had killed several sheep, possibly belonging to his farming tenants, he ordered his huntsman "to hang himself and the whole pack".
The estate passed down through the Acland family until February 1944, when Sir Richard Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet (1906–1990) donated the Holnicote and Killerton Estates to the National Trust, comprising 16,000 acres (6,500 ha), which was the largest ever donation received by the National Trust.
## Estate
The estate had a role, together with the Acland family's other Exmoor estate of Pixton, as a home of West Country staghunting in the 18th century. There was some controversy locally and nationally when the National Trust banned staghunting on the estate in the early 21st century.
Holnicote Estate covers more than 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) and contains more than 240 kilometres (150 mi) of footpaths and bridleways. It includes Dunkery and Selworthy Beacons, and the villages and hamlets of Selworthy, Allerford, Bossington, Horner and Luccombe as well as the Dunkery and Horner Woods National Nature Reserve. The estate also plays host to a point to point course on which many Exmoor hunts hold their meetings throughout the spring.
Dunkery Beacon is the summit of Dunkery Hill, and the highest point on Exmoor and in Somerset. The sandstone hill rises to 1,705 feet (520 m) and provides views over the surrounding moorland, the Bristol Channel and hills up to 86 miles (138 km) away. The site has been visited by humans since the Bronze Age with several burial mounds in the form of cairns and bowl barrows. Sweetworthy on the lower slopes is the site of two Iron Age hill forts or enclosures and a deserted medieval settlement. At the top of Selworthy Beacon is a National Trust plaque and a view of the south coast of Wales across the Bristol Channel. The South West Coast Path also climbs the hill and ends slightly shy of the summit. Its elevation is 1,013 feet (309 m). Behind the hill, there are precipitous cliffs. Near the summit are a series of cairns, thought to be the remains of round barrows, and the Iron Age Bury Castle. The round cairns have been scheduled as an ancient monument. In the 16th century, Selworthy Beacon was the site of a beacon to warn of impending invasions. The mausoleum of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland is about 0.25 miles (400 m) from Selworthy Beacon. The hills have a deep purple colour during the summer due to the covering of heather. Ling and bell heather, gorse, sessile oak, ash, rowan, hazel, bracken, mosses, liverworts, lichens and ferns all grow here or in surrounding woodland, as well as some unique whitebeam species. Exmoor ponies, red deer, pied flycatchers, wood warblers, lesser spotted woodpeckers, redstarts, dippers, snipe, skylarks and kestrels are some of the fauna to be found here and in nearby Horner Woods. Horner Woods are also the home to 14 of the 16 UK bat species, which include barbastelle and Bechstein's bats.
Selworthy is a small village and civil parish which includes the hamlets of Bossington, Tivington, Lynch, Brandish Street and Allerford. Bossington is separated from Porlock Bay by a shingle beach, through which flows the River Horner, forming part of the Porlock Ridge and Saltmarsh Site of Special Scientific Interest. In the 1990s rising sea levels created salt marshes, and lagoons developed in the area behind the boulder bank. The village is on the South West Coast Path. Selworthy was rebuilt as a model village, to provide housing for the aged and infirm of the Holnicote estate, in 1828 by Sir Thomas Acland. Many of the other cottages, some of which are now rented out, are still thatched and are listed buildings, whose walls are painted with limewash that has been tinted creamy yellow with ochre. On the hill above the village is the whitewashed 15th-century Church of All Saints, with a 14th-century tower. One of Allerford's main attractions is the much-photographed packhorse bridge. Built as a crossing over the River Aller (from which the village gets its name), it is thought to be medieval in origin. The village is also home to Allerford House, childhood home of Admiral John Moresby, who explored the coastline of New Guinea and for whom Port Moresby, the capital city of Papua New Guinea, was named. Other features of the village include thatched cottages, a forge and an old-fashioned red telephone box. There is also a Reading Room, built by the Acland family to foster adult education. One of the thatched cottages operated as the local Primary School between 1821 and 1981 and is now a museum containing the West Somerset Rural Life Museum and Victorian School. The museum houses the West Somerset Photographic Archive.
The village of Luccombe lies at the foot of Dunkery Hill. Along with Stoke Pero and Horner it forms a civil parish. Horner is on the eastern bank of Horner Water on which there is a restored, but non-working, watermill. The river is crossed by two medieval packhorse bridges, one of which is known as Hacketty Way Bridge which is crossed by the Coleridge Way. The parish Church of St Mary has a chancel dating from about 1300, with the nave and tower being added around 1450. Stoke Pero Church has a 13th-century tower. The Dovecot at Blackford Farm is part of the estate. It was built in the 11th century and is a Grade II\* listed building, and ancient monument. It was attached to a mansion house which burnt down in 1875.
Since 2009 the estate has been one of three Multi-Objective Flood Management Demonstration Schemes, funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to examine how changes in the management of river catchment areas can influence the incidence and severity of flooding in the area. Beavers were re-introduced to assist flood reduction.
## House and outbuildings
There have been at least four successive mansion houses at Holnicote. Limited information is available about the early buildings. One is known to have been built between 1493 and 1521, based on dendrochronology from surviving timbers. The Grade II\* listed gatehouse and attached cottage were built together with a new house in the early 17th century. Following the purchase of the estate by the Blackford family in 1705, a new mansion house was built on the site of the previous structure. Only the stable block from that building survives. The house was destroyed by fire in 1779. The Acland family re-built it as a thatched hunting lodge, which was also destroyed by fire in 1851, and replaced in 1861. A kitchen extension was added in 1874. The lodge was built in the 19th century. The estate includes several cottages including Rose Bower and the 17th-century Butlers Cottage. An 18th-century Flemish bond red brick granary also exists on the estate.
## Holnicote House in the 20th century
Holnicote House was donated to the National Trust by Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet of Killerton in Devon, whose ancestors had owned it since 1745. In 1936 the lodge became a hotel, but was badly damaged by yet another fire in 1941.
### Mixed race children at Holnicote House during WW2
In 1943, Holnicote House was requisitioned by Somerset County Council, initially for use as a nursery for children evacuated from cities during World War 2. However, the council increasingly took children born to white British mothers and Black American GI fathers, possibly as an intentional policy. American GIs, including Black American troops, were stationed all over Britain, with a heavy concentration in south-west England.The children often arrived at Holnicote House as babies, some being only a few days or weeks old. This early placement is likely because at least two-thirds of the babies had married mothers. By 1948, there were 45 mixed race children of Black GIs in Somerset, of whom nearly half were placed in Holnicote House.
Somerset appears to be the only County Council which provided homes explicitly for babies born to Black GIs. As Holnicote House was used as a nursery, children were only cared for there up to the age of five, after which they were fostered, adopted or sent to homes for older children. The children who were fostered at Holnicote House tended to be cared for by young nursery nurses. Professor Lucy Bland, who interviewed over sixty children born to white mothers and Black American GI fathers for her 2019 book Britain's 'Brown Babies, talked to five people who were raised at Holnicote House, as well as three nursery nurses who worked there. All spoke very fondly about their time there.
On 23rd August 1948, Life magazine published a feature entitled ‘The Babies They Left Behind Them’. This article, which was accompanied by a photo of children from Holnicote House, attracted international public interest in the issue of Britain’s ‘brown babies’ as the estimated 2,000 children from the relationships between Black GIs and white British women were dubbed by the Black American press.
The house is now operated as a hotel.
## See also
- List of National Trust properties in Somerset |
27,171,081 | The Red Dragon (magazine) | 1,144,544,594 | Welsh literary periodical (1882–1887) | [
"Defunct literary magazines published in the United Kingdom",
"History magazines published in the United Kingdom",
"Magazines disestablished in 1887",
"Magazines established in 1882",
"Magazines published in Wales",
"Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom",
"Periodicals published in Wales"
]
| The Red Dragon, The National Magazine of Wales, was a monthly English-language literary magazine published in Cardiff, Wales, from February 1882 until June 1887. It was edited by Charles Wilkins until July 1885 when James Harris took over.
Although directed primarily at the people of South Wales, it was intended "to make known to the greater English world the characteristics and aims of the Welsh people and the beauties of their language and literature". The magazine included articles on the history of Wales (emphasising its recent history), biographies, poetry and serial novels.
The closure of the magazine elicited numerous expressions of regret in local newspapers in 1887. The Red Dragon remains a useful historical resource for modern scholars as a record of traditional lore.
## Background
The 1880s was a pivotal time of social change for Wales, especially in terms of the effects of industrialisation on traditional rural culture, language, religion, education, and politics. Three-quarters of the population spoke Welsh (though most not exclusively) but a middle-class culture had developed that identified English with business and success. While there were "articulate and powerful groups of business and professional Welshmen who congregated in London", Wales was considered by many British people to be little more than a picturesque relic of earlier times.
English-language periodicals such as The Cambrian Register (1795–96, 1818), The Cambro-Britain and General Celtic Repository (1820–1822), The Cambrian Quarterly (1829–1833), and The Cambrian Journal (1854–1864) had intermittently attempted to promote Welsh learning, but had not lasted.
## History and content
The founding editor of The Red Dragon was historian and writer Charles Wilkins who managed the magazine from February 1882 to June 1885. By that time, he was "the most learned literary figure in Merthyr – and indeed in Wales". Although born in England, he had lived most of his life in Merthyr Tydfil. He had already written histories of Merthyr and Wales and won a gold medal for his writing at the 1881 National Eisteddfod. His bardic name was Catwg. Through The Red Dragon, Wilkins intended to reach a growing public literate in English but with little knowledge of Wales and "to make known to the greater English world the characteristics and aims of the Welsh people and the beauties of their language and literature".
James Harris took over the editorship in July 1885. Also from Merthyr Tydfil, he was previously a journalist and contributor to the magazine. He continued as editor until June 1887 when the last number was published. The magazine was printed in Cardiff by Daniel Owen & Company.
As well as writing extensively for the magazine themselves, the editors assembled a group of regular contributors "who had had an English scholastic training". Though traditional and conservative in outlook, the magazine featured a number of women authors, including Amy Dillwyn, Kate Dodd, Jeanette Forsyth, and Ella Egerton; and conveyed a "sense of admiration and affection for working people in Wales". The Red Dragon displayed a "sustained awareness of the pressures on the poor and a clear-sighted appreciation of the realities of working life", and treated the lives of working people in Wales "respectfully and with real interest".
Social and political comment is presented alongside other solid literary content including biographies, poetry and serialised novels. The magazine sought to provide a Welsh perspective on current issues of society, economics and politics, including land ownership and public education, and reported the activities of Welsh members of Parliament. Issues of social difference and the contrast between rural and urban are recurring themes. Regular sections include "Marginal Notes on Library Books", "Literary and Art Notes", and "Notes and Queries" on items of literary and antiquarian interest "confined to matters relating to Wales and the Border Counties".
The magazine received numerous favourable reviews in the South Wales newspapers (though Wilkins also wrote for many of the same papers). Malcolm Ballin's modern study of Welsh periodicals notes that "At its peak [The Red Dragon] commanded for the first time the attention of a newly recognised audience for a Welsh periodical in English." The magazine was priced at one shilling (approximately ) per issue, though this was halved for the January 1884 to June 1885 issues.
The closure of The Red Dragon, in June 1887, was noted with regret in letters to the editors of the local newspapers. One newspaper editor opined that "it would appear to be one thing to place before the English-speaking public of Wales high-class reading matter, and quite another thing to make the said English-speaking public appreciate the effort at its true value".
## Legacy
The Red Dragon displays a "sustained awareness of the pressures on the poor and a clear-sighted appreciation of the realities of working life" and treats the lives of working people in Wales "respectfully and with real interest". The magazine continues to be valuable to modern scholars as a historical resource, created in response to the "urgent need to rescue and record such traditional lore which was then rapidly fading from memory".
## Issues
- 1882: Vol. I. Nos.1–6: February to July; Vol. II. Nos. 7–11: August to December
- 1883: Vol. III. Nos.1–6: January to June; Vol. IV. Nos. 7–12: July to December
- 1884: Vol. V. Nos.1–6: January to June; Vol. VI. Nos. 7–12: July to December
- 1885: Vol. VII. Nos.1–6: January to June; Vol. VIII. Nos. 7–12: July to December
- 1886: Vol. IX. Nos.1–6: January to June; Vol. X. Nos. 7–12: July to December
- 1887: Vol. XI. Nos.1–6: January to June (including an Index to our Notes and Queries from the Commencement to December 1886) |
5,008,614 | Genelia D'Souza | 1,173,522,269 | Indian actress (born 1987) | [
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"21st-century Indian actresses",
"21st-century Indian people",
"21st-century Indian women",
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"Actresses in Kannada cinema",
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]
| Genelia Deshmukh (née D'Souza; born 5 August 1987) is an Indian actress and model who predominantly appears in Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil language films. After gaining wide attention in a Parker Pen commercial with Amitabh Bachchan, D'Souza began her acting career with the box–office hit Tujhe Meri Kasam in 2003. She was recognized for her role in Boys the same year.
D'Souza received her first Filmfare Award in 2006 for her performance in the Telugu romantic comedy film Bommarillu, which earned her critical acclaim. In 2008, she gave critically acclaimed performances in Santosh Subramaniam, a Tamil remake of Bommarillu, and the Hindi film Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na. In addition to mainstream acting, D'Souza has hosted the television show Big Switch.
Her notable films include Satyam (2003), Sye (2004), Sachein (2005), Happy (2006), Dhee (2007), Ready (2008), Katha (2009), Urumi (2011), and the Hindi films Masti (2004), Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008) and Force (2011). Having acted in several commercially successful movies in Telugu and Tamil, D'Souza was described as one of the leading actresses of the South Indian film industry in the 2000s.
## Early life
Born in Mumbai, D'Souza is a Mangalorean Catholic. She was raised in the Bandra suburb of Mumbai. Her mother, Jeanette D'Souza, was a managing director of the Pharma Multinational Corporation. She left her job in 2004 to help D'Souza with her career. Her father, Neil D'Souza, is a senior official with Tata Consultancy Services. She also has a younger brother, Nigel D'Souza, who works with the Bombay Stock Exchange. According to D'Souza, her name means "rare" or "unique", and is a portmanteau of Jeanette and Neil, her mother and father's names. She is also often informally referred to as Geenu, her nickname. D'Souza studied at the Apostolic Carmel High School in Bandra and later joined St. Andrew's College in Bandra to pursue her bachelor's degree of Management Studies. She completed her degree while shooting for her first film, Tujhe Meri Kasam in 2003 and initially thought that an MNC job would suit her. She liked sports and studies in college, and was a state level athlete, sprinter, and a national level football player
D'Souza did her first modeling assignment at the age of 15, the result of being spotted as the bridesmaid at a wedding. She was selected for the Parker Pen commercial with Amitabh Bachchan, just two days before her exams, and had to shoot the next day. Initially she refused, because of her exam the next day, but the director persuaded D'Souza to shoot for the commercial. She gained wide attention from the Parker Pen commercial with Amitabh Bachchan, who said "she was good, and her expressions were spontaneous". She further did a Fair & Lovely 2003 Cricket World Cup advertisement with cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth.
## Acting career
### Debut and breakthrough (2003–2005)
When D'Souza was offered a role in Tujhe Meri Kasam, initially she turned it down, as she was not keen to pursue a career in acting. But the crew insisted and kept contacting her for two months, and she agreed when she saw the Telugu version of the film. Tamil director, S. Shankar, was impressed with her performance in the Parker Pen commercial and decided to cast her in a leading role in his 2003 Tamil film Boys. D'Souza was selected among 300 girls, who had auditioned for the movie. She signed three movies simultaneously in three different languages, Tujhe Meri Kasam (Hindi), Boys (Tamil), and Satyam (Telugu).
D'Souza's professional film career began, with her Hindi film debut Tujhe Meri Kasam in 2003. Film critic Taran Adarsh noted, "D'Souza is a wonderful performer. She catches you unaware with a performance that's natural to the core." The film was a box–office success. However, it could not do much to propel her career in Hindi cinema. Later, she decided to act in South Indian films. The same year, she made her Tamil debut as the teenage girl Harini in Boys, a story about 5 teenagers having stereotypical teen–boy fantasies. The movie, though noted for its vulgar sexual content, was a box–office success, and subsequently she started receiving Telugu film offers. She left Tamil cinema for a while to concentrate on the Telugu film industry. She made her Telugu debut in 2003 as a medical student in Satyam. Sify noted in their review that, "D'Souza is excellent as her body language is her major asset." The film was well received, and it raised her profile in the Telugu film industry.
In 2004, D'Souza appeared in her second Hindi film, Masti. The comedy focuses on 3 close friends who reunite after 3 years, but are now married and are being harassed by their wives. D'Souza portrayed the character of one of the wives. Taran Adarsh was complimentary of D'Souza's role, saying, "Amongst the wives, D'Souza is the best, [...] D'Souza looks the stern and demanding wife and is sure to be noticed." The film was a box–office success. The same year, she appeared in two Telugu movies Samba, and Sye, both succeeding at the box–office.
After appearing in her first Telugu movie in 2005, Naa Alludu, she starred in the Tamil romantic entertainer Sachein. A review in The Hindu noted, "D'Souza, who hardly made an impression in Boys, makes much impact in Sachein." The movie evoked mixed response from audiences, but was well received with the younger generation. She later appeared in the Telugu patriotic film Subhash Chandra Bose.
### Turning point in South Indian films and recognition (2006–2008)
The year 2006 marked a significant turning point in D'Souza's career. She completed two Telugu movies in early 2006, one was the romantic comedy Happy, and the other was Raam. She then portrayed the role of Haasini, a vibrant, effervescent and a happy–go–lucky young girl, in the 2006 Telugu romantic comedy Bommarillu. The film was a blockbuster at the box–office, and grossed ₹250 million (US\$3.1 million) in India, and also won the 2006 Golden Nandi award. Her performance received high praise, and garnered her the Telugu Filmfare Award for Best Actress, besides the Nandi Special Jury Award and the Santosham Award for Best Actress. Sify concluded about her acting in their review that, "The scene stealer is D'Souza with her innocent looks and cute mannerisms. She does not overact and we just fall in love with her character. D'Souza looks like a dream in chic skirts and is the life of the party and raises the bar of the film."
Following the success of Bommarillu, D'Souza played the role of the daughter of a local don, in the Tamil gangster film Chennai Kadhal alongside Boys co–star Bharath. Rediff.com criticized her commenting, "D'Souza stands up yet again to prove the point that if you are pretty and well dressed, you can get away with anything, without acting." Shortly afterwards in 2007, D'Souza played the role of sister of a notorious gangster in the blockbuster Telugu film Dhee, set against a gang war backdrop.
The following year, D'Souza appeared in the 2008 Telugu romantic thriller Mr. Medhavi, in which she portrayed the role of a student from Canada. The film was successful, with Rediff.com complimenting her performance saying, "D'Souza is her effervescent self – full of joie–de–vivre and lights up the screen." She made her Kannada debut in Satya in Love the same year. Later, she was cast in a leading role in Santosh Subramaniam, a Tamil remake of Bommarillu. The film also turned out to be rather successful as its predecessor. Sify described D'Souza's portrayal as "the soul of the film" and the film's "biggest strength", however Rediff.com described her character as "appears a little too good to be true."
### Return to Hindi cinema, subsequent work and success (2008–2016)
In June 2008, following a nearly 5–year hiatus in Hindi cinema, she appeared in Mere Baap Pehle Aap, which failed to make profit at the box–office. A Rediff review noted, "besides her apparent cuteness, brings in tons of freshness and traits to the youthful characters she chooses to play", while a Sify review criticized her stating, "D'Souza is sprightly but has a standard two–three expressions bank in this film." She later appeared in the Telugu love story Ready alongside Ram, which was well received.
Her breakthrough performance came with the blockbuster romantic comedy–drama Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008), in which she portrayed the central character of Aditi Mahant, which was a major commercial success across India and overseas, grossing ₹564 million (US\$7.1 million). Her role was widely admired for her sweetness and freshness, and new style of acting, with Rediff describing her acting as a "spark that has been missing in Hindi cinema for well over a decade now".
In that same year, D'Souza acted in the Telugu romantic comedy Sasirekha Parinayam. The film received favorable reviews, and Sify noted in their review that, "The life of the film is definitely D'Souza and she has shown the varied emotions from innocence, sadness, romance and anger in equal proportions without a hitch."
In 2009, D'Souza was cast in the Hindi film Life Partner, in which she was criticized for her performance. Indian film critic Rajeev Masand commented, "The adorable little imp from Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na has turned into a nagging harridan in this film, and how you wish she'd immediately enroll for acting lessons." Her next appearance in 2009 was in the Telugu thriller Katha, which was well received, and for which she won the 2009 Nandi Special Jury Award. In 2010, D'Souza appeared in Chance Pe Dance and Orange, both receiving poor reviews from critics, but her Uthama Puthiran was a moderate success in Tamil.
D'Souza had a major role in 2011, starring as the Muslim warrior princess Arackal Ayesha, in her debut Malayalam film Urumi. The film is about a fictional story happening in Calicut, Kerala during the 15th century, about a boy who plots to assassinate the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama. She learned horse riding, and spent two weeks of training to use the sword, the short stick, and movements of the Dravidian martial art Kalarippayattu. The film portrayed her image makeover from a typical girl–next–door roles to more serious roles. Her next appearance was in the Hindi action thriller Force, which received mixed reviews from critics, with Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama noting that D'Souza is strikingly sweet and subdued. She played the role of a journalist alongside leading actor Vijay in Velayudham, which was also commercially successful. She appeared in Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya and Naa Ishtam in 2012 and in cameo appearances in Jai Ho and Lai Bhaari in 2014. In 2016, she appeared in a cameo role of Maya in Force 2.
### Role as producer and return to acting (2018–present)
D'Souza became producer for her husband's Marathi film Mauli, where she also appeared in a song.
D'Souza will make her comeback to full time acting after 10 years with Riteish in Bhushan Kumar's Mister Mummy, star in the Marathi film Ved directed by Riteish, and will also return to South industry after 10 years with a Telugu–Kannada bilingual, film Production No.15.
## Personal life
D'Souza is deeply religious and says that, she regularly attends Sunday Mass at St. Anne's Parish (Bandra), and whenever the family is home, a part of their evening is reserved for saying the rosary together. In an interview with The Times of India, she comments, "I keep a Novena every Wednesday at St. Michael's Church in Mahim." In an interview with Daily News and Analysis, she said that "My communication with God is conversational, [...] I'm God's favourite child; I believe that God has always been kind to me." Tabloids repeatedly linked D'Souza romantically with Ritesh Deshmukh, ever since they starred together in their debut film Tujhe Meri Kasam in 2003. They were reportedly ready to get engaged, but Ritesh's father, the then–Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh did not agree. D'Souza later denied any rumors of a relationship with Deshmukh, and responds that she was just friends with him. However, the couple eventually got married on 3 February 2012, according to Marathi marriage traditions in a Hindu wedding ceremony, they had a Christian wedding in the church on next day. The couple's first child, a son named Riaan, was born on 25 November 2014. Their second son, Rahyl, was born on 1 June 2016.
## Other work and events
D'Souza was a part of Tamil director Mani Ratnam's stage show, Netru, Indru, Naalai, an event which seeks to raise funds for The Banyan, a voluntary organisation which rehabilitates homeless women with mental illness in Chennai. She was one of the judges at the grand finale of Gladrags Mega Model and Manhunt 2009 contest on 28 March 2009. She also walked the ramp alongside Tushar Kapoor for fashion designer Manish Malhotra at the Lakme Fashion Week 2009 on 28 March 2009. On 5 April 2009, D'Souza was among several Hindi film celebrities to perform at the Pantaloons Femina Miss India 2009 finale in Mumbai. In October 2009, she appeared as a showstopper for jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali on the second season of Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) India Couture Week. On 24 October 2009, D'Souza began hosting 'Big Switch, a television show based on slum kids on UTV Bindass channel to reach a bigger audience.
D'Souza has been the brand ambassador of Fanta, Virgin Mobile India, Fastrack, LG Mobiles, Garnier Light, Margo, and Perk in India. She has unveiled Spinz Black Magic deodorant on 7 October 2009 in Mumbai, and the Ceres Store retail outlet. At the Chennai International Fashion Week (CIFW) in December 2009, she appeared as a showstopper for designer Ishita Singh's spring–summer indigenous collection of 2010. She also holds a Limca world record of delivering four different super hit films in four different languages, Ready (Telugu), Satya in Love (Kannada), Santosh Subramaniam (Tamil), and Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (Hindi) in a span of one calendar year.
She was a part of online market portal eBay's 2010 "Dream House" challenge, where she transformed an empty three–room apartment in Bandra into an attractive home with online shopping. She had been provided a budget of ₹450,000 (US\$5,600) and two weeks to create a look she wants with items on sale on the website. On the occasion of Children's Day (14 November), D'Souza auctioned a few items from the apartment. All proceeds received from the auction was given to Aseema, a Non–governmental organization (NGO), which aims to provide education to underprivileged children.
## In the media
D'Souza has been often tagged in the media as the "bubbly girl", after portraying the role of a young energetic girl in several movies, particularly in Bommarillu (2006) and Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (2008). She appeared alongside Shahid Kapoor on the fourth episode of Tere Mere Beach Mein, a celebrity chat show, hosted by Farah Khan. The theme of the show was "Second Innings", since both D'Souza and Kapoor had the same history of failures initially and success later in their acting careers. In June 2010, D'Souza was crowned as the "Brand Ambassador of the Year" at the CNBC Awaaz consumer awards, for endorsing nine brands. She is now the brand ambassador of the soft drink Fanta (replacing Rani Mukherjee), the chocolate Perk (replacing Preity Zinta), Virgin Mobile India (along with Ranbir Kapoor), Fastrack watches and accessories, LG mobiles (along with John Abraham and Abhay Deol), Garnier Light fairness cream, Dabur Vatika hair oil, Margo soap, and Spinz deodorant.
### Controversies
In June 2010, she was the subject of a controversy, when a Tamil daily reported that she had attended the controversial 2010 IIFA Awards in Colombo. Several Hindi film actors and the South Indian film industry had boycotted the event, over the alleged killing of Tamilian civilians at the height of the conflict between the Sri Lanka Army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. The rumours of her visit to Colombo started after her friend Ritesh Deshmukh was seen at the festival in Colombo. Immediately, various Tamil groups and Kollywood associations demanded her films to be banned.
In 2011, a controversy broke out for her film Force, in a wedding sequence scene of herself and John Abraham. Sources claim that the wedding ceremony and rituals conducted were so authentic that they would have actually been husband and wife in real life. Instead of a junior artiste, a real priest was called for the scene. Again, following the reports of Ritesh Deshmukh and D'Souza's marriage plans, the priest landed up at producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah's office to register a complaint. He insisted that the couple couldn't get married, as D'Souza has been already married to John Abraham, as all marriage rituals were observed, from wearing a mangalsutra'' (a sacred thread is worn by Indian women as a symbol of their marriage), to exchanging garlands, and taking the seven steps around the holy fire. Shah dismissed the claims as a publicity stunt.
## Filmography
### Films
### Television
## Awards and nominations
## See also
- List of Hindi film actresses |
734,060 | George Kelly (baseball) | 1,166,982,941 | American baseball player (1895-1984) | [
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]
| George Lange Kelly (September 10, 1895 – October 13, 1984), nicknamed "Long George" and "High Pockets", was an American professional baseball first baseman. He played most of his Major League Baseball (MLB) career for the New York Giants (1915–1917, 1919–1926), but also played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1917), Cincinnati Reds (1927–1930), Chicago Cubs (1930), and Brooklyn Dodgers (1932). Kelly threw and batted right-handed, and was listed as a lanky 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall—the source of his nicknames—and 190 pounds (86 kg).
Kelly was a two-time World Series champion (1921 and 1922). He led the National League in home runs once (1921) and runs batted in twice (1920 and 1924), and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. However, his selection is regarded as controversial, as many believe he was undeserving of the recognition and was only elected by the Veterans Committee because it consisted of his former teammates.
## Career
Kelly began his professional career for the Victoria Bees of the Class-B Northwestern League in 1914 and 1915. During the 1915 season, he was purchased by the New York Giants from Victoria for \$1,200 (equal to \$ today). The Giants were rebuilding their team, and they saw Kelly as a possible replacement for Fred Merkle. However, he played sparingly for the Giants in his first MLB seasons, appearing in only 17 games in 1915 and 49 games in 1916. He was selected off waivers by the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 25, 1917, to back up Honus Wagner, but did not hit sufficiently. The Pirates waived Kelly, and he was reclaimed by the Giants from the Pirates on August 4, 1917. The Giants optioned Kelly to the Rochester Hustlers of the Class-AA International League, where he played the rest of the 1917 season. Kelly did not play professionally in 1918 due to his military service. The Giants sold Kelly to Rochester before the 1919 season to acquire Earl Smith.
Finding success in Rochester, Kelly was purchased by the Giants in 1919 when Hal Chase was suspended. He became a regular in the Giants line-up in 1920, when he had a league-leading 94 runs batted in (RBIs). He led the league in assists and putouts in 1920 and 1921; his 1,759 putouts in 1920 remains a league record. Kelly batted in 100 or more runs for four consecutive seasons and hit for a batting average of .300 or higher six consecutive seasons. He opened the 1921 season with at least one hit and one RBI in eight consecutive games, a record that stood until it was broken by Jorge Cantú in 2010. The Giants appeared in the World Series in 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924, winning in 1921 and 1922. Kelly set a National League record with seven home runs in six consecutive games in 1924, which has since been matched by Graig Nettles, Walker Cooper, and Willie Mays.
In the final series of the 1924 season, the Giants were playing the Philadelphia Phillies at the Polo Grounds and battling for the pennant with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jimmy O'Connell offered Phillies shortstop Heinie Sand \$500 to intentionally lose the games. Sand rejected the bribe and reported it to Phillies manager Art Fletcher. It eventually led to the lifetime suspension of O'Connell and Giants coach Cozy Dolan by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. O'Connell implicated Kelly, Frankie Frisch, and Ross Youngs as co-conspirators. However, Commissioner Landis cleared Kelly, Frisch and Youngs of any wrongdoing.
That following offseason, Kelly, Sam Bohne and other Major League Baseball (MLB) players agreed to play professional basketball with O'Connell. National League (NL) president John Heydler insisted that anyone who played with O'Connell could be suspended. The Giants were also displeased with Kelly's arrangement, as they were concerned about the chance he could injure himself in non-baseball activity. However, Kelly had not played in any games at that point. He was removed from the roster and thus avoided suspension by MLB.
Kelly, naturally a first baseman, saw regular time as a second baseman in 1925 when Frisch injured his hand, while backup Bill Terry began playing first base. With the emergence of Terry, who requested a trade so that he could receive more playing time, and Giants manager John McGraw desiring an improvement in the outfield, Kelly was traded to the Cincinnati Reds prior to the 1927 season for Edd Roush. The Reds traded Roush due to a contract dispute. With Wally Pipp at first base for the Reds, Kelly was slated to play center field. The Reds released Pipp before the 1929 season, and Kelly returned to first base.
Kelly was released by the Reds on July 10, 1930, and signed by the minor-league Minneapolis Millers of the Class-AA American Association. The Millers traded Kelly to the Chicago Cubs for Mal Moss and a player to be named later (Chick Tolson) late in the 1930 season to fill in for the injured Charlie Grimm. Kelly he was released by the Cubs in February 1931. He returned to the Millers for the 1931 season, and participated in a tour of Japan along with Frisch, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, and Rabbit Maranville, among others.
In April 1932, the Millers traded Kelly to the Brooklyn Dodgers for Pea Ridge Day. With the Dodgers, he filled in for the injured Del Bissonette. Kelly played his final MLB game on July 27, 1932. He returned to the International League to finish the 1932 season with the Jersey City Skeeters, and played the 1933 season for the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League before retiring.
## Career statistics
In 1,622 games over 16 seasons, Kelly posted a .297 batting average (1,778-for-5,993) with 819 runs, 337 doubles, 76 triples, 148 home runs, 1,020 RBI, 65 stolen bases, 386 bases on balls, .342 on-base percentage and .452 slugging percentage. He finished his career with a .992 fielding percentage at first base, his primary position, and a .991 fielding percentage overall playing also at second base and all three outfield positions. In 26 World Series games from 1921-'24, he batted .248 (25-for-101) with 11 runs, 2 doubles, 1 home run, 11 RBI and 5 walks.
## Player profile
Kelly was known as an excellent defensive first baseman. His positioning and footwork on hits to the outfield became the standard method for teaching future first basemen to handle relays. Frisch considered Kelly the finest first baseman he had seen.
Kelly also had a reputation as a clutch hitter. McGraw said there was no player he preferred to have bat in a big situation. Waite Hoyt considered him dangerous in clutch situations.
## Hall of Fame induction
To be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a player must receive at least 75% of the vote from the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) or the Veterans Committee. Kelly was on the BBWAA ballot seven times, never coming close to being elected, and never garnering more than 1.9% of the vote. By year, voting results for Kelly were: 1947 (one vote, 0.6%), 1948 (two votes, 1.7%), 1949 (one vote, 0.7%), 1956 (two votes, 1.0%), 1958 (two votes, 0.8%), 1960 (five votes, 1.9%), and 1962 (two votes, 0.6%). Despite the lack of support from the BBWAA, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973 by the Veterans Committee. At the time of Kelly's election, the writers' ballot was voted on by approximately 400 writers, while the Veterans Committee had a membership of twelve former players and executives.
The selection of Kelly was controversial, as many felt Kelly was not worthy of enshrinement in the Hall. According to the BBWAA, the Veterans Committee was not selective enough in choosing members. Charges of cronyism were levied against the Veterans Committee. When Kelly was elected, the Veterans Committee included two of his former teammates, Bill Terry and Frankie Frisch, who also shepherded the selections of teammates Jesse Haines in 1970, Dave Bancroft and Chick Hafey in 1971, Ross Youngs in 1972, Jim Bottomley in 1974, and Freddie Lindstrom in 1976. This led to the Veterans Committee having its powers reduced in subsequent years. Baseball historian Bill James, while ranking Kelly as the 65th greatest first baseman of all time, also cites Kelly as "the worst player in the Hall of Fame".
## Coaching career
Kelly served as a coach for the Cincinnati Reds, managed by former teammate Chuck Dressen, from 1935 to 1937. Former teammate Casey Stengel hired Kelly to coach the Boston Braves from 1938 to 1943. He returned to the Reds' coaching staff in 1947 and 1948. He coached the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League in 1949. In 1954, Kelly managed the independent Wenatchee Chiefs in the Western International League.
## Personal life
A native San Franciscan, Kelly remained in the San Francisco Bay Area, living in Millbrae, California, following his playing career. Kelly's brother, Ren Kelly, uncle, Bill Lange, and cousin, Rich Chiles, also played in MLB.
Kelly suffered a stroke on October 5, 1984, and died on October 13 at Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame, California. He is interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California.
He was the last surviving member of the 1921 and 1922 World Champion New York Giants.
## See also
- List of Major League Baseball annual home run leaders
- List of Major League Baseball annual runs batted in leaders |
11,337,194 | Moonlight (American TV series) | 1,162,766,081 | American paranormal romance television drama created by Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson | [
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| Moonlight is an American paranormal romance television drama created by Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson, who was also executive producer for all episodes with Joel Silver, Gerard Bocaccio, Gabrielle Stanton and Harry Werksman. The series follows private investigator Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), who was turned into a vampire by his bride Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon) on the couple's wedding night fifty-five years earlier. In the present day, he struggles with his attraction to a mortal woman, Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), his friendship with his mentor and fellow vampire Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring), and his dealings with other vampires in Los Angeles.
The series was commissioned by Warner Bros. Television in 2007 as a presentation lasting 14–20 minutes. Alex O'Loughlin, Shannon Lucio, Rade Šerbedžija and Amber Valletta were cast in the lead roles, and Rod Holcomb was hired as director. David Greenwalt joined the staff in May 2007 as showrunner and executive producer with Joel Silver; however, health reasons forced Greenwalt to leave the series. All of the original actors, apart from the male lead role, were recast in June 2007 with Sophia Myles, Jason Dohring and Shannyn Sossamon. A retooled, full-length pilot for television audiences was then shot.
Moonlight was premiered on September 28, 2007, and shown on Friday nights on CBS. Although received poorly by critics, the pilot finished first among total viewers and adults aged 18–49 for its night. The series received generally negative reviews, and averaged 7.57 million American viewers per episode. Many critics criticized the acting and the writing; however, Jason Dohring's performance was praised. Moonlight went on hiatus due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, but returned with four new episodes once the strike ended. On May 13, 2008, CBS announced that Moonlight was officially canceled.
## Plot
### Synopsis
The pilot introduces Mick St. John, a private investigator who has been a vampire for over fifty years. He meets Beth Turner, a reporter for the online newspaper BuzzWire, at the scene of the murder of a young woman. Mick and Beth begin investigating the crime together, helping each other to catch the killer. Flashbacks to 22 years ago show a domestic fight between Mick and his ex-wife Coraline Duvall over a kidnapped girl. Mick sets fire to the house and rescues the girl, leaving Coraline to the fire. It is revealed that the little girl has grown up to be Beth, and that Mick has tried to watch over her and keep her safe over the years. In the present, Beth discovers that Mick is a vampire, and Mick reveals how one becomes a vampire and tells her the story of how he was turned by his bride, Coraline, on their wedding night.
Beth asks Mick to help her friend Morgan find her stolen cameras. When he meets her, Mick is completely shocked; Morgan is identical to his ex-wife, Coraline. He becomes even more confused when his vampiric sense of smell tells him that Morgan is human. Mick tries to expose Morgan as Coraline, but finally comes to believe that she is a doppelgänger when he sees that she does not have the fleur de lis tattoo on her shoulder as Coraline did. When alone, Morgan scrubs away the heavy makeup that has been covering the tattoo. Beth snoops through Mick's property, and finds out Mick was the one who protected her as a little girl when she was kidnapped. Morgan goes with Mick to his apartment to clean up after almost getting hit by a car. Mick joins her in the shower and finally sees the tattoo on her shoulder, revealing her identity as Coraline. When Beth learns that Morgan is really Coraline, the lady who kidnapped her as a child, she goes to Mick's apartment and stabs her with a wooden stake, narrowly missing her heart, not realizing that she has become human. Coraline goes to hospital, but recovers and leaves after being revealed to be a vampire again. Beth's boyfriend Josh is kidnapped by a dangerous Los Angeles–based gang. Mick and Beth witness the event and drive after him, but Josh is shot. Beth realizes that Josh is dying, and begs Mick to turn him into a vampire; he refuses and Josh dies. While putting Josh's affairs in order, Beth discovers that Josh was about to propose to her.
Mick encounters two vampires who are looking for Coraline. Once they leave, Mick visits his vampire friend Josef, who tells him that one of them was Lance (Jason Butler Harner), a rich and powerful vampire. Mick finds Coraline at a storage facility working on a compound for the vampire cure. Coraline explains that during the French Revolution there were seven siblings of royal blood who were vampires, two of whom were Lance and Coraline. She then uses the compound to cure Mick's vampirism, although Lance arrives and takes her away. Mick enjoys life as a human, although the cure is only temporary. Beth's boss at BuzzWire is killed, and a new assistant district attorney named Benjamin Talbot (Eric Winter) investigates the murder. Mick and Beth discuss the problems of having a romantic relationship, and although they end up kissing, Mick tells her he needs time to figure things out. Photos of Mick getting hit by a vehicle find their way into the hands of Talbot. Mick and Beth decide to start a romantic relationship, and go to a restaurant for their first date. When Beth quits her job at BuzzWire and becomes unemployed, Talbot offers her a job as a civilian investigator. Talbot receives a list of names of all the vampires in the area, including Mick, from an unknown source. Beth tells Mick that she cannot continue to date him because of their vampire-human situation, but Mick says that he loves her and they kiss.
### Vampire mythology
The conventions of Moonlight are based, in part, on a unique mythology. Some parts of the mythology that are common include a sire, that is the vampire who turns a human into a vampire; though in the show the sire must teach him or her how to live as one. A vampire's bite is not enough to turn a human into a vampire; the human, when near death, must drink the sire's blood or have vampire blood in his or her system at the moment of death. The process of vampirization also affects their genetics, causing their DNA to be fundamentally altered to suit their bodies' new state. This makes genetic testing between vampires and their human relatives impossible unless the vampire has a sample of their own human DNA from before they were turned, such as a lock of hair. They must consume human blood to survive. They also develop psychic powers and can glimpse the future and the past. This ability, along with their night vision, is an extension of their heightened senses. Daylight does not kill vampires, but does make them progressively weaker. Silver and fire are toxic, whereas garlic, holy water and crucifixes are benign. A vampire's image cannot be captured with analogue cameras containing silver emulsion in the film; digital cameras are able to capture an image because they do not use silver emulsion. Though undead, vampires have a pulse, are not cold-blooded (but still don't produce body heat as seen in episode 11 so that heat signature cameras won't see them), and cannot turn into a bat. The only ways to kill them are by decapitation or burning; a stake through the heart is painful but only causes paralysis. Moonlight vampires have many of the preternatural abilities described in vampire mythology; they have superhuman strength and speed, they heal rapidly from any wound, they can defy gravity to a limited degree to perform parkour feats, their bite has hypnotic effects on weak-minded humans, and they are immortal. Their powers increase as they get older. Their blood has drug-like effects when consumed by humans; causing euphoria and temporarily heightened senses.
## Episodes
## Cast and characters
### Main
- Alex O'Loughlin portrays Mick St. John, a private investigator who was turned into a vampire on the night of their wedding by his bride, Coraline. Mick is 85 years old; unlike other vampires, he has standards and does not hunt women, children, or innocents. Although he realizes that he has feelings for Beth, he is reluctant to continue a romantic relationship with her, knowing that being a vampire would hinder any sort of normal life. He is shown to be unusually mature and physically strong for a vampire of his age.
- Sophia Myles portrays Beth Turner, an internet reporter and Mick's love interest. Beth has some memories of being rescued from a kidnapper by Mick 22 years previously, but does not initially realize that Mick is the same man. At the beginning of the series, she is dating an assistant district attorney, Josh Lindsey (Jordan Belfi), but later develops a romantic relationship with Mick, whom she begins dating after Lindsey's death.
- Jason Dohring portrays Josef Kostan, a 410-year-old vampire and Mick's mentor and friend. Josef is a businessman who indulges himself with luxuries, from an expensive house to the company of numerous beautiful women who are more than happy to sate his desire for blood. Josef is Mick's second sire, ending the latter's brief stint as a human.
- Shannyn Sossamon portrays Coraline Duvall, St. John's ex-wife and original sire. A courtesan in early 18th century France, she is approximately 340 years old. After turning Mick into a vampire, the couple became estranged and Coraline was presumed dead for more than twenty years. When she returns under the pseudonym Morgan, she appears to be completely human and claims to have a cure for vampirism, which Mick becomes desperate to obtain.
### Supporting
- Jacob Vargas as Guillermo Gasol, a morgue worker who steals blood from dead bodies for himself and other vampires.
- Brian J. White as Lieutenant Carl Davis, one of Beth's contacts and a friend of Mick.
- Jordan Belfi as Josh Lindsey, Beth's boyfriend who works in the district attorney's office. Josh is killed by a member of the MS-13 gang.
- Tami Roman as Maureen Williams, Beth's boss at BuzzWire. Maureen is killed by a vampire over one of her stories.
- Kevin Weisman as Steve Balfour, a friend of Beth and co-worker at BuzzWire.
- David Blue as Logan Griffin, a vampire computer hacker and technology-obsessed recluse who Mick often goes to for help.
- Erika Ringor as Officer Theresa Novak, a police officer who sometimes gets involved with Mick and Beth's affairs.
- Eric Winter as Benjamin Talbot, an assistant district attorney who offers Beth a job.
- Nate Mooney as Ryder England, a vampire hacker employed by Josef Kostan who helps Mick and Beth find a vampire draining and killing escorts.
## Production
### Conception and crew
Trevor Munson conceived the character of Mick Angel in 2004 and spent two and a half years writing a novel featuring the character. The story was adapted into a feature film script, and Bruce Willis was considered as a possibility for the lead role. The script was shown to Nina Tassler at CBS, who paired Munson with Ron Koslow, creator of Beauty and the Beast, to rewrite the script as a television series. The series was titled Twilight, and Koslow and Munson wrote the pilot, which Warner Bros. Television initially commissioned as a presentation lasting 14–20 minutes in January 2007. Joel Silver and Gerard Bocaccio were hired to be executive producers on the project under the former's production banner, Silver Pictures, in the same month. Alex O'Loughlin and Shannon Lucio were cast in the presentation, and Rod Holcomb was hired as director. The project was renamed Moonlight when picked up by CBS on May 14, 2007, prior to the upfronts. David Greenwalt, creator of Miracles and co-creator of Angel, joined the staff in May 2007 as showrunner and executive producer alongside Silver. CBS had hired Greenwalt during the pilot process to restructure the original concept by Koslow and Munson, but health reasons forced Greenwalt to leave the series, and Chip Johannessen took over showrunner duties in August 2007.
### Casting
During Greenwalt's restructuring of the pilot, all of the original actors save for the male lead role of Mick St. John were recast in June 2007: Shannon Lucio, Rade Šerbedžija and Amber Valletta were originally cast in the roles of Beth Turner, Josef Kostan and Coraline Duvall respectively before Sophia Myles, Jason Dohring and Shannyn Sossamon replaced them. With this almost entirely different cast, a retooled, full-length pilot for television audiences was re-shot. Joel Silver approached Dohring "out of the blue and said, 'There's a role, and I'm making it younger'". Dohring read two pages of script featuring Josef, and was interested by the character's "dark" and "sharp" personality. Dohring had to go through the normal audition process and was not sure he would have gotten the role without Silver, who had "pushed it all the way through to the end".
Munson explained that the goal of the casting changes was "to lighten the show up a bit". He believed the changes granted the studio and network's wish to "make it a little younger and hipper". O'Loughlin felt that the whole cast's becoming "a little bit younger" especially affected the character Josef, as the originally chosen actor, Šerbedžija, was twice Jason Dohring's age. The creators and the network were concerned that Josef, whose relationship with Mick was important, would appear as more of a "father figure" rather than as a friend. O'Loughlin supported the recasting of Josef with a younger actor due to the resulting "level of ease in that age difference".
### Promotion and distribution
To promote the series, Silver and the main cast attended the Comic-Con International on July 27, 2007, where the series was featured. Moonlight premiered on September 28, 2007, airing on Friday nights at 9:00/8:00c on CBS, following Ghost Whisperer. Internationally, CTV began airing the series in Canada in simulcast with the American broadcast; Living began airing the series in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2008; and Nine Network in Australia began airing Moonlight on December 12, 2007, although it stopped showing the series after the eighth episode. The series finale aired on May 16, 2008, in the United States. The Sci Fi Channel began airing repeats of the series on January 23, 2009, on Fridays at 9 pm/ET. The series averaged one million viewers per episode on the Sci Fi Channel, making it one of the better-performing acquired series of the channel in recent years. Warner Home Video released the complete first season on DVD on January 20, 2009. On May 5, 2010, it was announced that reruns of the series would be paired with The Vampire Diaries repeats throughout the summer on The CW.
### Cancellation
Les Moonves, President of CBS, stated on December 4, 2007, that Moonlight was likely to return for a second season. Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, production of the series was halted by December 19, 2007, and only twelve episodes of the original thirteen-episode order were produced. Once the Writers' Strike ended, CBS announced that Moonlight would return on April 25, 2008, with four new episodes, to be part of the series' first season. On May 13, 2008, CBS announced that Moonlight was officially cancelled. Following the CBS cancellation, Warner Bros. Television inquired with other outlets about their interest in the series. One of the outlets approached was Media Rights Capital, which is responsible for The CW's Sunday night programming, although it decided not to acquire the series. It was later reported that Syfy was considering picking up the series. Writer and executive producer Harry Werksman said that "talks" were under way for a second season, and noted the possibility of a film. On June 23, 2008, James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter reported that efforts to sell Moonlight to another network had failed, and that the series was permanently cancelled.
## Broadcast syndication
Syfy acquired the rights to air the show. In summer 2010, The CW announced that it would air repeats of the show on Thursdays at 9:00 pm following The Vampire Diaries encores. The first episode aired on June 3 and attracted 1.41 million viewers and a 0.5 rating in adults aged 18–49. The repeat of the finale episode aired on August 26, 2010, and then the network removed it from the schedule.
## Reception
Moonlight attracted a loyal and devoted fan base which included internet communities. Fans Christine Contilli, Elizabeth McGinnis, and Barbara Arnold coordinated with the American Red Cross, CBS, and Warner Bros for a series of charity blood drives involving 33 states, and Alex O'Loughlin became a national spokesman for the charity. The series averaged 7.57 million American viewers per episode, ranking 89 out of 281 in the 2007–08 ratings. The pilot, "No Such Thing as Vampires", finished first among total viewers and adults aged 18–49 for its night, and was seen by 8.54 million American viewers. By comparison, the series finale, "Sonata", was watched by 7.47 million viewers upon its original broadcast, making it the 41st-most watched episode of the week. Moonlight was the 90th-most watched series of the 2007–2008 Television season with 7.53 million viewers.
### Critical response
Reviews were generally negative for the pilot, and the early episodes. Metacritic gave the pilot a Metascore of 38 out of 100, signifying generally negative reviews. Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle considered the series to be "the worst new fall show". The writing was criticized as "ponderous", and having "familiar, conventional plots". The dialogue was described by Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune as "groan-inducing". The acting of the pilot was criticized as "sub-par" and "woeful". Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe depreciated the chemistry between O'Loughlin and Myles as "artificial", and said that they "exchange lines of dialogue with a stilted rhythm and no natural flow". O'Loughlin was described as a "flatliner", and "passable in the lead role". Not all reviews, however, were as negative. Kara Howland of TV Guide gave the pilot a positive review, and thought it was a "solid start". Travis Fickett of IGN praised the actors, however, and felt that O'Loughlin did "a decent job", and that Myles was "perhaps the most promising aspect of the show". Ryan commended Myles as "reasonably good". Several critics praised Jason Dohring's portrayal of Josef. One said that he gave the series "a small burst of energy", while another said that he made it "crackle with a bit of wit". Dohring was described as "a welcome presence", and one critic wished for "a bit more screen time".
Reviews of the second episode were generally more positive than the pilot. Travis Fickett of IGN described the episode, and the series as a whole, as "vampire mediocrity with a slight hint of potential". He compared the episode to the television series Angel, saying it was "weaker on virtually every front". Jen Creer of TV Squad criticized the writing, but said she felt that Sophia Myles was doing a "decent job of developing her character and embracing the material". Carl Cortez of iFMagazine.com said this episode improved "leaps and bounds", and was a "step in the right direction". He gave the episode a 'C' rating, saying the direction was "lifeless" and the acting was "stilted". AOL TV placed the show in its list of TV's Biggest Guilty Pleasures. Rotten Tomatoes gives the series a critic rating of 22%.
### Awards and nominations
- People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama, 2008
- Saturn Award for Best Television Series Release on DVD, 2009 (awarded by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films)
## See also
- Vampire film
- List of vampire television series |
71,452,301 | Curriculum for Wales (2022–present) | 1,173,699,601 | National curriculum being introduced | [
"2022 establishments in Wales",
"Curricula",
"Education in Wales"
]
| The Curriculum for Wales is the curriculum which is being introduced in state-funded education in Wales for pupils aged three to sixteen years. The curriculum's rollout began in 2022. As of September 2023, it is statutorily required for all pupils apart from those in school years 9, 10 and 11. The curriculum has been developed based on a report commissioned in 2014. Amongst other changes, it gives schools greater autonomy over what they teach children. Views on the curriculum have been varied.
## History
In 2014, the Welsh Government commissioned Graham Donaldson, a professor at the University of Glasgow who had worked on reforms to education in Scotland, to conduct a report on reforming the curriculum in Wales. The following year he recommended a variety of changes, including greater emphasis on computer skills, giving schools more control over what they taught and creating more of a sense of natural progression through school. A few months later the Welsh Education Minister promised that the report would be implemented in full within eight years. Although the curriculum was initially planned to begin being taught in 2021, it was later delayed until 2022.
The new system was planned to be introduced first for children in primary school and their first year of secondary school before being rolled out further as that age cohort progressed towards the end of their schooling, meaning that some students would still be using the old system until 2026. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic schools were allowed to delay teaching the new curriculum in the first and second years of secondary school until 2023. The legal basis for the new curriculum was established with the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021.
## Instruction
The curriculum applies to all learners aged from three to sixteen in maintained or funded non-maintained nursery education. The new curriculum is designed to include more emphasis on skills, experiences and areas such as "digital skills, adaptability and creativity" as well as knowledge. The curriculum groups education into six "Areas of Learning and Experience", with the intention of helping teachers draw links between subjects and teach topics in a broad way, though traditional subjects will still be taught. Within a basic framework of goals and learning areas, it give schools freedom to develop their own curriculum to suit the needs of their pupils. Instruction is grouped into six different areas:
- Languages, Literacy and Communication
- Mathematics and Numeracy
- Science and Technology
- Health and Well-being
- Humanities
- Expressive Arts
The only specific subjects which all schools are obliged to teach are the English and Welsh languages along with:
- Literacy, numeracy and digital competence
- Religion, values and ethics
- Relationships and sexuality education
Other changes include a greater emphasis on the history of Wales and ethnic minority groups, which reports by Estyn in previous years suggested had often been poor, and the removal of parents' right to opt out their children from sex education classes.
## Assessment and progression
One of Donaldson's initial recommendations for the new curriculum was that school should be made into more of a single "journey" for a child, rather than the way he argued pupils and teachers had previously seen the process as a series of shorter chunks. This could include, for instance, more cooperation between primary and secondary schools. The key stages into which a child's time at school were previously broken are replaced with "progression steps" with guidance of what level pupils are expected to reach at different ages. These take place at age five, eight, eleven, fourteen and sixteen years old. The standardised literary and numeracy tests which seven- to fourteen-year-old children had taken annually since 2013 were replaced in 2021 with personalised online assessments.
### GCSEs
GCSE-aged students will be enrolled on the new curriculum in 2025 and 2026. The intention is that school-leaving exams will be reformed to reflect the new structure. Multiple qualifications in English, maths and science will be merged into one for each subject. New GCSEs will be created in subjects such as "engineering and manufacturing" and "film and digital media".
## Response
Surveys of teachers suggested that they broadly supported the changes being introduced. Journalists from the news website Wales Online spoke in 2022 to teachers and students at Crickhowell High School which had been using the new curriculum for several years. The children interviewed felt that the way the curriculum linked subjects together made their studies feel more relevant to them and improved their understanding. The staff also praised the new structure. The headteacher said that in her view,
> Everything we do now we try to pull subjects together. I think it makes learners more confident and more aware of individual skills ... We went from a knowledge-based curriculum to a more interactive new curriculum. It's a structure that changes school ethos and culture ... Students now feel they have better relationships with their teachers and are more interactive with their learning. That's not to say they just want to do easy things. It's raised aspirations and expectations. What we need in 2022 is vastly different from what we needed 10 years ago.
Terry Mackie, an expert in Welsh education, criticised the draft of the curriculum published in 2019 as being overly vague, excessively focused on cultural issues and based on little research. He also noted the negative effect a similar curriculum introduced in Scotland had on results. There were also concerns that grouping subjects into faculties could lead to a "dumbing down" of instruction and suggestions that the requirement for schools to develop their own curriculum was an unhelpful distraction. Many teachers and schools believed that they were inadequately prepared to implement the new curriculum, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The parents' group Public Child Protection Wales took legal action against the Welsh government over plans to make sex education compulsory at schools arguing that parents were being "denied their time-honoured right" to choose whether their children were taught the subject. Their attempt to have the introduction of the new relationships and sex (RSE) curriculum temporarily stopped until the completion of a judicial review into the subject was declined by High Court Justice Tipples on the grounds that "there is nothing in the claimants' evidence that any of the three children to whom RSE will be taught in the 2022/23 academic year will suffer any harm, yet alone any irreparable harm". The group lost the judicial review on the new curriculum, which they saw as biased, with Justice Steyn stating that "teaching should be neutral from a religious perspective, but it is not required to be value neutral".
## See also
- Education in Wales
- Education of Welsh History
- Welsh-medium education
- Education in the United Kingdom
### Other UK curricula
- National Curriculum for England – England
- Northern Ireland Curriculum – Northern Ireland
- Curriculum for excellence – Scotland |
44,685,014 | 1982 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game | 1,164,063,595 | Men's college basketball tournament game | [
"1980s in New Orleans",
"1981–82 NCAA Division I men's basketball season",
"1982 in sports in Louisiana",
"Basketball competitions in New Orleans",
"College sports in Louisiana",
"Georgetown Hoyas men's basketball",
"March 1982 sports events in the United States",
"Michael Jordan",
"NCAA Division I men's basketball championship games",
"North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball"
]
| The 1982 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game took place on Monday, March 29, between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Georgetown Hoyas at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The match-up was the final one of the forty-fourth consecutive NCAA tournament organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to crown a national champion for men's basketball at the Division I level.
Head coach John Thompson and the Georgetown Hoyas entered the game ranked sixth in the final AP Poll (released three weeks earlier), with an overall record of 28–6. The Hoyas were led by first-team All-American Eric Floyd and seven-foot (2.13 m) freshman Patrick Ewing. In the midst of a 15-game winning streak, the North Carolina Tar Heels entered the championship game at 31–2 after defeating the Houston Cougars in the national semifinal. The Dean Smith-led North Carolina Tar Heels were anchored by junior and first–team All-American James Worthy.
The game was televised by CBS across the United States, which attracted over 17 million viewers. Georgetown jumped out to an early 12–8 lead, with all eight of North Carolina's points coming from goaltending infractions by Ewing. The Hoyas entered halftime ahead 32–31. The teams traded the lead multiple times in the closing minutes of the second half. Following a turnover by Matt Doherty, Georgetown took the lead 62–61 courtesy of a jump shot from Floyd. During the ensuing possession, North Carolina freshman Michael Jordan hit a go-ahead basket with 15 seconds remaining to give the Tar Heels a one-point advantage.
The Tar Heels won their second NCAA men's basketball national championship, with their first coming in 1957. Worthy was named the Most Outstanding Player for his efforts throughout the tournament. After losing in his first three national title game appearances – something many had openly criticized him over – coach Smith won his first national championship as a head coach. Ewing helped lead the Hoyas back to the national title game in 1984 and 1985, where they won it all in 1984. Both talented freshmen, Ewing and Jordan, went on to become National Players of the Year before leaving college to play professional basketball.
## Background
### Georgetown Hoyas
John Thompson was in the midst of his tenth season as head coach of the Georgetown Hoyas as the team entered the national championship game. Before the season, Thompson made headlines when he signed top recruit, Patrick Ewing over several other top name schools, along with Anthony Jones, Ralph Dalton, Elvado Smith, and Bill Martin. Georgetown was named by some voters as the number one team in the nation in the preseason polls due to its highly touted recruiting class. The Hoyas' starting lineup was Eric Smith, Eric Floyd, and Fred Brown as guards, Mike Hancock in the forward position, and Ewing at center.
The Georgetown Hoyas participated in the Great Alaska Shootout to start the 1981–82 season. The Hoyas lost their opening game to Southwestern Louisiana 70–61 after playing a sloppy game. After winning the following game against Alaska–Anchorage 77–67, the Hoyas lost 47–46 to Ohio State in their final tournament game. Georgetown then began a thirteen-game win streak, which was followed by losing three straight to three conference opponents. The Hoyas then finished the regular season with nine more wins and one loss, which was good enough to finish second in the Big East regular season standings. The Hoyas won their first two games of the Big East tournament by a collective margin of 29 points and advanced to the championship game against the Villanova Wildcats. The two teams were tied 33–33 at halftime, but the Hoyas changed their defense from zone to man-to-man to start the second half. This proved effective as they were able to force turnovers and shoot well from the field, which led them to win 72–54. The Georgetown Hoyas won the Big East tournament and also, a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Georgetown faced Wyoming and won 51–43. The Hoyas then beat the Fresno State Bulldogs by eighteen, after leading by five at halftime, to advance to the regional finals. Georgetown faced off against Oregon State in the regional final. In the game, the Hoyas shot very well from the field, setting the tournament record for field goal percentage in a game, 77.4%, en route to the 69–45 victory. In the national semifinal against Louisville, both teams shot very poorly. The two teams traded the lead several times throughout the first half, but after three minutes into the second half, Georgetown gained the lead and never relinquished it. The Hoyas used defense to maintain their lead and set the pace of the game, which they won 50–46.
### North Carolina Tar Heels
The North Carolina Tar Heels were coached by Dean Smith, who was in his twenty–first season as head coach of the Tar Heels. This was Smith's fourth national championship game appearance as the coach of North Carolina, after losing in 1968, 1977, and 1981. Coach Smith entered the 1981 regular season with what he called the "best class he ever had" to that point in his career with: Buzz Peterson, Warren Martin, Michael Jordan, Lynwood Robinson, and John Brownlee. His North Carolina team was named by many as the preseason number one and the favorite to win the national title. North Carolina's starting line up consisted of Jimmy Black and Jordan at the guard positions, Matt Doherty and James Worthy in at forward, and Sam Perkins as starting center.
North Carolina opened their 1981–82 campaign with a win against Kansas at a neutral site in Charlotte, North Carolina. After winning five more games, the Tar Heels entered the Cable Car Classic. Behind Perkins' 23 points, the Tar Heels managed to win the game, despite being taken to overtime. North Carolina advanced to the tournament final where the defeated Santa Clara. Wake Forest defeated North Carolina, who was playing without Perkins due to illness, to hand them their first loss of the season. The Tar Heels won three more games before losing to Virginia, where they trailed the whole game. North Carolina won the remaining games of its regular season. The team won the ACC tournament by narrowly defeating Virginia in tournament's championship game, 47–45.
North Carolina edged James Madison 52–50 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Tar Heels beat Alabama in the succeeding round to advance to the regional final against Villanova. North Carolina advanced to the Final Four with a 70–60 over Villanova as each starter scored over ten points. In the national semifinal, North Carolina was pitted against Houston. The Tar Heels opened the game with a 14–0 run. Houston overcame the deficit and tied the game at 29 just a few minutes before the half. Coming out of halftime, North Carolina went on a 7–2 run and eventually won the game 68–63 after stalling for a significant period of time.
### Team rosters
### Media coverage
In the days before the game was to be played there was significant coverage given to the two head coaches Smith and Thompson. The two had both served as coaches on the 1976 United States men's Olympic basketball team for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The two coaches first met in Washington D.C. while trying to recruit players from the same high school. Thompson was quoted saying that coach Smith "knows our philosophy and I know his philosophy." Smith talked of Thompson saying he was a personal friend of his and that he would maintain contact with him whether or not Thompson was still coaching.
The relationship between Georgetown's Floyd and North Carolina's Worthy also drew some attention from the media. The two players grew up in Gastonia, North Carolina together, where they went to the same church and competed in high school against each other. Worthy commented that his family lives around two to three miles away from Floyd's. It was noted that the two would likely not interact much while playing as they did not play the same position.
Both coaches told the media that they believed their respective teams should play far better than they did in the National semifinal games if they wanted to win the upcoming game. Coach Smith expressed concerns over Georgetown's shooting ability and feared that Floyd would come out shooting very well from the field. In addition, Smith noted that Ewing would play a large factor in the game because his defensive presence in the game limits second chance opportunities for Georgetown's opponents. Ken Rappoport of the Associated Press wrote of how North Carolina was a very disciplined team that takes only high-percentage shots.
## Venue
The Louisiana Superdome was chosen as the venue for the Final Four of the 1982 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. The Superdome was selected over Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. Throughout the 1970s, the NCAA had considered hosting the Final Four in a domed football stadium, and the 1982 Final Four was the first time the tournament was held in a domed football stadium since 1971.
## Broadcast
The national championship game was televised across the United States by CBS. CBS obtained the rights to broadcast the NCAA Tournament, after the tournament had been previously broadcast by NBC. A total of 17.52 million homes, 30% of the television audience, watched the game. The broadcast earned a 21.5 Nielsen Rating, the second highest for the NCAA national championship game at the time, after 1979.
## Starting lineups
Source
## Game summary
The game began with a tip–off between Georgetown's Patrick Ewing and North Carolina's Sam Perkins, which was won by Georgetown. Ewing made the first shot of the game from the baseline. On defense, Ewing was called for goaltending four times to give North Carolina their first eight points. Georgetown coach John Thompson ordered Ewing to "make his presence known" on defense and to not worry about goaltending calls when attempting to block shots. North Carolina did not physically make a shot until 8:08 had passed, at which point the score was 12–10 in favor of Georgetown. Eric Floyd proceeded to score four consecutive baskets for the Hoyas, while Worthy made six shots for the Tar Heels to tie the score at 22–22. The score at halftime was 32–31 in favor of the Hoyas, with ten of North Carolina's points coming off five goaltending calls on Ewing.
The teams traded baskets for the majority of the second half, with the largest advantage being four points by Georgetown with over twelve minutes to go in the game. After five more minutes of game play, North Carolina managed to cut the lead to two, 56–54. The Tar Heels then obtained a single point lead with 5:50 to play and set up in their four corners offense, to run out the game clock. The Tar Heels were quickly fouled and Jimmy Black converted two free throws, while Fred Brown made two his own on the other end to bring the score to 59–58 in favor of North Carolina. With three and a half minutes left in the contest, Michael Jordan drove to the basket and made a shot off of the backboard to increase the Tar Heels' lead to three, 61–58. On Georgetown's following possession, Ewing made a jump shot to bring his team within one. North Carolina again set up in the four corners. While making an attempt to steal the ball from Matt Doherty, the Hoyas' Eric Smith was called for a foul. This sent Doherty to the line for a one-and-one, which he missed and Ewing got the rebound. Floyd then hit a twelve-foot jump shot with 57 seconds left to go to give Georgetown the lead, 62–61. Then, Jordan received a pass from Black and connected on a shot with fifteen seconds remaining in the game to give North Carolina a one-point lead. On the Hoyas' ensuing possession, Fred Brown mistakenly passed the ball away to Worthy, who proceeded to run out some of the clock before being fouled by Smith. Because the officials called an intentional foul, Worthy received two free throw attempts, both of which he missed. Floyd got the rebound and attempted a last second shot that also missed.
## Box score
Source:
## Aftermath
North Carolina's James Worthy was named the NCAA tournament's Most Outstanding Player for his performance during the course of the tournament. Along with that honor, Worthy and Eric Floyd were both named Consensus First–team All-Americans for the 1981–82 season, while Tar Heel Sam Perkins was a Consensus Second–team All-American. Despite losing the game, John Thompson was given the United States Basketball Writers Association's Coach of the Year.
Following the victory, Coach Smith received thousands of letters including the likes of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and President of the United States Ronald Reagan, the latter of which invited the team to the White House. Smith's secretary Linda Woods told reporters that "[Smith] answers everything" and stated that they were "2,000 letters behind in our correspondance." The visit to the White House was declined as the travel fares were not included.
In the days leading up to the national championship game, North Carolina head coach Dean Smith was a focal point of the media over his record in national championship games. Smith had coached the North Carolina Tar Heels to six Final Fours and three national title games before the 1981–82 season, all of which resulted in the Tar Heels failing to win the tournament. Due to these losses, Smith had earned a reputation for not being able to win the "big game." When coach Smith won the national championship game against Georgetown, he silenced those who had criticized him before the game. Before retiring, coach Smith led the Tar Heels to one more national title victory in 1993.
The Georgetown Hoyas returned to the national championship game in 1984, where they faced off against the Houston Cougars and won 84–75. It was the first NCAA men's basketball national championship that Georgetown had won, along with the first that Thompson had won as head coach. Thompson embracing Brown in celebration after he ceremonially took each starter out of the game to give the bench players time in the championship game became an enduring image, as Thompson had had to console Brown after he had crucially thrown it away to Worthy in 1982. The following year, they again made it back to the national title game. This time, however, they lost to the eighth-seeded conference rival Villanova Wildcats.
The game featured two future National Players of the Year in Jordan and Ewing. The Sporting News named Jordan Player of the Year for the 1982–83 season. The following year, Jordan was the consensus National Player of the Year for the 1983–84 season, winning each of the player of the year awards that were given out. Ewing won four National Player of the Year awards for his efforts during the 1984–85 season. In addition, Worthy (2003), Ewing (2008), and Jordan (2009) were all enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame after illustrious NBA careers with the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls respectively including 9 NBA championships and were also all named to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list in 1996 marking the league's 50th anniversary. |
7,211,489 | Unending | 1,170,095,258 | null | [
"2007 American television episodes",
"American television series finales",
"Stargate SG-1 episodes"
]
| "Unending" is the season finale of the tenth season and series finale of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1, and the show's 214th episode overall. Written and directed by Robert C. Cooper, the episode originally premiered in the United Kingdom on Sky One on March 13, 2007, and in the United States on June 22, 2007, on the Sci Fi Channel. The episode attracted approximately 2.2 million viewers on its American broadcast, a ratings success for the Sci Fi Channel.
The episode begins with the mass suicide of the Asgard race, who try to preserve their legacy by giving all of their accumulated knowledge and technology to the SG-1 team and the crew of the Earth ship Odyssey. When the ship is attacked by Ori warships, Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Carter creates a time dilation field. The field was programmed so while only fractions of a second had passed outside of the field, It takes fifty years inside the field until a defense against the Ori weapons can be found.
## Plot
The members of SG-1 and General Hank Landry (Beau Bridges) are travelling on the Earth ship Odyssey to the Asgard home world, Orilla, when the Asgard Thor beams aboard. He reveals that after millennia of genetic manipulation, a disease has brought his race very close to extinction, and SG-1 accepts his offer to upload the sum of all Asgard's knowledge into Odyssey as a way to preserve the Asgard legacy after their mass suicide. However, Orilla and Odyssey are soon attacked by Ori warships. Orilla erupts with huge explosions, eventually blowing up completely, bringing about the extinction of the Asgard race (though it is later revealed in Stargate Atlantis that the race lives on via a colony in the Pegasus Galaxy). After Odyssey escapes to the next planet with a Stargate and beams the bulk of its crew down, the Ori fire a final energy beam upon the ship. Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) activates a localized time dilation field that makes time look frozen outside the field to give SG-1 and Landry time to find a defense.
During the initial months on board, Vala Mal Doran (Claudia Black) repeatedly tries to seduce Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks). Daniel finally confronts Vala for what he believes to be her insincerity, teasing, and mocking of him. Vala's upset reaction makes Daniel realize the honesty of her feelings, and they share a passionate embrace. As the years pass, each team member attempts to deal with the isolation. General Landry develops a gardening hobby; Carter learns how to play the cello; Daniel continues the translation of Asgard information in the database and develops his relationship with Vala; and Cameron Mitchell (Ben Browder) and Teal'c (Christopher Judge) exercise and train while Mitchell is growing more frustrated and angry. After many years, General Landry succumbs to old age and dies.
After fifty years Carter has devised a way to reverse time within a localized field, however the Odyssey'''s power source (ZPM) is almost completely depleted from maintaining the time dilation field for fifty years. Mitchell hypothesizes that the power of the Ori energy beam could provide the required energy to reverse the time. But to accomplish the operation, one person has to exist outside of the time reversal; this person will remain at their advanced age while everyone else would revert to how they were 50 years prior (thus having no memories of those 50 years). Teal'c, who as a Jaffa has a much longer lifespan than the other team members, volunteers to remain behind and perform the rescue, protected within a separate field. As the group prepares their plan, Vala and Daniel exchange a last embrace, assuring each other of their love. When everything is in place, they deactivate the time dilation field and, after the normal timeline is restored, Teal'c prevents Colonel Carter from activating the time dilation field. Odyssey leaves before it is destroyed, saving SG-1 and the Asgard's legacy.
Back at the SGC (Stargate Command), Teal'c refuses to reveal any of the events on the ship, much to Vala's disappointment. As the episode, the season and the series come to a close, SG-1 contemplates Teal'c's joking words of wisdom in the gateroom and says "indeed" all at once. General Landry wishes the team God-speed, and SG-1 steps through the gate on their next mission.
## Production
"Unending" is the fiftieth Stargate SG-1 episode written by Robert C. Cooper, and the second episode of the series directed by Cooper. Being the series' tenth-season finale, "Unending" was the fifth season-finale to potentially serve as Stargate SG-1's last episode, although the writers originally anticipated another renewal of the series and planned to end the season with a cliffhanger. However, the Sci-Fi Channel announced the series' cancellation in August 2006, approximately one month before "Unending" was written. The network opposed the idea of a cliffhanger leading up to a possible movie, and since the producers never intended "to blow up the SGC and kill everyone", the episode's theme and name were chosen to give "a sense of ending without it being an ending". The option to end the series with a two-parter was considered but rejected, as Cooper felt this would have made the ending less special. The buildup of the Ori arc in Seasons 9 and 10 would eventually get a pay-off in Stargate: The Ark of Truth, a film produced after the end of the show. The cast and crew knew by the end of the episode's filming on October 5, 2006, that more films would be produced. There had been early discussions for Richard Dean Anderson to return as Jack O'Neill, however the show was over-budget, and with the series already cancelled the studio wouldn't be willing to cover his salary.
Robert C. Cooper intended the episode as "an emotional tribute to the ten seasons that [had] come before" and "the last chapter in the book – but not necessarily in the series of books. It was a chance [...], using science fiction, to show people one version of what the future might be like for these characters that they've spent so much time with and loved so much." By killing off the Asgard race, Cooper gave the episode an element of tragedy that reflected his feelings at the time. Producer Brad Wright wanted all of the characters to get a last shot in the spotlight instead of focusing on only one character. Because of fan vocality about team episodes, Cooper decided to put the characters through several decades of life and see their relationships develop and evolve. The references in "Unending" to the events of season 2's "The Fifth Race", another Cooper-penned episode often named as a fan favorite, were intended, as were the callbacks to season 9's "The Ties That Bind" (the Daniel-Vala argument, see below) and season 10's "Line In The Sand" (the solution of using the Ori beam). The period aboard the ship was originally significantly less than fifty years, but the actors' last-stage makeup, which Cooper only saw minutes before filming, looked so old that Cooper was forced to increase the number of years in the script.
Cooper originally wrote the developing romance between Daniel and Vala in "Unending" by having them have sex without a confrontation. Claudia Black and Michael Shanks protested against this intended story, as Shanks felt that "[t]here's always been this underlining, keeping [Vala] at arms length because of the fear of getting too close." Cooper rewrote the scene to show Vala's vulnerability to Daniel, and have Daniel share his true feelings of a relationship. The actors decided to play the confrontation scene as genuinely as possible, with both characters being neither completely in-character nor totally out-of-character. The scene was rehearsed a lot and was filmed over the course of six hours. Cooper was nevertheless concerned that Daniel appeared too edgy and mean, although his feelings were motivated by the two years of torment with Vala, and losing his wife nearly ten years before. Daniel's line, "You better not be messing with me", was only said in one take by Michael Shanks. Since Cooper prefers to follow up on such emotional scenes with a laugh, the immediate next scene shows Vala coming out of Daniel's room, where she encounters a disbelieving Mitchell jogging by. In Cooper's mind, Daniel held a crying Vala in another scene because she had gotten pregnant and had lost the baby. To contrast the obvious relationship between Daniel and Vala, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge subtly played their scenes as if their characters also had a romantic relationship.
To give the Odyssey an unnatural ghostship feeling of solitude, many wide angle shots and VisFX matte extension were used with no additional music. Robert C. Cooper often listened to the CCR song "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" during the making of the episode and decided to play it over the first montage, showing the passage of time. The tone of the second montage was set with a cello. Stargate composer Joel Goldsmith later accompanied the hand movements of the hired cellist with different music during post-production. A third montage was filmed but not included in the final cut of the episode since the last table scene already supplied the needed sentiment. Each time period included the same shots to help the audience focus on the differences that characters have gone through. The last scene at Stargate Command was the last filmed Stargate SG-1 scene, shot at two o'clock in the morning, for which every member of the crew came back.
## Reception
The broadcast of "Unending" on the British channel Sky One on March 13, 2007, pulled in around 518,000 viewers, making Stargate SG-1 the third most-watched program for Sky One during that week. "Unending" attracted approximately 2.2 million viewers on its first American broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel on June 22, 2007, the best performance for SG-1 since the September 22, 2006 mid-season finale. Writer and producer Joseph Mallozzi acknowledged that some fans were unhappy with the end of the Asgard, the absence of Jack O’Neill and Daniel and Vala getting together.
Reviewers were generally satisfied with the conclusion, and some like Bill Keveney of the USA Today felt the episode does not stray far from "the series formula – a mix of sci-fi adventure, relationships and humor". Jason Van Horn of IGN enjoyed the humor, "the amount of heart and pure emotion running rampant this episode", which he thought served as a symbol for the entire show that will stay in the public mind through re-runs and DVDs. Two scenes that stood out for him as "powerful", "heart-wrenching" and "the icing on the cake", were Mitchell's breakdown and Vala's seduction of Daniel signaling "the beginning of a very long lasting and loving relationship". Vala's emotional response to Daniel was interpreted as an example of her character growth, while another reviewer felt the "Vala/Daniel argument [was] a tad overwrought [although] the motivation is clear". The emotional death of Landry appealed to several reviewers, as did the resolution via Teal'c's heroic sacrifice.
The "clever, ground-breaking", "fitting" and "hugely satisfying" episode reminded hdtvuk.tv's Ian Calcutt of Star Trek: The Next Generation's finale "All Good Things...", while TV Squad's Richard Keller noted strong similarities to a two-part episode of Star Trek: Voyager named "Year of Hell". He was "extremely sad to see [the series] go", but could not overlook the mediocrity, predictability and lack of originality of the series finale. TV Zone's Anthony Brown, who considered the episode "curious[ly] low-key", regretted the planned direct-to-DVD films, as "the whole thing inevitably loses its punch as the reset button's pressed [...], rather than providing the genuine emotion of an actual ending". Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune thought that the episode went out on "a strange note" with a disappointing last "string of banal clichés" dialogue exchange, although the cast and the established goodwill of their characters could partly make up for it. Mary McNamara of Multichannel News lauded Cooper's direction, lighting, costuming, the "haunting" music and sound, the production values and special effects. She acknowledged the SG-1 finale as a "true ensemble/team piece" with "a poignant and satisfying conclusion", and despite not making it into the top ten of series finales, the episode was "very good" and "respects and rewards the ten year commitment viewers have made to the series". David Bianculli from the New York Daily Times'' gave the episode two and a half out of five and saying the franchise stopped "Without warning" thanks to this episode. |
6,394,729 | New Jersey Route 65 | 1,171,193,145 | Highway in New Jersey | [
"Former state highways in New Jersey",
"Transportation in Newark, New Jersey"
]
| Route 65 is a former state highway in the city of Newark, New Jersey. The route went for 4.12 miles (6.63 km) along Port Street and Doremus Avenue through the industrial districts of the city. Route 65 began at an intersection with U.S. Route 1 and 9 near Newark Airport (now called Newark Liberty International Airport). The route crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike along Port Street until an intersection with Doremus Avenue, where it turned northward for the rest of the distance, terminating at an intersection with U.S. Route 1 and 9 Truck.
Route 65 was originally planned in 1939 as a spur of Route 25, Route 25B, in Newark to connect that route with Route 25T (now U.S. Route 1/9 Truck). The route lasted for 14 years, until January 1, 1953, when the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering occurred. Route 25B was decommissioned on that day, along with its parent route, Route 25. Route 25B was redesigned as Route 65, and was removed from the state highway system by 1963. The two roads are now maintained by the city of Newark. The shield for Route 65 had a unique green circular background with white text on it, which heavily contrasts both the former white circle with the text “New Jersey Highway,” and the modern day white oval on a black rectangle background
## Route description
Route 65 began at an intersection with U.S. Route 1 and 9 in the area of Newark Airport (now called Newark Liberty International Airport) in the city of Newark. The route progressed eastward along Port Street, a divided highway for a short distance. The route crossed the access road to the airport before crossing over the New Jersey Turnpike south of Interchange 14. From there, Route 65 continued as Port Street but as one roadway into the industrial districts in Newark. The route progressed further over a railroad before intersecting with Doremus Avenue, where Route 65 turned northward off of Port Street. Both Port Street and Doremus Avenue dead-end right after this respective intersection, Doremus Avenue to the south and Port Street to the east.
From there, Route 65 headed northward along Doremus Avenue, crossing over the Newark Bay Extension (Interstate 78) just north of the intersection. The route continued through the industrial district, reaching higher in elevation on a bridge over the Central Railroad of New Jersey (now Conrail Shared Assets Operations, CSAO). From there, the route paralleled the turnpike's mainline along Doremus Avenue. At the intersection with Raymond Boulevard, Route 65 became a divided highway once again, terminating at an intersection with U.S. Route 1/9 Truck in the city of Newark.
## History
Route 65 was originally designated in 1939 as State Highway Route 25B, a spur off of State Highway Route 25 (now U.S. Route 1 and 9) at a traffic circle near the Newark Metropolitan Airport (now Newark Liberty International Airport). The route was then to commence along Port Street and Doremus Avenue to an intersection with State Highway Route 25T (now U.S. Route 1 and 9 Truck). Route 25B remained intact along the alignment of Port Street and Doremus Avenue until January 1, 1953. On that day, the New Jersey State Highway Department renumbered routes in the state, and eliminated Route 25 entirely. Due to decommissioning of Route 25, Route 25B was renumbered to Route 65, eliminating the relation to former Route 25 or U.S. Route 1 and 9. Route 65 remained on the Port Street and Doremus Avenue alignment for a short time, and was completely eliminated from the state system by 1963. Port Street and Doremus Avenue are both now maintained by the city of Newark but both are of the National Highway System as of 2009. In 2001, the bridge over the CSAO line was reconstructed.
## Major intersections
## See also
- New Jersey Route 158, another short-lived spur of Route 25 |
51,871,162 | Witchcraft in Orkney | 1,171,278,454 | Overview of witch persecution in Orkney, Scotland | [
"History of Orkney",
"Legal history of Scotland",
"Scottish folklore",
"Torture in Scotland",
"Trials in Scotland",
"Witch trials in Scotland",
"Witchcraft in Scotland"
]
| Witchcraft in Orkney possibly has its roots in the settlement of Norsemen on the archipelago from the eighth century onwards. Until the early modern period magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle, but witch-hunts began on the mainland of Scotland in about 1550, and the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft or consultation with witches a crime punishable by death. One of the first Orcadians tried and executed for witchcraft was Allison Balfour, in 1594. Balfour, her elderly husband and two young children, were subjected to severe torture for two days to elicit a confession from her.
Trials were generally held in St Magnus Cathedral where the accused were also incarcerated while being interrogated. Once convicted, witches were taken to Gallow Ha to be executed by strangulation and then their bodies were burned. Early laws also allowed the seizure of any property or belongings of those guilty of any crimes associated with witchcraft; this was manipulated to suit whatever purpose the ruling Earls such as Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney had in mind, and left much of the island's population destitute. These laws were overturned in 1611 but were replaced by Scottish law, causing a shift from the exploitation by the Earls to the administration of justice by the Bishop's court of James Law, a fervent minister from West Lothian. The reforms instituted by the restoration of the Bishops had a significant impact but failed to introduce any neutrality into the proceedings against those accused of witchcraft during the most intensive period of witch-hunting on the island from 1615 until 1645.
The new court regime produced varying results regarding punishments passed down: the first trial held on 7 June 1615 was against two women from Westray, both were deemed guilty but one was sentenced to be banished after a severe public flogging while the other was tied to a stake, strangled and burned. Charges in cases varied but the slightest misdemeanour could lead to charges of witchcraft and devilry being brought and upheld. If confessions of associations with the Devil were not forthcoming, convictions were obtained on the basis of consorting with fairies. In 1616 Elspeth Reoch was found guilty and executed after she admitted having sexual intercourse with a fairy man.
Mirroring the time span of witch persecution on the mainland of Scotland, the trials in Orkney drew to an end in 1708; most took place prior to 1650. Sixty-eight people had been accused, the majority – around ninety percent – were women, a higher ratio than that recorded in the rest of the country.
## Background
The islanders of Orkney had a long tradition of belief in broadly construed forms of witchcraft, sorcery, and supernatural creatures, possibly stretching back to the arrival of the first Norse settlers. The date the Norse first began to settle Orkney is not certainly known, although it likely occurred prior to the first written records of their appearance in north Britain, which date to the late eighth century. Magical powers were accepted as part of the general lifestyle and were not questioned. Superstitious island farmers attributed poor harvests or the loss of their stock to the malevolence of witches. Gradually attitudes began to change; theologians suggested that those with mystical powers were devil worshippers and it was heresy. Components of local folk tales were associated with witches by ministers who suggested the alleged witches were working with fairies and other supernatural creatures. It was common for inquisitors to transcribe the word devil or demon in place of any appellation for a fairy an alleged witch may have used in their statement.
In Scotland witch-hunts began around 1550; the parliament of Mary, Queen of Scots passed the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563 making witchcraft convictions a capital punishment. Although the Orkney archipelago was officially under Norwegian law until 1611, at which time it was abolished by an act of the Privy Council of Scotland, it had been held by Scotland from 1468 under the rule of Scottish earls. Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, known as Black Patie, had control of the islands in 1594 at the time of the initial witch trials but later trials were overseen by James Law who took on the role of sheriff after he had been appointed Bishop of Orkney by King James. In contrast to the mainland where the Privy Council oversaw trials, there are no records of it having any involvement on Orkney where, from 1615, the Procurator Fiscal instigated hearings in the Sheriff Court or they were heard by the church elders. The Witchcraft Act not only allowed the execution of witches but also those who sought advice from them. Patie treated the islanders with contempt and tended to impose extremely heavy penalties on the advice seekers. When the Privy Council questioned him about it in 1609, he replied that without the severe penalties the islanders "wald all have becommit witches and warlockis for the people ar naturally inclynit thairto". King James also considered Orkney as one of the places where sorcery and magic were widespread, mentioning it in his book Daemonologie. Early to mid-19th century sailors held a similar conviction concerning the archipelago: Walter Traill Dennison, a folklorist and native of Sanday, born in 1825, had been taken on an excursion to Leith as a child. An elderly sailor sat the boy on his lap while recounting him a tale; when he discovered Traill Dennison was a visitor from Orkney, he recoiled from him in fear crying "O, my lad, you hail from that lubber land where so many cursed witches dwell."
## Early trials
Only sparse information is available on witch trials in Orkney prior to 1612, yet the first of two connected witchcraft trials associated with Orkney, held in 1594 and 1596, has been described by the academic historian Julian Goodare as "one of Scotland's most frequently-cited witchcraft cases." Admissions of guilt were an integral part of witchcraft trials in Scotland and torture was often used until the practice was discontinued in 1708. Allison Balfour, who lived in an area of Stenness known as Ireland, had been asked for advice on how best to cast a spell on Patie by his brothers and friends who were plotting to kill him. Together with her aged husband, son and seven-year-old daughter, Balfour was subjected to extensive torture for forty-eight hours. She finally confessed but was found guilty of conspiring to murder by the use of witchcraft and was sentenced to be strangled and burned. On 16 December 1594 she was executed despite having retracted her confession.
The majority of trials were held in St Magnus Cathedral. Prisoners may also have been held captive in the Cathedral; a roofed cell-like area, often referred to as Marwick's-hole, is set between the side wall and the south transept chapel. Above the north and south chapels, on the second floor, are small rooms that may have been utilised as cells too. Convicted witches were executed on Gallow Ha, an area in Kirkwall located at the top of a street now called Clay Loan.
Early Norwegian law dating back to the 11th century stipulated that anyone declared guilty of sorcery or associated crimes would forfeit all their possessions; records in Orkney for the period around 1602–04 detail land seized due to crimes of witchcraft. Like his father before him Patie had no compunction about seizing land from lowly islanders; the law was manipulated to suit his own desires leaving much of the population destitute. Court papers frequently show the status of an accused islander as a vagabond, some having been forced into that lifestyle after being banished from their local community. Convictions and fines utilising the Lawburrows Act were often imposed by Patie but were rarely listed as such.
The Rentals of the Ancient Earldom and Bishoprick of Orkney for 1595 indicate that two women, Jonet of Cara from South Ronaldsay – whose possessions had been seized by Patie – and another who is simply listed as "Alisoun Margaret's daughter" from Thurvoe were burned for witchcraft in or around 1595. The same document records Anne Marsetter of Halkland in Rendall, Elspet Marsetter of Wosbuster in South Sandwick and Robert Ness from the Ireland area of Stenness as being witches.
## Later trials
The early years of the 17th century were a period of political turmoil. James Law, a fervent minister from Kirkliston in West Lothian, was appointed Bishop of Orkney by King James in 1605. Eventually subjugated by Bishop Law, Black Patie was incarcerated and then executed after he enraged King James; Patie's illegitimate son, Robert, was also executed after he was forced to surrender following a siege at Kirkwall Castle in 1614. In addition, the old Norse Laws were officially replaced by the laws of Scotland in 1611 and, according to the scholar Robert Barclay, while "the earl's court had manipulated the law, the bishop's court now administered justice". The most intensive period during which the witches were persecuted on Orkney was from 1615 until 1645. The historian Liv Helene Willumsen considers the court reforms instigated by Bishop Law around 1614 and the restoration of the bishops impacted significantly on the witch trials, but failed to improve the neutrality of the proceedings.
On 7 June 1615 the new court regime saw the first instance of charges being levelled for "the abohminable and divelishe cryme of witchcraft". The two accused women, Jonet Drever and Katherene Bigland, both from Westray, were declared guilty at their joint trial held in Kirkwall but with differing sentences. Drever confessed to having 26 years earlier conversed with fairies, that she left a child in the care of the fairy folk who she called "our good neighbours and in having carnal dealings with her." Orcadian historian Ernest Marwick considered part of the phrasing used in the accusations made against Bigland to be ambiguous; it could be interpreted as Bigland acting as lookout while a gathering of witches took place in the churchyard. Instead he read the meaning to be she was "accused of raising a procession of the dead". She had also washed her master with salt water after taking him down to the shoreline as it was thought to have medicinal properties; his illness was allegedly caused by Bigland, who then cured him by inflicting the sickness on his servant but she then transferred it back to the master again. The punishment ordered for Drever was that she be severely flogged in public the following afternoon then banished whereas Bigland was bound to a stake, strangled and burned.
The type of accusation made against Bigland, the curing or being responsible for the illness of livestock or people, was the most common charge against alleged witches until 1650. During that period fourteen islanders were accused of causing or being responsible for the death of a person, and thirteen for bringing about the death of an animal. Charges were brought if the accused was known to have disliked someone who died or if they had been heard muttering threats against others. Katherine Craigie of Rousay was tried twice, first in 1640 and again in 1643; among her alleged misdeeds was that she had accurately predicted a man she had a dispute with would die within a year. When the claim was causing the death of animals, an alleged witch being seen near the barns or pastures where livestock were accommodated provided adequate grounds for prosecution.
Generally even tentative evidence indicating any association with the Devil or the merest connection to curing disease was "devilrie and witchcraft." At the trial of Jonet Rendall in 1629 the charges against her alleged she received her healing powers from the Devil. He had a grey beard, was dressed in white with a head of the same colour yet a few years later at the trial against Marion Richart from Sanday in 1633, the Devil she was meeting with had the "likeness of a black man". Rendall and Richart were both convicted and sentenced to be strangled and burned.
If the evidence did not show connections to the Devil, the courts would convict on tales of involvement with fairies. At her trial in 1616 Elspeth Reoch admitted to having several rendezvous with the Devil who had assumed the form of a fairy; she said one of the meetings she had with the Devil occurred on Halloween. Her confession stated that when she was twelve years old she had met two men near a loch; after she produced an illegitimate child, one of the men appeared again at her bedside. She admitted that she had sexual intercourse with the "Farie man". At one of the meetings she had with him, he informed her that "Orkney was Priestgone, as there were too many ministers in it." Reoch was found guilty and executed.
## Decline
Witch trials continued on Orkney until 1708, a similar time span to that on the mainland of Scotland, although the majority of Orcadian trials took place prior to 1650, when witch-hunting on the archipelago virtually came to an end. Accusations were made against sixty-eight people. The highest number of cases heard in one year was during 1643 when twenty-four individuals were accused of witchcraft or using charms. Around ninety percent of the witchcraft allegations in Orkney were brought against women, a higher proportion than seen on the mainland. Any accusations levelled against men were all related to cases dealing with women. |
182,880 | Hellblazer | 1,162,217,517 | 1988–2020 comic book series | [
"1988 comics debuts",
"2013 comics endings",
"2020 comics debuts",
"Comics adapted into television series",
"Comics by Alan Moore",
"DC Comics adapted into films",
"DC Comics adapted into video games",
"DC Comics titles",
"Eisner Award winners",
"Fantasy comics",
"Gothic comics",
"Hellblazer",
"Historical comics",
"Horror comics",
"LGBT-related comics",
"Occult detective fiction"
]
| John Constantine, Hellblazer is an American contemporary horror comic-book series published by DC Comics since January 1988, and subsequently by its Vertigo imprint since March 1993, when the imprint was introduced. Its central character is the streetwise English exorcist and con man John Constantine, who was created by Alan Moore and Stephen R. Bissette, and first appeared as a supporting character in Swamp Thing (vol. 2) \#37 (June 1985), during that creative team's run on that title. Hellblazer had been published continuously since January 1988, and was Vertigo's longest-running title, the only remaining publication from the imprint's launch. In 2013, the series concluded with issue 300, and was replaced by Constantine, which returned the character to the mainstream DC Universe. The original series was revived in November 2019 for twelve issues as part of The Sandman Universe line of comics, under the DC Black Label brand. Well known for its extremely pessimistic tone and social/political commentary, the series has spawned a film adaptation, television show, novels, and multiple spin-offs and crossovers.
The series was the longest-running and one of the most successful titles of DC's Vertigo imprint, and was the stepping stone for many British writers. Notable writers who have contributed to the series include Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Eddie Campbell, Paul Jenkins, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Brian Azzarello, Mike Carey, Denise Mina, Andy Diggle, and Peter Milligan. Hellblazer was one of the first modern occult detective fiction works and heavily influenced the genre to come.
## Production history
After favorable reader reaction to John Constantine's appearances in the comic-book series Swamp Thing, where he had been introduced by writer Alan Moore, the character was given his own comic-book series in 1988. The series was intended to bear the title Hellraiser, but this title was revised before publication due to the contemporaneous release of Clive Barker's unrelated film of the same name. Initial writer Jamie Delano was, in his own words, "fairly ambivalent" about the change of title.
The initial creative team was writer Jamie Delano and artist John Ridgway, with Dave McKean supplying distinctive painted and collage covers. Delano introduced a political aspect to the character, about which he stated: "...generally I was interested in commenting on 1980s Britain. That was where I was living, it was shit, and I wanted to tell everybody." The book, originally published as a regular DC Comics title, became a Vertigo title with the imprint's launch in March 1993 (issue \#63 of the series). In October 2011, it was announced that this would join DC titles in being published digitally on the same day as its physical release, starting in January 2012.
### Creative personnel
Many writers had lengthy runs on the series, such as Garth Ennis and Mike Carey, who respectively had the second- and third-longest runs on the book (only behind Peter Milligan). Other writers who wrote for the series include Paul Jenkins, Warren Ellis, Brian Azzarello, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Denise Mina, and Andy Diggle.
Numerous artists worked on the series, as well, such as John Ridgway (the original series artist), Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Richard Corben, Steve Dillon, Marcelo Frusin, Jock, David Lloyd, Leonardo Manco, and Sean Phillips. Cover artists included Dave McKean (who designed the first run of the series' covers), Tim Bradstreet (who designed the most), Glenn Fabry, Kent Williams, David Lloyd, and Sean Phillips.
## In the comics
### Setting and protagonist
Hellblazer was set in a contemporary world, albeit a world of magic and supernatural conflict behind the scenes. Although the official setting of the series was the DC Universe, well-known DC characters were rarely seen or mentioned. However, some DC Comics characters – most notably the fringe supernatural characters such as Zatanna, the Phantom Stranger, Shade, the Changing Man, Dream of the Endless, and the Swamp Thing – made appearances.
John Constantine, the main character of Hellblazer, was portrayed as a kind of confidence man and occult detective who did morally questionable things, arguably for the greater good. He usually triumphed through guile, deceit, and misdirection, but often made more enemies in the process than he defeated. Indeed, it was a common theme in the book that Constantine was unable to effect any lasting change or enjoy unequivocal victories. While sometimes striving for the good of mankind, Constantine was often manipulative and a dangerous person to have as a friend, as the lives and souls of those around him became perilously involved in his misadventures. He took pains to protect himself from direct attacks, but his friends and relatives were often endangered in order to strike at him. The spirits of deceased friends haunted him, individually or as an entourage of ghosts.
Constantine made appearances in other comic-book titles, such as Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, The Sandman, Lucifer, and Shade, the Changing Man. He was a recurring supporting character in both Swamp Thing and The Books of Magic throughout their numerous incarnations. Some attempts to use the character in other superhero or family-friendly comics were altered due to editorial mandate, such as "Gregori Eilovotich Rasputin" in Firestorm and Captain Atom (who refers to Constantine as "an impertinent bumbler in England"). Grant Morrison created "Willoughby Kipling" for Doom Patrol after being refused Constantine by DC, changing his appearance to that of Richard E. Grant in Withnail and I, following which Phil Foglio was forced to create "Ambroise Bierce" in Stanley and His Monster, having been refused both Constantine and Willoughby Kipling.
John Constantine was reintroduced into the DC Universe in 2011, initially in the Brightest Day crossover event title Search for the Swamp Thing, and in the ongoing The New 52 title Justice League Dark.
### 1988–1991
#### Jamie Delano (#1–24, \#28–40, \#84, \#250)
Having previously worked on D.R. & Quinch for 2000 AD, a title made popular by John Constantine's creator Alan Moore, Delano was selected to start the character's first run in his own comic by then editor Karen Berger in 1988. Delano's run was characterised by his political satire, taking on late-1980s and -90s tropes such as with city financiers being literal demons, and Constantine meeting with Freemasons from the Houses of Parliament. He also had environmentalist issues crop up, especially in "The Fear Machine" (issues \#15–22), where John fell in with a travelling community of environmental activists. Indeed, editor Karen Berger noted on Delano's departure the irony that his final issue was handed in the week that Thatcher was forced out of office.
Five main storylines were in the run. The first, collected as "Original Sins", deals with John travelling to America to exorcise a demon, Mnemoth, and investigate a strange cult known as Damnation's Army, crossing paths with a demon called Nergal (from whom he gains demon blood), and having to be responsible for killing an old friend, Gary Lester, and betraying another friend, called Zed, in the process. The following four issues, "The Devil You Know" finally explain John's failure to save a young girl, Astra, from a demon in Newcastle, an event that left him near insane and incarcerated in an asylum known as Ravenscar, and still haunted him to the comic's end. He eventually discovers that the demon responsible for this was Nergal, and uses a technological scheme to trap him, and lead him back to hell. It also contains a crossover with Swamp Thing, where Constantine loses his body while the Swamp Thing uses it to procreate.
This was followed by a lengthy nine-issue story arc, "The Fear Machine", revolving around a masonic plot to collect people's fears, to raise a dormant god known as Juntakillokian, and his efforts to prevent this with the help of environmentalists, including Mercury, a young psychic girl, and Marj, her mother, with whom he becomes romantically involved. The penultimate major run of Delano's tenure was "The Family Man", which differed from the main body of the series thus far in that Constantine's nemesis is not supernatural (beyond an opening metafictional encounter with a fictional fence), but a former policeman turned serial killer. John's ethical quandary as to whether murder is ever acceptable, and his coping with the murder of his father, Thomas, frames this story. During this run on the title, Grant Morrison (issues \#25 & 26) and Neil Gaiman (issue \#27) both filled in during a three-month break, with Morrison's story dealing with nuclear fear, and Neil Gaiman's being a ghost story about homelessness.
Delano's run ended with "The Golden Child", where John is reunited with Marj and Mercury, who help him discover that he murdered his more perfect twin in the womb, culminating in an extended story, in which what would have occurred had the other twin survived in his place is revealed. During his run, there was also a stand-alone issue, Hellblazer Annual \#1, exploring Constantine's ancestry, and featuring the video to John's punk band, Mucous Membrane's song "Venus of the Hardsell".
Jamie Delano returned to the title on several occasions. Between the Garth Ennis and Paul Jenkins runs on Hellblazer, he finally told the story of why John's best friend Chas 'owes' him (issue \#84), and he returned again for one of the five Christmas stories in issue \#250. He also wrote the miniseries The Horrorist in 1995, and Bad Blood in 2000, both featuring John Constantine. A more substantial return was made in 2010 for a hardcover graphic novel Hellblazer: Pandemonium with artist Jock to commemorate the 25th anniversary of John Constantine's first appearance in Swamp Thing.
### 1991–1995
#### Garth Ennis (#41–50, \#52–83, \#129–133)
Irish writer Garth Ennis then took over the title in 1991, again from 2000 AD, where he had been working on Judge Dredd. He proceeded to write the second-longest run for any writer on the title. His take on the title was more personal than Jamie Delano's, with John's relationships coming to the fore. It also had a strong religious theme, with John's dealings with the First of the Fallen, and some storylines, such as the relationship between an angel, Tali, and a succubus demon, Ellie, would go on to be used again as a major plot device in Preacher, one of his most popular works. He also references the music of The Pogues and the poetry of Brendan Behan, both of these being relevant to Ennis' Irish heritage.
His run started with "Dangerous Habits" (41–46), which was the basis for the 2005 film Constantine, and dealt with John Constantine contracting lung cancer, and the desperate deal he makes with the First of the Fallen, and various other lords of Hell, to save himself. In the course of trying to save himself, he visits Ireland, and later becomes reacquainted with Kit Ryan, an old friend of Irish origin. The following few issues follow the early stages of his relationship with Kit, a plot to install a demon on the British throne in the plotline "Royal Blood", and in the extended issue \#50, his first meeting with the King of the Vampires. One minor story in this arc (issue \#51) was written by guest writer John Smith.
The next major arc, "Fear and Loathing" (issues 62–67), covers a high point of John's personal life, with his relationship with Kit going well, and a 40th birthday party where his friends Ellie, Zatanna, and the Swamp Thing attend, and use their various abilities to create a large quantity of Bushmills whiskey and marijuana. The story then takes him to his lowest point, through his dealings with the National Front, their threats towards Kit, and her leaving him to return to Ireland. Following this, John is defeated, and lives homeless on the streets, drinking to forget his life. This remains the case until the King of the Vampires hunts him out, and is poisoned by his demon blood, leaving him out in the sun at dawn, killing him. Following his recovery, the storyline "Damnation's Flame" (Issues \#72–77) follows a trip to the US, where Constantine is put into an alternative America by his old adversary Papa Midnite, a Vodun shaman. He is accompanied by the spirit of JFK, who has to hold his brain in place from his infamous wound. He eventually learns how to escape, shortly before running into the First of the Fallen, in the guise of Abraham Lincoln. There then follows a small break where he meets the spirit of a dead friend in Dublin, offering some closure to his recent problems. Ennis' run ends with "Rake at the Gates of Hell", a story which finally brings together the racism storyline, with riots in Mile End, echoing the real-life Brixton and Broadwater Farm riots in London, the revenge attempt of the First of the Fallen, started in "Dangerous Habits", and the end of John's relationship with Kit Ryan. John's eventual Pyrrhic victory leaves this run with closure, and a relatively clean slate for a new writer to take over.
Ennis briefly returned to the title in 1998 with "Son of Man", filling the gaps between Paul Jenkins's and Warren Ellis's runs on the title. This more irreverent story is about the consequences of Constantine resurrecting the dead son of an East London gangster, using the spirit of a demon. He also had two specials published during his run on the title, the Hellblazer Special and Heartland, which follows Kit Ryan's return to Ireland.
### 1995-1999
#### Paul Jenkins (#89–128)
Following issue \#84 by Jamie Delano and a brief interlude by From Hell artist Eddie Campbell (issues \#85-88), the series' direction was taken over by Paul Jenkins in 1995. He had been the former editor of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other Mirage Studios lines. He had pitched to several comic houses, having tired of editing, and eventually managed to gain stewardship of Hellblazer, the first largely untested writer to achieve this. Jenkins' run is more traditionally English in its themes, with Albion, Arthurian legend, and old English battles all featuring, and even an appearance by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and a speculative explanation of the writing of Kubla Khan, and what the interruption of the 'man from Porlock' may have been. He also returns to Jamie Delano's coverage of anarchist lifestyles, and the effects of the Criminal Justice Act of 1994, a controversial law which restricted the ability of the public to throw raves and large demonstrations.
Major storylines in this run include "Critical Mass", where Constantine is forced to use magic to purge his darker side into another human body, to avoid being damned to Hell as part of a trade to save the possessed son of a friend, thus creating the antagonistic character, Demon Constantine, with the assistance of Aleister Crowley. The landmark hundredth issue gave more detail on John Constantine's father, and the abusive relationship that they had shared. However, it is unclear as to whether this is happening in reality, or in his mind as John convalesces in a coma. "Last Man Standing" reveals that his friend Rich is the current descendant of King Arthur, and Merlin's attempt to discover God's secret, an act which would destroy England, using John's few remaining friends as bait.
The 10th-anniversary issue breaks from the usual format, in breaking the fourth wall, and addressing readers as if they are in a pub with Constantine for a monthly get-together to hear his stories. Over the course of the issue, most of the characters from Constantine's history appear, along with Death of the Endless from Sandman. Also, appearances are made by writers and artists, including series creator Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, and Jenkins himself. Jenkins' run then draws to a close with two storylines, "Up the Down Staircase" and "How to Play With Fire", which relate the First of the Fallen's new plan, to essentially let mankind ruin itself through television and consumerism, and Ellie's plot to leave Constantine friendless and alone. John eventually saves himself, through a literal deus ex machina, in a campfire conversation with God. However, at that time Rich and his family finally sever their friendship with John, and the latter ends the run alone.
### 1999–2000
#### Warren Ellis (#134–143)
Warren Ellis took over the title in 1999, after his work on Transmetropolitan which had moved to the Vertigo imprint, following the closure of Helix Comics. He was meant to become a full-time writer for several years, as Delano, Ennis and Jenkins before him, but left the title early after DC refused to publish the story "Shoot", about high school shootings, following the Columbine High School massacre, despite the fact it had been written and submitted prior to the event. The story was finally published in 2010.
His brief run began with "Haunted", a London-based story in which John investigates the brutal murder of a former girlfriend, Isabel by an Aleister Crowley style magician, Josh Wright. The story introduces, or reintroduces many characters who became an important part of the Hellblazer universe, including Inspector Watford (originally from Jamie Delano's run on the title), aging magician Clarice, and Map, a powerful magician who works on tube renovations in his part as custodian of London. The remainder of Ellis' brief tenure was taken up with single issue stories, collected as "Setting Sun".
### 2000-2002
#### Brian Azzarello (#146–174)
Following a brief interlude by Croatian writer Darko Macan, the series was then taken over by Brian Azzarello, once again hired on the strength of his own series for Vertigo, 100 Bullets. Azzarello's run is one large meta-story, that follows John Constantine on a trip across America, starting with his incarceration in prison, then variously uncovering a pornography ring, catching a serial killer, taking on a Neo Nazi group before finally dealing with the architect of his incarceration, Stanley W. Manor, a thinly-veiled pastiche of Batman. Brian Azzarello did return for one of the five stories in issue \#250. This arc attracted minor controversy for its depiction of Constantine in a same-sex relationship.
### 2002–2006
#### Mike Carey (#175–215, \#229)
Following Azzarello's run, writer Mike Carey took over the title, following his Eisner award-winning title Lucifer, set in the Sandman universe. Carey's run attempted to return John Constantine to his roots, with the title largely set back in London, and featuring many characters from former runs on the title. Mike Carey also has the honour of being the first Liverpudlian to write the Liverpudlian character. His was the second longest run by any single author on the title up to that time, second only to Garth Ennis, until Peter Milligan's run.
The start of his run introduces Angie Spatchcock, a fellow magician, and reintroduces his niece, Gemma Constantine, who has also fallen into magic use, to her uncle's consternation. After ridding his sister's house of an evil spirit, and finding out Gemma has gone missing, John returns to London, to find his old colleagues and enemies are all taking sides in the hunt for a mythical item, known as the Red Sepulchre. John eventually locates the item, and finds Gemma, freeing her from his old enemy Josh Wright. Following several forewarnings, Constantine then travels the world to set up a plan for a forthcoming tragedy, which will occur when "Three doors are opened", involving Swamp Thing and the Garden of Eden amongst others.
John's preparations have no effect, however, as he is tricked into killing the guardian that had been preventing the tragedy, freeing a beast which can control the collective unconsciousness of mankind. John Constantine cuts his own wrists, in order to free himself from consciousness, and plays a confidence trick on the beast, allowing his friends time to use the collective consciousness to rebuild the guardian that had kept the beast trapped. However, in this process, Swamp Thing has his human soul removed, setting up the fourth run of the comic, relaunched shortly afterward. In the process John loses his memory, setting up the events leading up to the 200th issue. Leading up to the landmark issue, John has little control over events, and is led along by a psychic serial killer, who threatens to kill Chas and his family, and a demon, Rosacarnis, who offers his memories back, at the cost of 24 hours in her service. John eventually gives into this offer, and the 200th issue shows how Rosacarnis manipulates his reality, making him raise three children with her, in the guise of Kit Ryan, from Garth Ennis's time on the title, Zed, from Jamie Delano's, and Angie, from the current run, with three different artists, Steve Dillon, Marcelo Frusin and Leonardo Manco each drawing one story, as the past, present and future of the title.
Carey's final run followed the attempts of John's three new children attempting to kill all of his family and friends, culminating in the death of his sister, Cheryl, at the hands of her possessed husband. John then travels into Hell to try to rescue her soul, with the assistance of Rosacarnis's father, Nergal. The plan ultimately fails, and John returns broken, and intending to renounce magic.
Mike Carey returned to the title for a single issue between Denise Mina and Andy Diggle's runs on the title, and also wrote the well-received Hellblazer graphic novel All His Engines about a strange illness sweeping the globe.
### 2006–2007
#### Denise Mina (#216–228)
Denise Mina had not written for comics when she took over the title in 2006, but had three acclaimed crime novels to her name, the Garnethill trilogy, the first of which won the CWA award for best debut crime novel. Her run on the title took John to Scotland, to attempt to stop a plot to make everybody empathise with each other. However, John fails to stop this, and, overwhelmed by the grief and horror they're forced to empathically share, suicides abound through the people of Glasgow. With help from Gemma Constantine, Angie Spatchcock and Chas Chandler, a plan to reverse the problem is made, as tension builds among the soldiers now surrounding the city. The soldiers keenly listen to a World Cup match between England and Portugal on the radio. When England loses the match, it seems all is lost, but the expected psychic riot fails to materialize. The soldiers are Scottish, so England's loss is celebrated, saving the day, and proving there's no source of joy like Schadenfreude.
### 2007–2009
#### Andy Diggle (#230–244, \#247–249)
Andy Diggle, having previously written the Hellblazer special, Lady Constantine, and Vertigo titles The Losers and Swamp Thing, took over the title in 2007, another former writer for 2000 AD to have done this. He left the title in 2009 after accepting an exclusive contract with Marvel.
The run starts by introducing two main antagonists, an aging politician, who is using a strange portal to enter other people's minds and commit crimes, and Mako, a cannibalistic mage who devours other magicians in order to obtain their power. Constantine's attempt to play them off one another only succeeds in making them join forces in a further plot. Constantine then traps them both with considerable ease, and questions how this has been so easy. It then becomes apparent that he has been manipulated by the 'Golden Child', his twin who did not survive childbirth, and has been manipulating events for the whole of the series, including his battle with cancer and many other events. He declines his twin's offer to merge souls, suspicious that his twin has been weakening his will in past years to make him accept this offer, choosing instead to take control of his own destiny.
### 2009–2013
#### Peter Milligan (#250–300)
Peter Milligan, a veteran of the Vertigo line, having written both Shade, The Changing Man and Animal Man at the publisher's inception (and another former 2000 AD writer), then took over, starting with a short story in the landmark 250th issue, and taking over full-time following this. His run implemented several major changes, including John Constantine's wedding and the loss of his thumb.
In a rare change, Milligan's run on the title starts with John living in domestic bliss with a nurse, Phoebe. Over the course of the first storyline, several new characters are introduced, including Epiphany Greaves, the alchemist daughter of a notorious London gangster, and Julian, a Babylonian demon. Over the course of the run, John dealt with a demon taking revenge on people involved in the Liverpool dockers' strike gone insane and sought help from Shade, The Changing Man, after chopping off his own thumb, seen Phoebe die at the hands of Julian, and traveled to India to try to find a way of saving her. Following this, he realised that he was in love with Epiphany, and married her in the 275th issue. However, the events of this wedding turned Constantine's niece Gemma against him, due to the Demon Constantine sexually assaulting her in the restroom. The strain of this traumatic incident turned her against John, and she enlisted the help of a coven of witches to kill him, which later came to a head when John was forced to fight off a brutal Demon summoned by them using John's iconic trenchcoat to target him.
Afterwards, John's coat (which Gemma sold on eBay) began to manipulate its various new owners into murder, suicide, or other horrific acts until coming into the hands of a man from the U.S., who tried to kill John and Epiphany. During the time the coat was missing, John's magical abilities had begun to go out of control. John eventually resolves this, and he was re-united with his coat. Since this, Gemma and John have a very shaky relationship with one another, and she began a sexual relationship with Epiphany's crime-boss father Terry in order to "punish" John. When he confronted her about this relationship though, she told him that she would not stop unless he was able to retrieve her mother's soul from Hell. John agreed. In order to get his sister to leave Hell, John agreed to track down her son, his adopted nephew, in Ireland.
On October 8, 2012, the series was announced as ending with issue 300, following which a new title, Constantine, started at the main imprint of DC comics. By 2013, Constantine was contacted by the Three Fates, who tell him that he will finally meet his end in five days. Having lived a good and adventurous life, he happily accepts his fate rather than trying to fight it like he always does. When the last day came, Constantine was ambushed and shot in his own home right in front of a horrified Epiphany. After he died, Epiphany and Finn had an affair as a way to comfort each other. John's ghost saw them having sex in a graveyard and seemed to give his blessing, making the fates decide that John wasn't going to try to come back to life. Then, of course, he did. He contacted Epiphany and asked her to help resurrect him by making him cigarettes from his ashes, which, after he smoked them, made him corporeal again. Thinking to disappear and live happily ever after with Epiphany, they moved to a tiny house in Ireland, courtesy of Finn, that was totally off the grid and far removed from any apparent trouble, the last place anyone would think to look for John. That didn't last long, though, as John realized he can never run from his past.
So John left Epiphany in Ireland and returned to England to confront Gemma. He stole the last dart holding the concoction that killed his demon twin, but ultimately gave it back to Gemma and told her either she could kill him, and live her life without him, but be consumed with guilt for killing him or she could let him disappear from her life forever, without any guilt for murdering him. Gemma shot the dart at him, but John disappeared. The final panel of Hellblazer reveals John, looking shocked and much older than we'd previously seen him, standing in a bar appropriately called "A Long Journey's End" surrounded by people, in front of a shelf full of bottles with the names of the comic's staff over the years.
### Other writers
Guest writers were Grant Morrison (#25–26), Neil Gaiman (#27), John Smith (#51), Eddie Campbell (#85–88), Darko Macan (#144–145), and Jason Aaron (#245–246).
### Justice League Dark, Constantine and DC Rebirth
In 2011, it was announced that a younger John Constantine would feature in Justice League Dark, one of the new titles launched as part of September 2011's DC Universe reboot. He was to be part of a team including Shade, The Changing Man, Deadman and Madame Xanadu, known as Justice League Dark. As part of the DC universe reboot in September 2011, Peter Milligan started the title which featured an alternate version of John Constantine as a prominent part of the team. Milligan wrote eight issues of Justice League Dark, with writer Jeff Lemire taking over on issue nine.
On November 8, 2012, DC announced that Hellblazer would be cancelled following its 300th issue, and would be replaced by Constantine written by Robert Venditti and drawn by Renato Guedes starring the younger New 52 John Constantine, rather than the version from Hellblazer, depicted as being in his late 50s. The Constantine series ended its run with its 23rd issue in May 2015. Nonetheless, the character would again star in another solo series entitled Constantine: The Hellblazer, co-written by Ming Doyle and James Tynion IV with art by Riley Rossmo, released on June 10, 2015. Writer Ming Doyle expressed excitement in her chance to write Constantine, stating that the reason of putting the term Hellblazer back to the character's title was to "take Constantine back to what he was at the start." On July 20, 2016, a new comic book entitled The Hellblazer: Rebirth was released as part of DC Rebirth, a major relaunch in an effort to return famous DC stories from before the New 52 into the reboot. The plot concerns John Constantine finally returning to London after being cursed by a demon that forced him to leave the city. Former Hellblazer characters such as Chas Chandler and Mercury made appearances in the series, and the comic was written by Simon Oliver who previously wrote the spin-off series Hellblazer Presents: Chas - The Knowledge.
### Relaunch (2019)
In July 2019, DC announced that Hellblazer would be relaunched as part of The Sandman Universe line of comics. The relaunched series, written by Simon Spurrier and illustrated by Aaron Campbell, begins after the events of the 1990 miniseries The Books of Magic. Hellblazer began with a one-shot on Halloween 2019, before becoming a regular series in November. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the series ended after 12 issues.
## Themes and style
Hellblazer was first published during the early days of the Modern Age of Comics, and so its themes were as dark, edgy, and politically and morally complex as its contemporaries. The comic mixed supernatural and real life horror, akin to contemporary gothic, with noire, surrealism and occult detective fiction elements. Unlike other comic books, it is also unique as it follows real time in its span of 20 years, with its protagonist John Constantine aging in every publication. Because of this, writers of the series often place their era's culture and social commentary in their run. When Jamie Delano first wrote the series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his issues were heavily inspired by the era such as punk rock and the British economy. Delano would be the first to put his political views in the series, such as his negative views of Thatcher's regime and by 2005 includes the War on Terror. This made John Constantine different from other comic book characters at that time, in that he fights the political and social injustice of Great Britain.
When Garth Ennis took over writing, he included his trademark representation of racism and religious fanaticism, as well his depictions of the Falklands War. The most controversial writer, Brian Azzarello, tackled issues such as neo-Nazism, prison rape and homosexuality. During Warren Ellis' run, he included American school shootings in a one-shot issue which led to a major controversy. In his run, Peter Milligan managed to put punk ideology in the series, with the protagonist trying to reacquire his former punk self, while also characterizing the Conservative government as a demon infestation with the punk subculture fighting against this supposed subversion and abuse. As such, much of Hellblazer's horror often comes in the crisis and controversies of its time. Being set in the UK, many famous British personalities have appeared or made cameos such as Sid Vicious, Margaret Thatcher, Aleister Crowley and Alan Moore.
As stated by Warren Ellis, Hellblazer's major themes were cynicism, nihilism and "sudden violence", with the protagonist often narrating the story in dark proses with occasional breaking of the fourth wall. In many story arcs every victory Constantine makes has a negative side effect and often leads to tragedy. His friends, family, and others would be sacrificed or be caught in the crossfire, many of them are dead or have left him. John tries his best to make something good in his life, but most of it leading to failure.
## Reception
Over the two decades that it had been published, Hellblazer had normally been quite well received. While not attaining the sales of 'mainstream' comics, it had sustained healthy figures, consistently being one of the top selling Vertigo titles, and was sustained by healthy sales of trade paperbacks. Hillary Goldstein of IGN described it as, "Sometimes surreal, often provocative and almost always entertaining, the adventures of the Hellblazer are among the best Vertigo has to offer." Well-known comic book writer Warren Ellis also praised the series as his favorite, calling it as "among the very best horror works of the 1990s." Andre Borges from DNA India listed it in the "15 Must Read Graphic Novels", describing it as "one of the first of its kind", and that its "writing and art work have been praised throughout its run." Robert Tutton of Paste Magazine listed the series at \#4 in its "13 Terrifying Modern Horror Comics", stating that "Constantine’s most frightening encounters have hewn close enough to that kernel of truth to remind readers that real life can be as terrifying as any succubus or demon spawn."
Jamie Delano's original run on the title is looked on fondly, with journalist Helen Braithwaite stating, "His take on the character of John Constantine has never been equalled. Delano's Original Sins graphic novel should be in every comic book fan's collection." She added that, "His writing evokes an incredible sense of dread and terror in a reader." IGN listed the title as one of the 25 Best Vertigo Books, calling John Constantine as "one of Vertigo's best characters."
Garth Ennis' run is also much loved, particularly Dangerous Habits, which was voted the best Garth Ennis story on Comic Book Resources, ahead of his work on Preacher, The Boys and The Punisher. In the same article Brian Cronin describes John's one time love, Kit Ryan, as one of the series' most memorable characters. The popularity of Ennis and Dillon's run on Hellblazer is also credited for Vertigo agreeing to publish their seminal series Preacher. Empire Magazine called Dangerous Habits storyline as "rightly one of the most celebrated in comic book history." Glenn Fabry who was the cover artist during Ennis' run, won an Eisner Award for "Best Cover Artist" in 1995.
The creator of the protagonist, Alan Moore, praised Jamie Delano's portrayal of the character, commenting "[Delano] demonstrates brilliantly that English horror didn't vanish with the fog and gas lit cobblestones at the end of the Victorian era."
### Legacy
The comic book's initial cancellation, and the introduction of the character to DC led to many negative feedback and reception. I, Vampire writer Joshua Hale Fialkov expressed sadness he would never get to write "the 'real' John Constantine", noted crime author and former Hellblazer writer Ian Rankin stated that Constantine was the only comic book character he ever wanted to write for, and Alan Moore's daughter, Leah Moore expressing doubt that Constantine could replace Hellblazer, among others. As a result, DC co-publisher Dan Didio issued a statement defending this decision, stating that, "Hellblazer's had a long and incredibly successful run and that's a tip of the hat to all the great creators that have worked on the book over the years. The new Constantine series will return him back to his roots in the DCU and hopefully be the start of another incredible run." Comic Alliance described Hellblazer's cancellation as marking "the end of an era for Vertigo" while adding it to be "one of a handful of comics from the late eighties that helped comic books and their readers grow up."
Hellblazer boosted the popularity and image of the occult detective fiction genre and shaped it to its modern form. Many modern examples of the genre such as Hellboy, Supernatural, Grimm, The Originals, and The Dresden Files have been influenced by it, and many imitators of both the series and its character flourished such as Criminal Macabre, Gravel, Planetary, and others. Its elements and style have been used countless of times in other works and many analogues of the cynical John Constantine have appeared.
## Publications
## Collected editions
### Trade paperbacks
#### Original series
#### The Sandman Universe
## Adaptations
### Film
The first adaptation of Hellblazer ever filmed for the screen is one of the scenes in the documentary feature film The Mindscape of Alan Moore, which was shot in early 2002. The dramatization consists of the John Constantine character wandering through London and, in the film ending, experiencing a mystical epiphany of sorts.
In 2005, Constantine was released, a feature film that did not use the same title as the comic book, in order to avoid confusion with the Hellraiser horror franchise. The only links to the character of John Constantine were the name and a plotline loosely based on the "Dangerous Habits" story arc (Hellblazer \#41–46). DC Comics announced a sequel to the 2005 Constantine movie was in the works, with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura linked to the project. He stated: "I'd love to do it...We want to do a hard, R-rated version of it. We're going to scale back the size of the movie to try and persuade the studio to go ahead and make a tough version of it." In late 2012, director Guillermo del Toro publicly discussed the notion of creating a film that would star John Constantine alongside other DC/Vertigo characters such as Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and more.
Constantine appears in the animated films Justice League Dark and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, with Matt Ryan reprising his role from the Arrowverse.
### Television
In January 2014 it was announced that David Goyer and Daniel Cerone were developing a TV series based on Hellblazer to air on NBC. Neil Marshall directed the pilot episode. The series follows Constantine in defending humanity against dark forces from beyond. On February, 21 it was announced that Welsh actor Matt Ryan was cast as the titular Constantine. The show ran for 13 episodes in Fall 2014, and on May 8, 2015, NBC cancelled Constantine midway through its first season.
Ryan reprised his role as John Constantine in the fourth season of The CW's Arrow and in multiple episodes of the third season of Legends of Tomorrow. In March 2018 it was announced Ryan's Constantine would join the cast as a series regular for the fourth season. An animated series featuring Ryan as the voice of John Constantine, Constantine: City of Demons, was announced in January 2017 and was released to The CW's streaming platform in March 2018. The series was developed by Warner Bros. Animation and Blue Ribbon Content, with Greg Berlanti, Schechter and David S. Goyer (one of the creators of the live-action series) serving as executive producers, and Butch Lukic served as producer. J. M. DeMatteis wrote the series, and it was directed by Doug Murphy. Warner Bros Animation and Blue Ribbon Content Vice President Peter Girardi said the series aimed to be "darker" than the live-action series, and closer to the Hellblazer comics published by Vertigo.
Constantine appears in Justice League Action, voiced by Damian O'Hare
### Others
THQ released a video game tie-in of the film Constantine. The song "Stranger in the Mirror" by Ookla the Mok is written from Constantine's point of view, including a lyrical reference to 'the Newcastle incident'. The song "Venus of the Hardsell", which first appeared in Hellblazer Annual \#1 and written by Jamie Delano, was adapted by the rock group Spiderlegs.
Fantasy fiction author John Shirley is credited in writing three Hellblazer novels, including the novelisation of the Constantine film. The novel Hellblazer: War Lord features Constantine talking about "another John Constantine in an alternate universe, [who] has black hair and lives most of his life in Los Angeles" whilst giving a brief summary of the film's plot. |
71,118,737 | Ryan Roberts (American football) | 1,163,974,478 | American football player (born 1980) | [
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| Ryan Roberts (born August 11, 1980) is a former American football player who played defensive end in college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team from 1998 to 2002. He is an alumnus of Haddonfield Memorial High School.
## Early life
Roberts was born on August 11, 1980, in Camden, New Jersey, and earned three varsity letters in gridiron football at Haddonfield Memorial High School. Lawnside, New Jersey, was his hometown.
When Roberts began high school, he was a soccer player, but was urged by a friend to try football during the fall of his freshman year. He considered two conveniently located Ivy League institutions as potential colleges early in his high school career: in-state Princeton University and nearby University of Pennsylvania.
Due to a congenital condition, Roberts endured back pain while playing both running back and defensive end in high school. Nonetheless, he entered his senior season as a top-100 class of 1998 football recruit according to the Prep Football Report by Tom Lemming.
As a senior, Roberts rushed for over 1000 yards and had 10 quarterback sacks. His official visits included Iowa, Penn State and Notre Dame as well as invitations to visit schools such as Georgia Tech, Northwestern and Syracuse. At one point, he planned to use his five allotted official visits to see Syracuse, Notre Dame, Penn State, Iowa and North Carolina. In late December 1997, he verbally committed to Notre Dame. On February 5, 1998, Roberts signed his National Letter of Intent to play for Notre Dame.
Roberts was a 1997 USAToday honorable-mention All-American Football team selection at defensive end. He was also recognized as a 1997 First team All-State selection by the Associated Press. Roberts posted a safety during the inaugural Governor's Bowl All-Star Classic high school football contest of New York state all-stars vs. New Jersey All-stars. The game was an annual event until 2008, but was later reformatted.
## College career
Roberts began his Notre Dame career as a linebacker, but switched to defensive end after his freshman season for the 1998 Fighting Irish. He spent 1998 on the scout squad. Roberts played 10 games for the 1999 team but had a seemingly career-threatening fusion back surgery following the season. He only played 37 total minutes in 1999, but made 6 tackles, including one quarterback sack.
Following his surgery on January 13, 2000, he was sidelined through the spring and although not completely healed, was medically cleared to play in the fall. His weight dropped to 220 pounds (99.8 kg), while away from football. Senior Captain Grant Irons was lost for the season with a shoulder injury forcing Roberts into the starting lineup for the 2000 team. He started in 8 of 12 games, recording sacks in each of his first four games. His sack against Texas A&M came on his first play of the game.
After dislodging 5th-year senior Grant Irons from the lineup, he started 5 of 8 games for the 2001 team before season-ending medial collateral ligament injury. One of Roberts' career highlights was a 3-sack performance in 2001 in the rivalry game against USC, during the Carson Palmer era. In the game, he had a total of 4 tackles for a loss as well as a touchdown saving tackle to force a field goal. He also had a few open field rundown from behind tackles.
The 2001 season marked the second losing season in three years, which led to a tumultuous series of coaching transition events as George O'Leary was hired for five days before the discovery of a fake resume. Most of Roberts' Notre Dame career had been under head coach Bob Davie, but his 5th-year redshirt season for the 2002 team was Tyrone Willingham's first season as Notre Dame head coach. Willingham retained Greg Mattison as the defensive line coach, giving Roberts, who by now had earned a science-business degree, some continuity in 2002. The defensive line of Cedric Hilliard, Darrell Campbell, Roberts and Kyle Budinscak with reserves that included sophomore Justin Tuck, was a large part of Notre Dame's sudden rise to prominence in 2002. That year, Roberts posted 2 sacks against both Purdue's Kyle Orton and Michigan State's Jeff Smoker. His contributions helped Willingham become the winningest first-year head coach in Notre Dame history.
The 2021 Notre Dame Football Media Guide ranked Roberts 8th in career sacks and tied for 7th in single season sacks, and he was ranked fourth in school history for his 19 career sacks and 8 single-season sacks (2002) at the time that he completed his eligibility at Notre Dame following the 2002 season.
Roberts' senior season was the last season in which career-ending bowl games did not count in career stats. Thus, any sacks recorded in the 2003 Gator Bowl against Philip Rivers and NC State are not included in his career total. Roberts' name appears in the 2021 Notre Dame Football Media Guide school records for single-season and career sacks, but not among those with 3.5 or more single-game sacks or at least 19 single-game tackles. The South Bend Tribune reported that he had 23 tackles and 5 sacks against Rutgers in 2000, and 4 sacks against the 2000 West Virginia Mountaineers.
## See also
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish football statistical leaders |
1,608,424 | Hynes Convention Center station | 1,168,653,090 | Subway station in Boston, Massachusetts, US | [
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| Hynes Convention Center station is an underground light rail station on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line. It is located at the intersection of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue near the western end of the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The station is named for the Hynes Convention Center, which is located about 700 feet (210 m) to the east along Boylston Street. It has two side platforms serving the two tracks of the Boylston Street subway, which are used by the Green Line B branch, C branch, and D branch. The main entrance to the station from Massachusetts Avenue leads to a fare lobby under the 360 Newbury Street building.
Construction of the station (originally named Massachusetts) began in December 1912; it opened in October 1914 along with the Boylston Street subway for use by the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy). Construction on a surface-level transfer station for streetcars on Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue began in April 1918 and was completed the following November. These surface routes were gradually replaced by buses from the 1930s to the 1960s. The transfer station was closed in January 1963 due to construction of the adjacent Massachusetts Turnpike Extension; it was partially demolished.
The newly-created MBTA renamed the station Auditorium in 1965, followed by Hynes Convention Center/ICA in 1990 and finally Hynes Convention Center in 2006. A pedestrian tunnel to the southbound bus shelter was opened in 1964, and the Boylston Street entrance was reopened in 1965. Both were closed in the 1980s, though the Boylston Street entrance is still used during the Boston Marathon and major events at the convention center.
Averaging just under 9,000 weekday boardings in a 2013 count, Hynes is the busiest non-accessible MBTA station. A renovation to the station, planned as part of air rights development over the adjacent Massachusetts Turnpike, will make the station accessible and reopen the Boylston Street entrance at all times. The project is expected to be completed in 2025 at a cost of \$45.7 million. A separate development project is proposed to include restoration of the pedestrian tunnel.
## Station layout
The station is oriented approximately east–west; it lies oblique to the Back Bay street grid inside the block bounded by Massachusetts Avenue on the southwest, Newbury Street on the northwest, Hereford Street on the northeast, and Boylston Street on the southeast. Just east (inbound) of the station, the Boylston Street subway curves slightly to the north to run under Boylston Street; to the west, a curve slightly to the south aligns the tunnel under Newbury Street.
The station has two side platforms serving the line's two tracks. They are narrower at the ends, and wider under a fare lobby near the west end of the station. The primary entrance to the station is from Massachusetts Avenue; a side exit leads from the lobby to Newbury Street. The lobby is inside the basement level of the 360 Newbury Street building.
A normally closed secondary entrance from Boylston Street leads to a smaller fare lobby over the east end of the platforms. That entrance is sometimes opened on Patriot's Day to handle the spectators from the Boston Marathon (when Copley station is closed), as well as for large events like Anime Boston at the convention center. For some events, it is opened for exiting passengers only. The planned station renovations include permanently reopening the entrance.
Two MBTA bus routes stop at the station. Route (Harvard Square–) stops at and across from the station entrance, while route (Jersey Street & Queensberry Street–) runs on Boylston Street with stops just east of Massachusetts Avenue.
## History
### Construction
Plans made in 1907 for a westward extension of the Tremont Street subway called for a line along the south shore of the Charles River, called the Riverbank Subway. Though it was originally planned to have no intermediate stops, in 1910 the Boston Transit Commission (BTC) voted to add stations at Charles Street, Dartmouth Street, and Massachusetts Avenue. However, public opinion quickly shifted to a route under Boylston Street, which was developing rapidly. In July 1911, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill providing for the construction of several tunnels, including the Boylston Street subway. New stations were to be located at Copley Square – a major civic center – and the Massachusetts Avenue thoroughfare.
Subway construction began in March 1912. On September 24, 1912, the BTC acquired an easement through the Boston Cab Company building for the construction of Massachusetts station. The Hugh Nawn Company, a major local contractor, began work on the station on December 21, 1912. The BTC determined that the Cab Company building was not structurally sound; it purchased the structure on April 3, 1913 and demolished it soon after, allowing construction on the west part of the station to proceed.
Construction was complicated by the soil conditions, as the site was shoreline until the filling of the Back Bay in the 19th century. Wooden and concrete piles were driven through seven feet (2.1 m) of silt to provide a firm foundation for the station, and for future air rights development atop it. The station was built adjacent to the Boston and Albany Railroad cut to the south; one railroad track had to be supported on piles during construction. Although the station was constructed below grade, much of the top of the station was exposed; an alley was constructed on top. Some of the dirt removed during construction was used to fill the Charles River Esplanade near Cottage Farm, while the rest was dumped at sea.
As built, the station was 350 feet (110 m) long and a maximum of 90 feet (27 m) wide. The platforms were constructed three inches (76 mm) above the rails to serve streetcars, but sufficient overhead space was left if later conversion to high platforms for use with metro stock was desired. The station was constructed of reinforced concrete with granolithic platforms and floors. The ceilings and upper walls were finished with white plaster; the lower walls were white terrazzo with red-and-white tile borders. A waiting room for passengers transferring to surface streetcars was located on Massachusetts Avenue next to the main station entrance. The Boylston Street subway, including Massachusetts station, opened on October 3, 1914.
### Surface station
In 1917, the Massachusetts General Court passed legislation allowing the Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) to construct prepayment streetcar transfer areas (where passengers paid upon entering the transfer area, rather than on board the streetcar) at existing subway and elevated stations. Soon after, BERy asked the Boston Transit Commission to build such a structure at Massachusetts station. In November 1917, the Public Service Commission approved BERy's plans to construct the transfer station as a bridge between Newbury Street and Boylston Street over the B&A tracks.
A reinforced concrete building was built with two tracks and a 27-foot-wide (8.2 m) island platform. Staircases connected it to both subway platforms and the fare mezzanine, with faregates providing access from Newbury and Boylston streets. Streetcars from either direction on both Massachusetts and Boylston could reach the transfer station, then either loop back to their original or continue in the other three directions. Construction began on February 4, 1918, and demolition of buildings was completed by April 5.
The surface station opened on November 29, 1919. The BERy estimated that the number of daily transfers at the location would increase from 20,000 to 30,000. The transfer station was served by streetcars on the – line that ran on Massachusetts Avenue, and the Ipswich Street line (–Chestnut Hill) which ran on Boylston Street. The Ipswich Street line was cut back from Park Street on June 13, 1925, with Massachusetts station as the new eastern terminal. The Harvard–Dudley route was split into Harvard–Massachusetts (later route 76) and Massachusetts–Dudley (later route 47) lines on July 27, 1930.
In 1917, a private firm began construction on an Arthur Bowditch-designed office building above the main headhouse. The seven-story building was completed in October 1919. In January 1920, the BERy moved its offices into the building, as its lease at 101 Milk Street was expiring. The BERy used the upper floors of the building, then known as the Transit Building, as its offices until 1926. Later known as 360 Newbury Street, the building has served a variety of tenants; its late-1980s renovation was designed by Frank Gehry.
### Bus replacement
The first bus route to serve the station was a Bowdoin Square–Fenway route (later route 54), which began operation in 1925 when the Ipswich Street line was cut back. It did not use the transfer station until December 13, 1930, when the Fenway loop was cut. In 1931, the BERy completed an electrical substation with two 3-megawatt mercury arc rectifiers next to the station. The Boylston Street subway was extended to Kenmore station in October 1932. Much of the Ipswich Street line was replaced by buses in 1932 and 1933 due to paving of the Worcester Turnpike. The final segment was replaced by a short bus route (later route ), still terminating at the surface station, in July 1934.
Buses replaced streetcars on route 76 at off-peak hours from February 10, 1940, to May 2, 1942, and again after March 30, 1946. The route was converted to bus at all times on September 12, 1949 and to trolleybus on April 22, 1950. The Boylston Street end of the surface station was modified in late 1949 to accommodate the trolleybuses. Route 47 was replaced with buses off-peak on April 17, 1948, and fully on September 12, 1953. Route 76 was converted back to diesel bus on April 1, 1961. Route 54 was cut back to Copley Square in December 1960; route 55 was extended east to Copley in December 1976.
In the early 1960s, the Massachusetts Turnpike Extension was built along the Boston and Albany Railroad corridor, necessitating a major widening of that right-of-way. Routes 47 and 76 were through-routed as route 1 in September 1962 to eliminate looping at the surface station, which was permanently closed on January 21, 1963. The portion closer to Boylston Street was demolished soon after. The remaining section fronting on Newbury Street is used as an MBTA traction power substation, with two large rectifier transformers in the rear. The facade is frequently covered in graffiti art and the sidewalk in front is used by buskers; the MBTA has also attempted to lease the space.
A large dedicated bus shelter was built across Massachusetts Avenue for southbound riders in 1963. On November 16, 1964, the newly-formed MBTA opened a pedestrian tunnel from the bus shelter to the subway station's fare lobby, allowing riders to cross under busy street traffic. The completion of the Prudential Tower and the adjacent Prudential Center complex in 1965 (on what had previous been rail yards) increased the number of riders accessing the station from the Boylston Street direction. On April 19, 1965, the MBTA reopened the former headhouse on Boylston Street, diagonally across from the Prudential complex.
### MBTA era
The BERy was replaced by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in 1947; it was in turn replaced by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in 1964. Massachusetts station originally served streetcars on the Watertown (after 1967, Green Line A branch), Boston College (B branch), and Cleveland Circle (C branch) lines. The Riverside Line (D branch) opened on July 4, 1959; the A branch was replaced with the route 57 bus (which terminates at ) on June 21, 1969. The station was renamed to Auditorium on February 18, 1965, upon the completion of the War Memorial Auditorium (later renamed John B. Hynes Memorial Auditorium).
The MBTA began a modernization of the station – part of a \$14 million renovation of seven subway stations – in 1975. It was completed on August 31, 1977. The project included two pieces of public art. A 7-foot (2.1 m)-tall metal sculpture - Constellations, by Dennis Kowal - was installed in the Boylston Street entrance in 1975. A 8-by-12-foot (2.4 m × 3.7 m) silk-screened enamel mural of a Harvard–Dudley streetcar was placed inside the main entrance in 1976–77.
The pedestrian tunnel to the southbound bus shelter was closed in the early 1980s due to security concerns. The Boylston Street entrance was closed on January 3, 1981, as part of extensive cutbacks that included closing Bowdoin and Symphony. The Auditorium was replaced by the Hynes Convention Center in 1988; two years later, the station was renamed Hynes Convention Center/ICA after the new building and the nearby Institute of Contemporary Art. In late 2006, the station was renamed a third time to Hynes Convention Center as the ICA relocated from to a new building on the South Boston Waterfront. Largely forgotten since the entrance closed, Constellations was moved to Wentworth Institute of Technology in 2012.
### Planned renovations
Averaging just over 7,000 weekday boardings in 2013, Hynes is the busiest non-accessible MBTA station. A design contract for accessibility renovations at Hynes Convention Center, Symphony, and Wollaston was awarded on May 5, 2010. This preliminary (15%) design was completed in March 2013. On September 3, 2014, MassDOT opened bidding on air rights development over the Mass Pike on Parcel 13 next to the station. As part of the project, the developer was to be required to renovate Hynes Convention Center station with elevators for accessibility, as well as reopening both the tunnel under Massachusetts Avenue and the disused Boylston Street headhouse.
In November 2015, MassDOT approved plans for a development called "The Viola" on the site, with construction to begin in 2019. The developer, Peebles Corporation, was to work with the MBTA to design the renovated station, but will not perform the construction work. Instead, Peebles would provide \$30.5 million of the estimated \$45.7 million station cost; the MBTA would obtain the remaining funds and organize the renovation. The development will relocate part of the Massachusetts Avenue entrance slightly south into the new structure.
As of June 2019, Peebles will have responsibility for the headhouse renovations, while the MBTA will have responsibility for the platform level. In December 2019, the MBTA awarded a \$11.5 million, 33-month design contract for the accessibility renovations. Peebles began the permitting process for the 432,000-square-foot (40,100 m<sup>2</sup>) development, which includes a hotel and condominiums, in February 2020. Design was 30% complete by May 2022; it was the placed on hold pending plans from the developer.
A separate air rights development on the west side of Massachusetts Avenue (Parcel 12), planned to be complete in 2022, will include a new entrance to the station. Construction of that project began in July 2020. The existing pedestrian tunnel will require renovations for accessibility. |
16,743 | Karl Marx | 1,173,842,176 | German-born philosopher (1818–1883) | [
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| Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German-born philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (with Friedrich Engels) and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, representing his greatest intellectual achievement. Marx's ideas, theories, and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have exerted enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic, and political history.
Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia, German Confederation, Marx studied at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena, and received a doctorate in philosophy from the latter in 1841. A Young Hegelian, he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as The German Ideology (written 1846) and the Grundrisse (written 1857–1858). While in Paris in 1844, Marx wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts and met Engels, a lifelong friend and collaborator. After moving to Brussels in 1845, they were active in the Communist League, and in 1848 wrote The Communist Manifesto, which expresses Marx's ideas and ends with a call for revolution: "Working men of all countries, unite!" Marx was expelled from Belgium and Germany, and in 1849 moved to London, where he wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) and Das Kapital. In 1864, Marx helped found the International Workingmen's Association (First International), in which he sought to fight the influence of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx wrote on revolution, the transition to communism, and the state. He died stateless in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Marx's critical theories about society, economics, and politics hold that human societies develop through class conflict. In the capitalist mode of production, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and the working classes (known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labour-power in return for wages. Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx predicted that capitalism produced internal tensions like previous socioeconomic systems and that these tensions would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system known as the socialist mode of production. For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism—owing in part to its instability and crisis-prone nature—would eventuate the working class's development of class consciousness, leading to their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a classless, communist society constituted by a free association of producers. Marx actively pressed for its implementation, arguing that the working class should carry out organised proletarian revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation.
Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and his work has been both lauded and criticised. Marxism has exerted major influence on socialist thought and political movements, and during the 20th century revolutionary governments identifying as Marxist took power in many countries and established socialist states including the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. A number of theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, Trotskyism, and Maoism, have been developed. Marx's work in economics has a strong influence on modern heterodox theories of labour and its relation to capital, and he is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science.
## Biography
### Childhood and early education: 1818–1836
Karl Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx (1777–1838) and Henriette Pressburg (1788–1863). He was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, an ancient city then part of the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. Marx's family was originally non-religious Jewish but had converted formally to Christianity before his birth. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Trier's rabbis since 1723, a role taken by his grandfather Meier Halevi Marx. His father, as a child known as Herschel, was the first in the line to receive a secular education. He became a lawyer with a comfortably upper middle class income and the family owned a number of Moselle vineyards, in addition to his income as an attorney. Prior to his son's birth and after the abrogation of Jewish emancipation in the Rhineland, Herschel converted from Judaism to join the state Evangelical Church of Prussia, taking on the German forename Heinrich over the Yiddish Herschel.
Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire. A classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then an absolute monarchy. In 1815, Heinrich Marx began working as an attorney and in 1819 moved his family to a ten-room property near the Porta Nigra. His wife, Henriette Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew from a prosperous business family that later founded the company Philips Electronics. Her sister Sophie Pressburg (1797–1854) married Lion Philips (1794–1866) and was the grandmother of both Gerard and Anton Philips and great-grandmother to Frits Philips. Lion Philips was a wealthy Dutch tobacco manufacturer and industrialist, upon whom Karl and Jenny Marx would later often come to rely for loans while they were exiled in London.
Little is known of Marx's childhood. The third of nine children, he became the eldest son when his brother Moritz died in 1819. Marx and his surviving siblings, Sophie, Hermann, Henriette, Louise, Emilie, and Caroline, were baptised into the Lutheran Church in August 1824, and their mother in November 1825. Marx was privately educated by his father until 1830 when he entered Trier High School (), whose headmaster, Hugo Wyttenbach, was a friend of his father. By employing many liberal humanists as teachers, Wyttenbach incurred the anger of the local conservative government. Subsequently, police raided the school in 1832 and discovered that literature espousing political liberalism was being distributed among the students. Considering the distribution of such material a seditious act, the authorities instituted reforms and replaced several staff during Marx's attendance.
In October 1835 at the age of 16, Marx travelled to the University of Bonn wishing to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field. Due to a condition referred to as a "weak chest", Marx was excused from military duty when he turned 18. While at the University at Bonn, Marx joined the Poets' Club, a group containing political radicals that were monitored by the police. Marx also joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (German: Landsmannschaft der Treveraner) where many ideas were discussed and at one point he served as the club's co-president. Additionally, Marx was involved in certain disputes, some of which became serious: in August 1836 he took part in a duel with a member of the university's Borussian Korps. Although his grades in the first term were good, they soon deteriorated, leading his father to force a transfer to the more serious and academic University of Berlin.
### Hegelianism and early journalism: 1836–1843
Spending summer and autumn 1836 in Trier, Marx became more serious about his studies and his life. He became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, an educated member of the petty nobility who had known Marx since childhood. As she had broken off her engagement with a young aristocrat to be with Marx, their relationship was socially controversial owing to the differences between their religious and class origins, but Marx befriended her father Ludwig von Westphalen (a liberal aristocrat) and later dedicated his doctoral thesis to him. Seven years after their engagement, on 19 June 1843, they married in a Protestant church in Kreuznach.
In October 1836, Marx arrived in Berlin, matriculating in the university's faculty of law and renting a room in the Mittelstrasse. During the first term, Marx attended lectures of Eduard Gans (who represented the progressive Hegelian standpoint, elaborated on rational development in history by emphasising particularly its libertarian aspects, and the importance of social question) and of Karl von Savigny (who represented the Historical School of Law). Although studying law, he was fascinated by philosophy and looked for a way to combine the two, believing that "without philosophy nothing could be accomplished". Marx became interested in the recently deceased German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose ideas were then widely debated among European philosophical circles. During a convalescence in Stralau, he joined the Doctor's Club (Doktorklub), a student group which discussed Hegelian ideas, and through them became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians in 1837. They gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, with Marx developing a particularly close friendship with Adolf Rutenberg. Like Marx, the Young Hegelians were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions but adopted his dialectical method to criticise established society, politics and religion from a left-wing perspective. Marx's father died in May 1838, resulting in a diminished income for the family. Marx had been emotionally close to his father and treasured his memory after his death.
By 1837, Marx was writing both fiction and non-fiction, having completed a short novel, Scorpion and Felix; a drama, Oulanem; as well as a number of love poems dedicated to his wife. None of this early work was published during his lifetime. The love poems were published posthumously in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 1. Marx soon abandoned fiction for other pursuits, including the study of both English and Italian, art history and the translation of Latin classics. He began co-operating with Bruno Bauer on editing Hegel's Philosophy of Religion in 1840. Marx was also engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, which he completed in 1841. It was described as "a daring and original piece of work in which Marx set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy". The essay was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided instead to submit his thesis to the more liberal University of Jena, whose faculty awarded him his Ph.D. in April 1841. As Marx and Bauer were both atheists, in March 1841 they began plans for a journal entitled Archiv des Atheismus (Atheistic Archives), but it never came to fruition. In July, Marx and Bauer took a trip to Bonn from Berlin. There they scandalised their class by getting drunk, laughing in church and galloping through the streets on donkeys.
Marx was considering an academic career, but this path was barred by the government's growing opposition to classical liberalism and the Young Hegelians. Marx moved to Cologne in 1842, where he became a journalist, writing for the radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung (Rhineland News), expressing his early views on socialism and his developing interest in economics. Marx criticised right-wing European governments as well as figures in the liberal and socialist movements, whom he thought ineffective or counter-productive. The newspaper attracted the attention of the Prussian government censors, who checked every issue for seditious material before printing, which Marx lamented: "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear". After the Rheinische Zeitung published an article strongly criticising the Russian monarchy, Tsar Nicholas I requested it be banned and Prussia's government complied in 1843.
### Paris: 1843–1845
In 1843, Marx became co-editor of a new, radical left-wing Parisian newspaper, the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (German-French Annals), then being set up by the German activist Arnold Ruge to bring together German and French radicals. Therefore Marx and his wife moved to Paris in October 1843. Initially living with Ruge and his wife communally at 23 Rue Vaneau, they found the living conditions difficult, so moved out following the birth of their daughter Jenny in 1844. Although intended to attract writers from both France and the German states, the Jahrbücher was dominated by the latter and the only non-German writer was the exiled Russian anarchist collectivist Mikhail Bakunin. Marx contributed two essays to the paper, "Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" and "On the Jewish Question", the latter introducing his belief that the proletariat were a revolutionary force and marking his embrace of communism. Only one issue was published, but it was relatively successful, largely owing to the inclusion of Heinrich Heine's satirical odes on King Ludwig of Bavaria, leading the German states to ban it and seize imported copies (Ruge nevertheless refused to fund the publication of further issues and his friendship with Marx broke down). After the paper's collapse, Marx began writing for the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper left, Vorwärts! (Forward!). Based in Paris, the paper was connected to the League of the Just, a utopian socialist secret society of workers and artisans. Marx attended some of their meetings but did not join. In Vorwärts!, Marx refined his views on socialism based upon Hegelian and Feuerbachian ideas of dialectical materialism, at the same time criticising liberals and other socialists operating in Europe.
On 28 August 1844, Marx met the German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence, beginning a lifelong friendship. Engels showed Marx his recently published The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, convincing Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history. Soon, Marx and Engels were collaborating on a criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, Bruno Bauer. This work was published in 1845 as The Holy Family. Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach, but eventually Marx and Engels abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well.
During the time that he lived at 38 Rue Vaneau in Paris (from October 1843 until January 1845), Marx engaged in an intensive study of political economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Mill, etc.), the French socialists (especially Claude Henri St. Simon and Charles Fourier) and the history of France. The study of, and critique, of political economy is a project that Marx would pursue for the rest of his life and would result in his major economic work—the three-volume series called Das Kapital. Marxism is based in large part on three influences: Hegel's dialectics, French utopian socialism and British political economy. Together with his earlier study of Hegel's dialectics, the studying that Marx did during this time in Paris meant that all major components of "Marxism" were in place by the autumn of 1844. Marx was constantly being pulled away from his critique of political economy—not only by the usual daily demands of the time, but additionally by editing a radical newspaper and later by organising and directing the efforts of a political party during years of potentially revolutionary popular uprisings of the citizenry. Still, Marx was always drawn back to his studies where he sought "to understand the inner workings of capitalism".
An outline of "Marxism" had definitely formed in the mind of Karl Marx by late 1844. Indeed, many features of the Marxist view of the world had been worked out in great detail, but Marx needed to write down all of the details of his world view to further clarify the new critique of political economy in his own mind. Accordingly, Marx wrote The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. These manuscripts covered numerous topics, detailing Marx's concept of alienated labour. By the spring of 1845, his continued study of political economy, capital and capitalism had led Marx to the belief that the new critique of political economy he was espousing—that of scientific socialism—needed to be built on the base of a thoroughly developed materialistic view of the world.
The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 had been written between April and August 1844, but soon Marx recognised that the Manuscripts had been influenced by some inconsistent ideas of Ludwig Feuerbach. Accordingly, Marx recognised the need to break with Feuerbach's philosophy in favour of historical materialism, thus a year later (in April 1845) after moving from Paris to Brussels, Marx wrote his eleven "Theses on Feuerbach". The "Theses on Feuerbach" are best known for Thesis 11, which states that "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it". This work contains Marx's criticism of materialism (for being contemplative), idealism (for reducing practice to theory), and, overall, philosophy (for putting abstract reality above the physical world). It thus introduced the first glimpse at Marx's historical materialism, an argument that the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice. In 1845, after receiving a request from the Prussian king, the French government shut down Vorwärts!, with the interior minister, François Guizot, expelling Marx from France.
### Brussels: 1845–1848
Unable either to stay in France or to move to Germany, Marx decided to emigrate to Brussels in Belgium in February 1845. However, to stay in Belgium he had to pledge not to publish anything on the subject of contemporary politics. In Brussels, Marx associated with other exiled socialists from across Europe, including Moses Hess, Karl Heinzen and Joseph Weydemeyer. In April 1845, Engels moved from Barmen in Germany to Brussels to join Marx and the growing cadre of members of the League of the Just now seeking home in Brussels. Later, Mary Burns, Engels' long-time companion, left Manchester, England to join Engels in Brussels.
In mid-July 1845, Marx and Engels left Brussels for England to visit the leaders of the Chartists, a working-class movement in Britain. This was Marx's first trip to England and Engels was an ideal guide for the trip. Engels had already spent two years living in Manchester from November 1842 to August 1844. Not only did Engels already know the English language, but he had also developed a close relationship with many Chartist leaders. Indeed, Engels was serving as a reporter for many Chartist and socialist English newspapers. Marx used the trip as an opportunity to examine the economic resources available for study in various libraries in London and Manchester.
In collaboration with Engels, Marx also set about writing a book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism, The German Ideology. In this work, Marx broke with Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner and the rest of the Young Hegelians, while he also broke with Karl Grün and other "true socialists" whose philosophies were still based in part on "idealism". In German Ideology, Marx and Engels finally completed their philosophy, which was based solely on materialism as the sole motor force in history. German Ideology is written in a humorously satirical form, but even this satirical form did not save the work from censorship. Like so many other early writings of his, German Ideology would not be published in Marx's lifetime and would be published only in 1932.
After completing German Ideology, Marx turned to a work that was intended to clarify his own position regarding "the theory and tactics" of a truly "revolutionary proletarian movement" operating from the standpoint of a truly "scientific materialist" philosophy. This work was intended to draw a distinction between the utopian socialists and Marx's own scientific socialist philosophy. Whereas the utopians believed that people must be persuaded one person at a time to join the socialist movement, the way a person must be persuaded to adopt any different belief, Marx knew that people would tend, on most occasions, to act in accordance with their own economic interests, thus appealing to an entire class (the working class in this case) with a broad appeal to the class's best material interest would be the best way to mobilise the broad mass of that class to make a revolution and change society. This was the intent of the new book that Marx was planning, but to get the manuscript past the government censors he called the book The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) and offered it as a response to the "petty-bourgeois philosophy" of the French anarchist socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as expressed in his book The Philosophy of Poverty (1840).
These books laid the foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as The Communist Manifesto. While residing in Brussels in 1846, Marx continued his association with the secret radical organisation League of the Just. As noted above, Marx thought the League to be just the sort of radical organisation that was needed to spur the working class of Europe toward the mass movement that would bring about a working-class revolution. However, to organise the working class into a mass movement the League had to cease its "secret" or "underground" orientation and operate in the open as a political party. Members of the League eventually became persuaded in this regard. Accordingly, in June 1847 the League was reorganised by its membership into a new open "above ground" political society that appealed directly to the working classes. This new open political society was called the Communist League. Both Marx and Engels participated in drawing up the programme and organisational principles of the new Communist League.
In late 1847, Marx and Engels began writing what was to become their most famous work – a programme of action for the Communist League. Written jointly by Marx and Engels from December 1847 to January 1848, The Communist Manifesto was first published on 21 February 1848. The Communist Manifesto laid out the beliefs of the new Communist League. No longer a secret society, the Communist League wanted to make aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding its beliefs as the League of the Just had been doing. The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It goes on to examine the antagonisms that Marx claimed were arising in the clashes of interest between the bourgeoisie (the wealthy capitalist class) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Proceeding on from this, the Manifesto presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at the time, was truly acting in the interests of the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and to replace it with socialism.
Later that year, Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals that became known as the Revolutions of 1848. In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic. Marx was supportive of such activity and having recently received a substantial inheritance from his father (withheld by his uncle Lionel Philips since his father's death in 1838) of either 6,000 or 5,000 francs he allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action. Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed, the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused Marx of it, subsequently arresting him and he was forced to flee back to France, where with a new republican government in power he believed that he would be safe.
### Cologne: 1848–1849
Temporarily settling down in Paris, Marx transferred the Communist League executive headquarters to the city and also set up a German Workers' Club with various German socialists living there. Hoping to see the revolution spread to Germany, in 1848 Marx moved back to Cologne where he began issuing a handbill entitled the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany, in which he argued for only four of the ten points of the Communist Manifesto, believing that in Germany at that time the bourgeoisie must overthrow the feudal monarchy and aristocracy before the proletariat could overthrow the bourgeoisie. On 1 June, Marx started the publication of a daily newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which he helped to finance through his recent inheritance from his father. Designed to put forward news from across Europe with his own Marxist interpretation of events, the newspaper featured Marx as a primary writer and the dominant editorial influence. Despite contributions by fellow members of the Communist League, according to Friedrich Engels it remained "a simple dictatorship by Marx".
Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, committing a press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting, although each time he was acquitted. Meanwhile, the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed and the king, Frederick William IV, introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counterrevolutionary measures to expunge left-wing and other revolutionary elements from the country. Consequently, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was soon suppressed, and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 May. Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counterrevolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities, who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child and with Marx not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London.
### Move to London and further writing: 1850–1860
Marx moved to London in early June 1849 and would remain based in the city for the rest of his life. The headquarters of the Communist League also moved to London. However, in the winter of 1849–1850, a split within the ranks of the Communist League occurred when a faction within it led by August Willich and Karl Schapper began agitating for an immediate uprising. Willich and Schapper believed that once the Communist League had initiated the uprising, the entire working class from across Europe would rise "spontaneously" to join it, thus creating revolution across Europe. Marx and Engels protested that such an unplanned uprising on the part of the Communist League was "adventuristic" and would be suicide for the Communist League. Such an uprising as that recommended by the Schapper/Willich group would easily be crushed by the police and the armed forces of the reactionary governments of Europe. Marx maintained that this would spell doom for the Communist League itself, arguing that changes in society are not achieved overnight through the efforts and will power of a handful of men. They are instead brought about through a scientific analysis of economic conditions of society and by moving toward revolution through different stages of social development. In the present stage of development (circa 1850), following the defeat of the uprisings across Europe in 1848 he felt that the Communist League should encourage the working class to unite with progressive elements of the rising bourgeoisie to defeat the feudal aristocracy on issues involving demands for governmental reforms, such as a constitutional republic with freely elected assemblies and universal (male) suffrage. In other words, the working class must join with bourgeois and democratic forces to bring about the successful conclusion of the bourgeois revolution before stressing the working-class agenda and a working-class revolution.
After a long struggle that threatened to ruin the Communist League, Marx's opinion prevailed and eventually, the Willich/Schapper group left the Communist League. Meanwhile, Marx also became heavily involved with the socialist German Workers' Educational Society. The Society held their meetings in Great Windmill Street, Soho, central London's entertainment district. This organisation was also racked by an internal struggle between its members, some of whom followed Marx while others followed the Schapper/Willich faction. The issues in this internal split were the same issues raised in the internal split within the Communist League, but Marx lost the fight with the Schapper/Willich faction within the German Workers' Educational Society and on 17 September 1850 resigned from the Society.
### New-York Daily Tribune and journalism
In the early period in London, Marx committed himself almost exclusively to his studies, such that his family endured extreme poverty. His main source of income was Engels, whose own source was his wealthy industrialist father. In Prussia as editor of his own newspaper, and contributor to others ideologically aligned, Marx could reach his audience, the working classes. In London, without finances to run a newspaper themselves, he and Engels turned to international journalism. At one stage they were being published by six newspapers from England, the United States, Prussia, Austria, and South Africa. Marx's principal earnings came from his work as European correspondent, from 1852 to 1862, for the New-York Daily Tribune, and from also producing articles for more "bourgeois" newspapers. Marx had his articles translated from German by , until his proficiency in English had become adequate.
The New-York Daily Tribune had been founded in April 1841 by Horace Greeley. Its editorial board contained progressive bourgeois journalists and publishers, among them George Ripley and the journalist Charles Dana, who was editor-in-chief. Dana, a fourierist and an abolitionist, was Marx's contact. The Tribune was a vehicle for Marx to reach a transatlantic public, such as for his "hidden warfare" against Henry Charles Carey. The journal had wide working-class appeal from its foundation; at two cents, it was inexpensive; and, with about 50,000 copies per issue, its circulation was the widest in the United States. Its editorial ethos was progressive and its anti-slavery stance reflected Greeley's. Marx's first article for the paper, on the British parliamentary elections, was published on 21 August 1852.
On 21 March 1857, Dana informed Marx that due to the economic recession only one article a week would be paid for, published or not; the others would be paid for only if published. Marx had sent his articles on Tuesdays and Fridays, but, that October, the Tribune discharged all its correspondents in Europe except Marx and B. Taylor, and reduced Marx to a weekly article. Between September and November 1860, only five were published. After a six-month interval, Marx resumed contributions from September 1861 until March 1862, when Dana wrote to inform him that there was no longer space in the Tribune for reports from London, due to American domestic affairs. In 1868, Dana set up a rival newspaper, the New York Sun, at which he was editor-in-chief. In April 1857, Dana invited Marx to contribute articles, mainly on military history, to the New American Cyclopedia, an idea of George Ripley, Dana's friend and literary editor of the Tribune. In all, 67 Marx-Engels articles were published, of which 51 were written by Engels, although Marx did some research for them in the British Museum. By the late 1850s, American popular interest in European affairs waned and Marx's articles turned to topics such as the "slavery crisis" and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 in the "War Between the States". Between December 1851 and March 1852, Marx worked on his theoretical work about the French Revolution of 1848, titled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. In this he explored concepts in historical materialism, class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, and victory of the proletariat over the bourgeois state.
The 1850s and 1860s may be said to mark a philosophical boundary distinguishing the young Marx's Hegelian idealism and the more mature Marx's scientific ideology associated with structural Marxism. However, not all scholars accept this distinction. For Marx and Engels, their experience of the Revolutions of 1848 to 1849 were formative in the development of their theory of economics and historical progression. After the "failures" of 1848, the revolutionary impetus appeared spent and not to be renewed without an economic recession. Contention arose between Marx and his fellow communists, whom he denounced as "adventurists". Marx deemed it fanciful to propose that "will power" could be sufficient to create the revolutionary conditions when in reality the economic component was the necessary requisite. The recession in the United States' economy in 1852 gave Marx and Engels grounds for optimism for revolutionary activity, yet this economy was seen as too immature for a capitalist revolution. Open territories on America's western frontier dissipated the forces of social unrest. Moreover, any economic crisis arising in the United States would not lead to revolutionary contagion of the older economies of individual European nations, which were closed systems bounded by their national borders. When the so-called Panic of 1857 in the United States spread globally, it broke all economic theory models, and was the first truly global economic crisis.
### First International and Das Kapital
Marx continued to write articles for the New York Daily Tribune as long as he was sure that the Tribune's editorial policy was still progressive. However, the departure of Charles Dana from the paper in late 1861 and the resultant change in the editorial board brought about a new editorial policy. No longer was the Tribune to be a strong abolitionist paper dedicated to a complete Union victory. The new editorial board supported an immediate peace between the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War in the United States with slavery left intact in the Confederacy. Marx strongly disagreed with this new political position and in 1863 was forced to withdraw as a writer for the Tribune.
In 1864, Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as the First International), to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. In that organisation, Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred on Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). Although Marx won this contest, the transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. The most important political event during the existence of the International was the Paris Commune of 1871 when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. In response to the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, "The Civil War in France", a defence of the Commune.
Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand and provide a critique suitable for the capitalist mode of production, and hence spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying. By 1857, Marx had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, and foreign trade, and the world market, though this work did not appear in print until 1939, under the title Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy.
In 1859, Marx published A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, his first serious critique of political economy. This work was intended merely as a preview of his three-volume Das Kapital (English title: Capital: Critique of Political Economy), which he intended to publish at a later date. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx began to critically examine axioms and categories of economic thinking. The work was enthusiastically received, and the edition sold out quickly.
The successful sales of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy stimulated Marx in the early 1860s to finish work on the three large volumes that would compose his major life's work – Das Kapital and the Theories of Surplus Value, which discussed and critiqued the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Theories of Surplus Value is often referred to as the fourth volume of Das Kapital and constitutes one of the first comprehensive treatises on the history of economic thought. In 1867, the first volume of Das Kapital was published, a work which critically analysed capital. Das Kapital proposes an explanation of the "laws of motion" of the mode of production from its origins to its future by describing the dynamics of the accumulation of capital, with topics such as the growth of wage labour, the transformation of the workplace, capital accumulation, competition, the banking system, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and land-rents, as well as how waged labour continually reproduce the rule of capital. Marx proposes that the driving force of capital is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value.
Demand for a Russian language edition of Das Kapital soon led to the printing of 3,000 copies of the book in the Russian language, which was published on 27 March 1872. By the autumn of 1871, the entire first edition of the German-language edition of Das Kapital had been sold out and a second edition was published.
Volumes II and III of Das Kapital remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life. Both volumes were published by Engels after Marx's death. Volume II of Das Kapital was prepared and published by Engels in July 1893 under the name Capital II: The Process of Circulation of Capital. Volume III of Das Kapital was published a year later in October 1894 under the name Capital III: The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. Theories of Surplus Value derived from the sprawling Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863, a second draft for Das Kapital, the latter spanning volumes 30–34 of the Collected Works of Marx and Engels. Specifically, Theories of Surplus Value runs from the latter part of the Collected Works' thirtieth volume through the end of their thirty-second volume; meanwhile, the larger Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 run from the start of the Collected Works''' thirtieth volume through the first half of their thirty-fourth volume. The latter half of the Collected Works' thirty-fourth volume consists of the surviving fragments of the Economic Manuscripts of 1863–1864, which represented a third draft for Das Kapital, and a large portion of which is included as an appendix to the Penguin edition of Das Kapital, volume I. A German-language abridged edition of Theories of Surplus Value was published in 1905 and in 1910. This abridged edition was translated into English and published in 1951 in London, but the complete unabridged edition of Theories of Surplus Value was published as the "fourth volume" of Das Kapital in 1963 and 1971 in Moscow.
During the last decade of his life, Marx's health declined, and he became incapable of the sustained effort that had characterised his previous work. He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. His Critique of the Gotha Programme opposed the tendency of his followers Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel to compromise with the state socialist ideas of Ferdinand Lassalle in the interests of a united socialist party. This work is also notable for another famous Marx quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, Marx contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village mir. While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia", Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage it "would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it [the rural commune] from all sides". Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, Marx allowed that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist. However, in the same letter to Vera Zasulich he points out that "at the core of the capitalist system ... lies the complete separation of the producer from the means of production". In one of the drafts of this letter, Marx reveals his growing passion for anthropology, motivated by his belief that future communism would be a return on a higher level to the communism of our prehistoric past. He wrote that "the historical trend of our age is the fatal crisis which capitalist production has undergone in the European and American countries where it has reached its highest peak, a crisis that will end in its destruction, in the return of modern society to a higher form of the most archaic type – collective production and appropriation". He added that "the vitality of primitive communities was incomparably greater than that of Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. societies, and, a fortiori, that of modern capitalist societies". Before he died, Marx asked Engels to write up these ideas, which were published in 1884 under the title The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
## Personal life
### Family
Marx and von Westphalen had seven children together, but partly owing to the poor conditions in which they lived whilst in London, only three survived to adulthood. Their children were: Jenny Caroline (m. Longuet; 1844–1883); Jenny Laura (m. Lafargue; 1845–1911); Edgar (1847–1855); Henry Edward Guy ("Guido"; 1849–1850); Jenny Eveline Frances ("Franziska"; 1851–1852); Jenny Julia Eleanor (1855–1898) and one more who died before being named (July 1857). According to his son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, Marx was a loving father. In 1962, there were allegations that Marx fathered a son, Freddy, out of wedlock by his housekeeper, Helene Demuth, but the claim is disputed for lack of documented evidence.
Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. While in Paris, he used that of "Monsieur Ramboz", whilst in London, he signed off his letters as "A. Williams". His friends referred to him as "Moor", owing to his dark complexion and black curly hair, while he encouraged his children to call him "Old Nick" and "Charley". He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family as well, referring to Friedrich Engels as "General", his housekeeper Helene as "Lenchen" or "Nym", while one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as "Qui Qui, Emperor of China" and another, Laura, was known as "Kakadou" or "the Hottentot".
### Health
Marx drank heavily until his death after joining the Trier Tavern Club drinking society in the 1830s.
Marx was afflicted by poor health (what he himself described as "the wretchedness of existence") and various authors have sought to describe and explain it. His biographer Werner Blumenberg attributed it to liver and gall problems which Marx had in 1849 and from which he was never afterward free, exacerbated by an unsuitable lifestyle. The attacks often came with headaches, eye inflammation, neuralgia in the head, and rheumatic pains. A serious nervous disorder appeared in 1877 and protracted insomnia was a consequence, which Marx fought with narcotics. The illness was aggravated by excessive nocturnal work and faulty diet. Marx was fond of highly seasoned dishes, smoked fish, caviare, pickled cucumbers, "none of which are good for liver patients", but he also liked wine and liqueurs and smoked an enormous amount "and since he had no money, it was usually bad-quality cigars". From 1863, Marx complained a lot about boils: "These are very frequent with liver patients and may be due to the same causes". The abscesses were so bad that Marx could neither sit nor work upright. According to Blumenberg, Marx's irritability is often found in liver patients:
> The illness emphasised certain traits in his character. He argued cuttingly, his biting satire did not shrink at insults, and his expressions could be rude and cruel. Though in general Marx had blind faith in his closest friends, nevertheless he himself complained that he was sometimes too mistrustful and unjust even to them. His verdicts, not only about enemies but even about friends, were sometimes so harsh that even less sensitive people would take offence ... There must have been few whom he did not criticize like this ... not even Engels was an exception.
According to Princeton historian Jerrold Seigel, in his late teens, Marx may have had pneumonia or pleurisy, the effects of which led to his being exempted from Prussian military service. In later life whilst working on Das Kapital (which he never completed), Marx suffered from a trio of afflictions. A liver ailment, probably hereditary, was aggravated by overwork, a bad diet, and lack of sleep. Inflammation of the eyes was induced by too much work at night. A third affliction, eruption of carbuncles or boils, "was probably brought on by general physical debility to which the various features of Marx's style of life – alcohol, tobacco, poor diet, and failure to sleep – all contributed. Engels often exhorted Marx to alter this dangerous regime". In Seigel's thesis, what lay behind this punishing sacrifice of his health may have been guilt about self-involvement and egoism, originally induced in Karl Marx by his father.
In 2007, a retrodiagnosis of Marx's skin disease was made by dermatologist Sam Shuster of Newcastle University and for Shuster, the most probable explanation was that Marx suffered not from liver problems, but from hidradenitis suppurativa, a recurring infective condition arising from blockage of apocrine ducts opening into hair follicles. This condition, which was not described in the English medical literature until 1933 (hence would not have been known to Marx's physicians), can produce joint pain (which could be misdiagnosed as rheumatic disorder) and painful eye conditions. To arrive at his retrodiagnosis, Shuster considered the primary material: the Marx correspondence published in the 50 volumes of the Marx/Engels Collected Works. There, "although the skin lesions were called 'furuncles', 'boils' and 'carbuncles' by Marx, his wife, and his physicians, they were too persistent, recurrent, destructive and site-specific for that diagnosis". The sites of the persistent 'carbuncles' were noted repeatedly in the armpits, groins, perianal, genital (penis and scrotum) and suprapubic regions and inner thighs, "favoured sites of hidradenitis suppurativa". Professor Shuster claimed the diagnosis "can now be made definitively".
Shuster went on to consider the potential psychosocial effects of the disease, noting that the skin is an organ of communication and that hidradenitis suppurativa produces much psychological distress, including loathing and disgust and depression of self-image, mood, and well-being, feelings for which Shuster found "much evidence" in the Marx correspondence. Professor Shuster went on to ask himself whether the mental effects of the disease affected Marx's work and even helped him to develop his theory of alienation.
### Death
Following the death of his wife Jenny in December 1881, Marx developed a catarrh that kept him in ill health for the last 15 months of his life. It eventually brought on the bronchitis and pleurisy that killed him in London on 14 March 1883, when he died a stateless person at age 64. Family and friends in London buried his body in Highgate Cemetery (East), London, on 17 March 1883 in an area reserved for agnostics and atheists (George Eliot's grave is nearby). According to Francis Wheen, there were between nine and eleven mourners at his funeral; however, research from contemporary sources identifies thirteen named individuals attending the funeral: Friedrich Engels, Eleanor Marx, Edward Aveling, Paul Lafargue, Charles Longuet, Helene Demuth, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Gottlieb Lemke, Frederick Lessner, G Lochner, Sir Ray Lankester, Carl Schorlemmer and Ernest Radford. A contemporary newspaper account claims that twenty-five to thirty relatives and friends attended the funeral. A writer in The Graphic noted: 'By a strange blunder ... his death was not announced for two days, and then as having taken place at Paris. The next day the correction came from Paris; and when his friends and followers hastened to his house in Haverstock Hill, to learn the time and place of burial, they learned that he was already in the cold ground. But for this secresy [sic] and haste, a great popular demonstration would undoubtedly have been held over his grave'.
Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including Wilhelm Liebknecht and Friedrich Engels. Engels' speech included the passage:
> On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep – but forever.
Marx's surviving daughters Eleanor and Laura, as well as Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue, Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance. He had been predeceased by his wife and his eldest daughter, the latter dying a few months earlier in January 1883. Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in French. Two telegrams from workers' parties in France and Spain were also read out. Together with Engels's speech, this constituted the entire programme of the funeral. Non-relatives attending the funeral included three communist associates of Marx: Friedrich Lessner, imprisoned for three years after the Cologne Communist Trial of 1852; G. Lochner, whom Engels described as "an old member of the Communist League"; and Carl Schorlemmer, a professor of chemistry in Manchester, a member of the Royal Society, and a communist activist involved in the 1848 Baden revolution. Another attendee of the funeral was Ray Lankester, a British zoologist who would later become a prominent academic.
Marx left a personal estate valued for probate at £250 (equivalent to £ in ). Upon his own death in 1895, Engels left Marx's two surviving daughters a "significant portion" of his considerable estate (valued in 2011 at US\$4.8 million).
Marx and his family were reburied on a new site nearby in November 1954. The tomb at the new site, unveiled on 14 March 1956, bears the carved message: "Workers of All Lands Unite", the final line of The Communist Manifesto; and, from the 11th "Thesis on Feuerbach" (as edited by Engels), "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point however is to change it". The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) had the monument with a portrait bust by Laurence Bradshaw erected and Marx's original tomb had only humble adornment. Black civil rights leader and CPGB activist Claudia Jones was later buried beside Karl Marx's tomb.
The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm remarked: "One cannot say Marx died a failure." Although he had not achieved a large following of disciples in Britain, his writings had already begun to make an impact on the left-wing movements in Germany and Russia. Within twenty-five years of his death, the continental European socialist parties that acknowledged Marx's influence on their politics had contributed to significant gains in their representative democratic elections.
## Thought
### Influences
Marx's thought demonstrates influence from many sources, including but not limited to:
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy
- The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as well as Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi's critique of laissez-faire economics and analysis of the precarious state of the proletariat
- French socialist thought, in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Charles Fourier
- Earlier German philosophical materialism among the Young Hegelians, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, as well as the French materialism of the late 18th century, including Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvétius and d'Holbach
- Friedrich Engels' analysis of the working class, as well as the early descriptions of class provided by French liberals and Saint-Simonians such as François Guizot and Augustin Thierry
- Marx's Judaic legacy has been identified as formative to both his moral outlook and his materialist philosophy.
Marx's view of history, which came to be called historical materialism (controversially adapted as the philosophy of dialectical materialism by Engels and Lenin), certainly shows the influence of Hegel's claim that one should view reality (and history) dialectically. However, whereas Hegel had thought in idealist terms, putting ideas in the forefront, Marx sought to conceptualize dialectics in materialist terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea. Where Hegel saw the "spirit" as driving history, Marx saw this as an unnecessary mystification, obscuring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world. He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that one needed to set it upon its feet. Despite his dislike of mystical terms, Marx used Gothic language in several of his works: in The Communist Manifesto he proclaims "A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre", and in The Capital he refers to capital as "necromancy that surrounds the products of labour".
Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought, Marx criticised utopian socialists, arguing that their favoured small-scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty and that only a large-scale change in the economic system could bring about real change.
Other important contributions to Marx's revision of Hegelianism came from Engels's book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution, as well as from the social democrat Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz, who in Die Bewegung der Produktion described the movement of society as "flowing from the contradiction between the forces of production and the mode of production."
Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically, discerning tendencies of history and thereby predicting the outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx, therefore, concluded that a communist revolution would inevitably occur. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his "Theses on Feuerbach" that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it" and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world.
Marx's theories inspired several theories and disciplines of future, including but not limited to:
- Contemporary critique of political economy
- Kondratiev wave and Kuznets swing
- Theory of Underconsumption
- Creative destruction
- Crisis theory
- Quantitative Economic History
- World-systems theory
### Philosophy and social thought
Marx's polemic with other thinkers often occurred through critique and thus he has been called "the first great user of critical method in social sciences". He criticised speculative philosophy, equating metaphysics with ideology. By adopting this approach, Marx attempted to separate key findings from ideological biases. This set him apart from many contemporary philosophers.
#### Human nature
Like Tocqueville, who described a faceless and bureaucratic despotism with no identifiable despot, Marx also broke with classical thinkers who spoke of a single tyrant and with Montesquieu, who discussed the nature of the single despot. Instead, Marx set out to analyse "the despotism of capital". Fundamentally, Marx assumed that human history involves transforming human nature, which encompasses both human beings and material objects. Humans recognise that they possess both actual and potential selves. For both Marx and Hegel, self-development begins with an experience of internal alienation stemming from this recognition, followed by a realisation that the actual self, as a subjective agent, renders its potential counterpart an object to be apprehended. Marx further argues that by moulding nature in desired ways the subject takes the object as its own and thus permits the individual to be actualised as fully human. For Marx, the human nature – Gattungswesen, or species-being – exists as a function of human labour. Fundamental to Marx's idea of meaningful labour is the proposition that for a subject to come to terms with its alienated object it must first exert influence upon literal, material objects in the subject's world. Marx acknowledges that Hegel "grasps the nature of work and comprehends objective man, authentic because actual, as the result of his own work", but characterises Hegelian self-development as unduly "spiritual" and abstract. Marx thus departs from Hegel by insisting that "the fact that man is a corporeal, actual, sentient, objective being with natural capacities means that he has actual, sensuous objects for his nature as objects of his life-expression, or that he can only express his life in actual sensuous objects". Consequently, Marx revises Hegelian "work" into material "labour" and in the context of human capacity to transform nature the term "labour power".
#### Labour, class struggle and false consciousness
> The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Marx had a special concern with how people relate to their own labour power. He wrote extensively about this in terms of the problem of alienation. As with the dialectic, Marx began with a Hegelian notion of alienation but developed a more materialist conception. Capitalism mediates social relationships of production (such as among workers or between workers and capitalists) through commodities, including labour, that are bought and sold on the market. For Marx, the possibility that one may give up ownership of one's own labour – one's capacity to transform the world – is tantamount to being alienated from one's own nature and it is a spiritual loss. Marx described this loss as commodity fetishism, in which the things that people produce, commodities, appear to have a life and movement of their own to which humans and their behaviour merely adapt.
Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels's point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths, as they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production include not only the production of food or manufactured goods but also the production of ideas (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right:
> Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.
Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis at the argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of solidarity, here Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality.
Marx was an outspoken opponent of child labour, saying that British industries "could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood too", and that U.S. capital was financed by the "capitalized blood of children".
#### Critique of political economy, history and society
Marx's thoughts on labour and its function in reproducing capital were related to the primacy he gave to social relations in determining the society's past, present and future. (Critics have called this economic determinism.) Labour is the precondition for the existence of, and accumulation of capital, which both shape the social system. For Marx, social change was driven by conflict between opposing interests, by parties situated in the historical situation of their mode of production. This became the inspiration for the body of works known as the conflict theory. In his evolutionary model of history, he argued that human history began with free, productive and creative activities that was over time coerced and dehumanised, a trend most apparent under capitalism. Marx noted that this was not an intentional process, but rather due to the immanent logic of the current mode of production which demands more human labour (abstract labour) to reproduce the social relationships of capital.
The organisation of society depends on means of production. The means of production are all things required to produce material goods, such as land, natural resources, and technology but not human labour. The relations of production are the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together, these compose the mode of production and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of modes of production. Marx differentiated between base and superstructure, where the base (or substructure) is the economic system and superstructure is the cultural and political system. Marx regarded this mismatch between economic base and social superstructure as a major source of social disruption and conflict.
Despite Marx's stress on the critique of capitalism and discussion of the new communist society that should replace it, his explicit critique is guarded, as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones (slavery and feudalism). Marx never clearly discusses issues of morality and justice, but scholars agree that his work contained implicit discussion of those concepts.
Marx's view of capitalism was two-sided. On one hand, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system he noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and recurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment. On the other hand, he characterised capitalism as "revolutionising, industrialising and universalising qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality, and scientific revolution) that are responsible for progress, at in contrast to earlier forms of societies. Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history and was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism. Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist has an incentive to reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.
According to Marx, capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labour market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry, input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that it was based on surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive, and what they can produce. Although Marx describes capitalists as vampires sucking worker's blood, he notes that drawing profit is "by no means an injustice" since Marx, according to Allen W. Wood "excludes any trans-epochal standpoint from which one can comment" on the morals of such particular arrangements. Marx also noted that even the capitalists themselves cannot go against the system. The problem is the "cancerous cell" of capital, understood not as property or equipment, but the social relations between workers and owners, (the selling and purchasing of labour power) – the societal system, or rather mode of production, in general.
At the same time, Marx stressed that capitalism was unstable and prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies and less and less in labour. Since Marx believed that profit derived from surplus value appropriated from labour, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall as the economy grows. Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth and collapse. Moreover, he believed that in the long-term, this process would enrich and empower the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat. In section one of The Communist Manifesto, Marx describes feudalism, capitalism and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process:
> We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged ... the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes ... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring order into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.
Marx believed that those structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism, or a post-capitalistic, communist society:
> The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Thanks to various processes overseen by capitalism, such as urbanisation, the working class, the proletariat, should grow in numbers and develop class consciousness, in time realising that they can and must change the system. Marx believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolishing the exploiting class and introducing a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crises. Marx argued in The German Ideology that capitalism will end through the organised actions of an international working class:
> Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
In this new society, the alienation would end and humans would be free to act without being bound by selling their labour. It would be a democratic society, enfranchising the entire population. In such a utopian world, there would also be little need for a state, whose goal was previously to enforce the alienation. Marx theorised that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist/communist system, would exist a period of dictatorship of the proletariat – where the working class holds political power and forcibly socialises the means of production. As he wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program, "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the United States, and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries in which workers cannot "attain their goal by peaceful means" the "lever of our revolution must be force".
### International relations
Marx viewed Russia as the main counter-revolutionary threat to European revolutions. During the Crimean War, Marx backed the Ottoman Empire and its allies Britain and France against Russia. He was absolutely opposed to Pan-Slavism, viewing it as an instrument of Russian foreign policy. Marx had considered the Slavic nations except Poles as 'counter-revolutionary'. Marx and Engels published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in February 1849:
> To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution [of 1848] hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria, and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies. Then there will be a struggle, an "inexorable life-and-death struggle", against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror – not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!"
Marx and Engels sympathised with the Narodnik revolutionaries of the 1860s and 1870s. When the Russian revolutionaries assassinated Tsar Alexander II of Russia, Marx expressed the hope that the assassination foreshadowed 'the formation of a Russian commune'. Marx supported the Polish uprisings against tsarist Russia. He said in a speech in London in 1867:
> In the first place the policy of Russia is changeless... Its methods, its tactics, its manoeuvres may change, but the polar star of its policy – world domination – is a fixed star. In our times only a civilised government ruling over barbarian masses can hatch out such a plan and execute it. ... There is but one alternative for Europe. Either Asiatic barbarism, under Muscovite direction, will burst around its head like an avalanche, or else it must re-establish Poland, thus putting twenty million heroes between itself and Asia and gaining a breathing spell for the accomplishment of its social regeneration.
Marx supported the cause of Irish independence. In 1867, he wrote Engels: "I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I now think it inevitable. The English working class will never accomplish anything until it has got rid of Ireland. ... English reaction in England had its roots ... in the subjugation of Ireland."
Marx spent some time in French Algeria, which had been invaded and made a French colony in 1830, and had the opportunity to observe life in colonial North Africa. He wrote about the colonial justice system, in which "a form of torture has been used (and this happens 'regularly') to extract confessions from the Arabs; naturally it is done (like the English in India) by the 'police'; the judge is supposed to know nothing at all about it." Marx was surprised by the arrogance of many European settlers in Algiers and wrote in a letter: "when a European colonist dwells among the 'lesser breeds,' either as a settler or even on business, he generally regards himself as even more inviolable than handsome William I [a Prussian king]. Still, when it comes to bare-faced arrogance and presumptuousness vis-à-vis the 'lesser breeds,' the British and Dutch outdo the French."
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Marx's analysis of colonialism as a progressive force bringing modernization to a backward feudal society sounds like a transparent rationalization for foreign domination. His account of British domination, however, reflects the same ambivalence that he shows towards capitalism in Europe. In both cases, Marx recognizes the immense suffering brought about during the transition from feudal to bourgeois society while insisting that the transition is both necessary and ultimately progressive. He argues that the penetration of foreign commerce will cause a social revolution in India."
Marx discussed British colonial rule in India in the New York Herald Tribune in June 1853:
> There cannot remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan [India] is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing... [however], we must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition.
## Legacy
Marx's ideas have had a profound impact on world politics and intellectual thought, in particular in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Followers of Marx have often debated among themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and apply his concepts to the modern world. The legacy of Marx's thought has become contested between numerous tendencies, each of which sees itself as Marx's most accurate interpreter. In the political realm, these tendencies include political theories such as Leninism, Marxism–Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Luxemburgism, libertarian Marxism, and Open Marxism. Various currents have also developed in academic Marxism, often under influence of other views, resulting in structuralist Marxism, historical materialism, phenomenological Marxism, analytical Marxism, and Hegelian Marxism.
From an academic perspective, Marx's work contributed to the birth of modern sociology. He has been cited as one of the 19th century's three masters of the "school of suspicion", alongside Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, and as one of the three principal architects of modern social science along with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. In contrast to other philosophers, Marx offered theories that could often be tested with the scientific method. Both Marx and Auguste Comte set out to develop scientifically justified ideologies in the wake of European secularisation and new developments in the philosophies of history and science. Working in the Hegelian tradition, Marx rejected Comtean sociological positivism in an attempt to develop a science of society. Karl Löwith considered Marx and Søren Kierkegaard to be the two greatest philosophical successors of Hegel. In modern sociological theory, Marxist sociology is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives. Isaiah Berlin considers Marx the true founder of modern sociology "in so far as anyone can claim the title". Beyond social science, he has also had a lasting legacy in philosophy, literature, the arts, and the humanities.
Social theorists of the 20th and 21st centuries have pursued two main strategies in response to Marx. One move has been to reduce it to its analytical core, known as analytical Marxism. Another, more common move has been to dilute the explanatory claims of Marx's social theory and emphasise the "relative autonomy" of aspects of social and economic life not directly related to Marx's central narrative of interaction between the development of the "forces of production" and the succession of "modes of production". This has been the neo-Marxist theorising adopted by historians inspired by Marx's social theory such as E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. It has also been a line of thinking pursued by thinkers and activists such as Antonio Gramsci who have sought to understand the opportunities and the difficulties of transformative political practice, seen in the light of Marxist social theory. Marx's ideas would also have a profound influence on subsequent artists and art history, with avant-garde movements across literature, visual art, music, film, and theatre.
Politically, Marx's legacy is more complex. Throughout the 20th century, revolutions in dozens of countries labelled themselves "Marxist"—most notably the Russian Revolution, which led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Major world leaders including Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende, Josip Broz Tito, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela, Xi Jinping and Thomas Sankara have all cited Marx as an influence. Beyond where Marxist revolutions took place, Marx's ideas have informed political parties worldwide. In countries associated with Marxism, some events have led political opponents to blame Marx for millions of deaths, while others argue for a distinction between the legacy and influence of Marx specifically, and the legacy and influence of those who have shaped his ideas for political purposes. Arthur Lipow describes Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels as "the founders of modern revolutionary democratic socialism."
The cities of Marks, Russia and Karl-Marx-Stadt, Germany (now known as Chemnitz) were named after Marx.
In May 2018, to mark the bicentenary of his birth, a 4.5m statue of him by leading Chinese sculptor Wu Weishan and donated by the Chinese government was unveiled in his birthplace of Trier, Germany. The then-European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker defended Marx's memory, saying that today Marx "stands for things which he is not responsible for and which he didn't cause because many of the things he wrote down were redrafted into the opposite".
In 2017, a feature film, titled The Young Karl Marx, featuring Marx, his wife Jenny Marx, and Engels, among other revolutionaries and intellectuals prior to the Revolutions of 1848, received good reviews for both its historical accuracy and its brio in dealing with intellectual life. Another fictional representation to coincide with the bicentenary was Jason Barker's novel Marx Returns which, despite being "[c]urious, funny, perplexing, and irreverent", according to philosopher Ray Brassier "casts unexpected light on Marx's thought."
## Selected bibliography
- The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (doctoral thesis), 1841
- The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law, 1842
- Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843
- On the Jewish Question, 1843
- Notes on James Mill, 1844
- Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 1844
- The Holy Family, 1845
- Theses on Feuerbach, 1845
- The German Ideology, 1845
- The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847
- Wage Labour and Capital, 1847
- Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848
- The Class Struggles in France, 1850
- The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, 1852
- Grundrisse (Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy), 1857
- A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859
- Writings on the U.S. Civil War, 1861
- Theories of Surplus Value, (posthumously published by Kautsky) 3 volumes, 1862
- Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln, 1864
- Value, Price and Profit, 1865
- Capital. Volume I: A Critique of Political Economy The Process of Production of Capital (Das Kapital), 1867
- The Civil War in France, 1871
- Critique of the Gotha Program, 1875
- Notes on Adolph Wagner, 1883
- Das Kapital, Volume II (posthumously published by Engels), 1885
- Das Kapital, Volume III (posthumously published by Engels), 1894
## See also
- 2807 Karl Marx
- Criticisms of Marxism
- Giovanni Gentile
- Karl Marx in film
- Marxian class theory
- Marx Memorial Library
- Marx's method
- Marx Reloaded
- Mathematical manuscripts of Karl Marx
- Pre-Marx socialists
- Timeline of Karl Marx
- Why Socialism?'', an article written by Albert Einstein which presented a critique of modern capitalism and advocated for a planned economy. |
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| The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is a long-legged wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia, and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more northern parts migrate southwards in autumn. A bird of wetland areas, it can be seen around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and on the sea coast. It feeds mostly on aquatic creatures which it catches after standing stationary beside or in the water, or stalking its prey through the shallows.
Standing up to 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) tall, adults weigh from 1 to 2 kg (2 to 4 lb). They have a white head and neck with a broad black stripe that extends from the eye to the black crest. The body and wings are grey above and the underparts are greyish-white, with some black on the flanks. The long, sharply pointed beak is pinkish-yellow and the legs are brown.
The birds breed colonially in spring in heronries, usually building their nests high in trees. A clutch of usually three to five bluish-green eggs is laid. Both birds incubate the eggs for around 25 days, and then both feed the chicks, which fledge when 7-8 weeks old. Many juveniles do not survive their first winter, but if they do, they can expect to live for about 5 years.
In Ancient Egypt, the deity Bennu was depicted as a heron in New Kingdom artwork. In Ancient Rome, the heron was a bird of divination. Roast heron was once a specially prized dish; when George Neville became Archbishop of York in 1465, 400 herons were served to the guests.
## Taxonomy
Grey herons belong to the subfamily Ardeinae, along with the majority of extant species, which are known as the "typical herons". The grey heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the cattle egret and the great egret in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea cinerea. The scientific name comes the Latin ardea meaning "heron" and cinereus meaning "ash-grey" or "ash-coloured".
Four subspecies are recognised:
- A. c. cinerea – Linnaeus, 1758: nominate, found in Europe, Africa, western Asia
- A. c. jouyi – Clark, 1907: found in eastern Asia
- A. c. firasa – Hartert, 1917: found in Madagascar
- A. c. monicae – Jouanin & Roux, 1963: found on islands off Banc d'Arguin, Mauritania.
It is closely related and similar to the North American great blue heron (Ardea herodias), which differs in being larger, and having chestnut-brown flanks and thighs; and to the cocoi heron (Ardea cocoi) from South America, with which it forms a superspecies. Some authorities believe that the subspecies A. c. monicae should be considered a separate species. It has been known to hybridise with the great egret (Ardea alba), the little egret (Egretta garzetta), the great blue heron and the purple heron (Ardea purpurea). The Australian white-faced heron is often incorrectly called a grey heron. In Ireland, the grey heron is often colloquially called a "crane".
## Description
The grey heron is a large bird, standing up to 100 cm (40 in) tall and measuring 84–102 cm (33–40 in) long with a 155–195 cm (61–77 in) wingspan. The body weight can range from 1.02–2.08 kg (2 lb 4 oz – 4 lb 9+1⁄4 oz). The plumage is largely ashy-grey above, and greyish-white below, with some black on the flanks. Adults have a white head and neck with a broad black supercilium that terminates in the slender, dangling crest, and bluish-black streaks on the front of the neck. The scapular feathers and the feathers at the base of the neck are somewhat elongated. Immature birds lack the dark stripe on the head and are generally duller in appearance than adults, with a grey head and neck, and a small, dark grey crest. The pinkish-yellow beak is long, straight, and powerful, and is brighter in color in breeding adults. The iris is yellow and the legs are brown and very long.
The main call is a loud croaking "fraaank", but a variety of guttural and raucous noises are heard at the breeding colony. The male uses an advertisement call to encourage a female to join him at the nest, and both sexes use various greeting calls after a pair bond has been established. A loud, harsh "schaah" is used by the male in driving other birds from the vicinity of the nest and a soft "gogogo" expresses anxiety, as when a predator is nearby or a human walks past the colony. The chicks utter loud chattering or ticking noises.
## Distribution and habitat
The grey heron has an extensive range throughout most of the Palearctic realm. The range of the nominate subspecies A. c. cinerea extends to 70° N in Norway and 66°N in Sweden, but its northerly limit is around 60°N across the rest of Europe and Asia, as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains. To the south, its range extends to northern Spain, France, central Italy, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Iraq, Iran, India, The Maldives and Myanmar (Burma). It is also present in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, the Canary Islands, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and many of the Mediterranean Islands. It is replaced by A. c. jouyi in eastern Siberia, Mongolia, eastern China, Hainan, Japan, and Taiwan. In Madagascar and the Aldabra Islands, the subspecies A. c. firasa is found, while the subspecies A. c. monicae is restricted to Mauritania and offshore islands.
Over much of its range, the grey heron is resident, but birds from the more northerly parts of Europe migrate southwards, some remaining in Central and Southern Europe, others travelling on to Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
The grey heron is also known to be vagrant in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Iceland, Greenland, the Aleutian Islands, and Newfoundland, with a few confirmed sightings in other parts of North America including Nova Scotia and Nantucket.
Within its range, the grey heron can be found anywhere with suitable watery habitat that can supply its food. The water body must be either shallow enough, or have a shelving margin in it, so that it can wade. Although most common in the lowlands, it also occurs in mountain tarns, lakes, reservoirs, rivers, marshes, ponds, ditches, flooded areas, coastal lagoons, estuaries, and the sea shore. It sometimes forages away from water in pasture, and it has been recorded in desert areas, hunting for beetles and lizards. Breeding colonies are usually near feeding areas, but exceptionally may be up to eight kilometres (five miles) away, and birds sometimes forage as much as 20 km (12 mi) from the nesting site.
## Behaviour
The grey heron has a slow flight, with its long neck retracted in an S-shape. This is characteristic of herons and bitterns, and distinguishes them from storks, cranes, and spoonbills, which extend their necks. It flies with slow wing-beats and sometimes glides for short distances. It sometimes soars, circling to considerable heights, but not as often as the stork. In spring, and occasionally in autumn, birds may soar high above the heronry and chase each other, undertake aerial manoeuvres or swoop down towards the ground. The birds often perch in trees, but spend much time on the ground, striding about or standing still for long periods with an upright stance, often on a single leg.
### Diet and feeding
Grey herons are apex predators in their aquatic ecosystem. Fish, amphibians, crustaceans, and insects are caught in shallow water with the heron's long bill. It has also been observed catching and killing juvenile birds such as ducklings, and occasionally takes birds up to the size of a water rail or white-throated rail. Small mammals such as water voles, rats, stoats and young rabbits are additionally caught.
Prey items vary in size from 1 cm-long fish and invertebrates, weighing less than 1g, to 30 cm-long carps and 57cm eels. While chicks tend to have smaller prey, individual prey caught by fully-grown Grey Herons commonly exceed 100g in weight and occasionally exceed 500g. One paper reports that an adult heron managed to catch and swallow sea trout weighing 680g. It may stand motionless in the shallows, or on a rock or sandbank beside the water, waiting for prey to come within striking distance. Alternatively, it moves slowly and stealthily through the water with its body less upright than when at rest and its neck curved in an "S". It is then able to straighten its neck and strike with its bill very quickly. Small fish are swallowed head first, and larger prey and eels are carried to the shore where they are subdued by being beaten on the ground or stabbed by the bill. They are then swallowed or have hunks of flesh torn off. For prey such as small mammals and birds or ducklings, the prey is held by the neck and either drowned, suffocated, has its neck snapped with the heron's beak, or is bludgeoned against the ground or a nearby rock, before being swallowed whole. The bird regurgitates pellets of indigestible material such as fur, bones, and the chitinous remains of insects. The main hunting periods are around dawn and dusk, but it is also active at other times of the day. At night it roosts in trees or on cliffs, where it tends to be gregarious.
### Breeding
This species breeds in colonies known as heronries, usually in high trees close to lakes, the seashore, or other wetlands. Other sites are sometimes chosen, and these include low trees and bushes, bramble patches, reed beds, heather clumps and cliff ledges. The same nest is used year after year until blown down; it starts as a small platform of sticks but expands into a bulky nest as more material is added in subsequent years. It may be lined with smaller twigs, strands of root or dead grasses; in reed beds, it is built from dead reeds. The male usually collects the material, while the female constructs the nest. Breeding activities take place between February and June. When a bird arrives at the nest, a greeting ceremony occurs in which each partner raises and lowers its wings and plumes. In continental Europe, and elsewhere, nesting colonies sometimes include nests of the purple heron and other heron species.
Courtship involves the male calling from his chosen nesting site. On the arrival of the female, both birds participate in a stretching ceremony, in which each bird extends its neck vertically before bringing it backwards and downwards with the bill remaining vertical, simultaneously flexing its legs, before returning to its normal stance. The snapping ceremony is another behaviour where the neck is extended forward, the head is lowered to the level of the feet, and the mandibles are vigorously snapped together. This may be repeated 20-40 times. When the pairing is settled, the birds may caress each other by attending to the other bird's plumage. The male may then offer the female a stick, which she incorporates into the nest. At this, the male becomes excited, further preening the female, and copulation takes place.
The clutch of eggs usually numbers three to five, though as few as two and as many as seven eggs have been recorded. The eggs have a matt surface and are greenish-blue, averaging 60 mm × 43 mm (2+3⁄8 in × 1+11⁄16 in). The eggs are normally laid at two-day intervals and incubation usually starts after the first or second egg has been laid. Both birds take part in incubation and the period lasts about 25 days. Both parents bring food for the young. At first, the chicks seize the adult's bill from the side and extract regurgitated food from it. Later, the adult disgorges the food at the nest and the chicks squabble for possession. They fledge at 7-8 weeks. Usually, a single brood is raised each year, but two broods have been recorded.
The oldest recorded bird lived for 23 years, but the average life expectancy in the wild is about 5 years. Only about a third of juveniles survive into their second year, many falling victim to predation.
### City life
Grey herons have the ability to live in cities where habitats and nesting space are available. In the Netherlands, it has established itself over the past decades in great numbers in urban environments. In cities such as Amsterdam, they are ever present and well adapted to modern city life. They hunt as usual, but also visit street markets and snack bars. Some individuals make use of people feeding them at their homes or share the catch of recreational fishermen. Similar behaviour on a smaller scale has been reported in Ireland. Garden ponds stocked with ornamental fish are attractive to herons, and the easy prey may provide young birds with a learning opportunity on how to hunt.
Herons have been observed visiting water enclosures in zoos, such as spaces for penguins, otters, pelicans, and seals, and taking food meant for the animals on display.
## Predators and parasites
Being large birds with powerful beaks, grey herons have few predators as adults, but the eggs and young are more vulnerable. The adult birds do not usually leave the nest unattended, but may be lured away by marauding crows or kites. A dead grey heron found in the Pyrenees is thought to have been killed by an otter. The bird may have been weakened by harsh winter weather causing scarcity of its prey.
A study performed by Sitko and Heneberg in the Czech Republic between 1962 and 2013 suggested that Central European grey herons host 29 species of parasitic worms. The dominant species consisted of Apharyngostrigea cornu (67% prevalence), Posthodiplostomum cuticola (41% prevalence), Echinochasmus beleocephalus (39% prevalence), Uroproctepisthmium bursicola (36% prevalence), Neogryporhynchus cheilancristrotus (31% prevalence), Desmidocercella numidica (29% prevalence), and Bilharziella polonica (5% prevalence). Juvenile grey herons were shown to host fewer species, but the intensity of infection was higher in the juveniles than in the adult herons. Of the digenean flatworms found in Central European grey herons, 52% of the species likely infected their definitive hosts outside Central Europe itself, in the premigratory, migratory, or wintering quarters, despite the fact that a substantial proportion of grey herons does not migrate to the south.
## In human culture
Bennu, an ancient Egyptian deity associated with the sun, creation, and rebirth, was depicted as a heron in New Kingdom artwork.
In ancient Rome, the heron was a bird of divination that gave an augury (sign of a coming event) by its call, like the raven, stork, and owl.
Roast heron was once a specially prized dish in Britain for special occasions such as state banquets. For the appointment of George Neville as Archbishop of York in 1465, 400 herons were served to the guests. Young birds were still being shot and eaten in Romney Marsh in 1896. Two grey herons feature in a stained-glass window of the church in Selborne, Hampshire.
The English surnames Earnshaw, Hernshaw, Herne, and Heron all derive from the heron, the suffix -shaw meaning a wood, referring to a place where herons nested. |
62,908,095 | Gigi Goode | 1,166,652,374 | American drag performer | [
"1997 births",
"American drag queens",
"American people of Scandinavian descent",
"American people of Scottish descent",
"Entertainers from Los Angeles",
"Genderfluid people",
"LGBT people from California",
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"Millikin University alumni",
"Non-binary drag performers",
"People from Woodstock, Illinois",
"RuPaul's Drag Race contestants",
"Transgender drag performers",
"Transgender non-binary people"
]
| Gigi Goode (born December 2, 1997) is an American drag queen and reality television personality known for being a runner-up on the twelfth season of the drag competition series RuPaul's Drag Race. Following her appearance on Drag Race, Goode was cast in the Drive 'N Drag concert series, appeared in multiple music videos, and participated in a Savage X Fenty fashion show. In 2020, she received a People's Choice Award in the Competition Contestant category. Originally from Woodstock, Illinois, Goode attended Millikin University and, as of 2020, lives in Los Angeles.
## Early life and education
Goode was born on December 2, 1997, in Woodstock, Illinois, and has Scottish and Scandinavian ancestry. Her mother, Kristi, is a costume and interior designer. Goode was introduced to LGBT culture at the age of 12 by her openly gay uncle. She started doing drag at an early age with the help of her mother, who initially disapproved of it, and she performed in drag in public for the first time at age 15. She has said that her drag "became very 1950s and 1940s inspired".
Goode attended Woodstock High School, where she graduated in 2016. She attended Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, where she majored in art and was awarded the David S. Monroe Art Award in 2017, which honors "outstanding achievement in art, recognizing students for their major, excellence in their work and exhibiting a professional attitude". She later dropped out of Millikin and moved to Los Angeles.
## Career
In 2020, Goode competed on the twelfth season of the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race, where she was the youngest contestant of the season and placed as a runner-up. Goode and her mother collaborated on many of the outfits Goode wore on the show. Goode won the main challenges in episodes 4, 6, 7, and 12. During Snatch Game, she impersonated Maria the Robot, a character based on the experimental humanoid robot Sophia. Jezebel called her portrayal of Maria "physical comedy gold" and "incredibly witty". Critics praised Goode's performance on the show, highlighting her fashion and comedy skills.
Goode participated in Werq the World Battle Royale, a livestreamed fundraiser and drag show held during the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-2020, she was one of a dozen former Drag Race contestants who was cast in the Drive 'N Drag concert series. Goode appeared in the Halloween-themed World of Wonder variety special Bring Back My Ghouls with other contestants from season 12 of Drag Race in October 2020.
Goode appeared in the music video for Chester Lockhart's 2018 cover of "I Put a Spell on You". In 2020, she and fellow Drag Race contestant Valentina appeared in the music video for "I'm Ready" by Sam Smith and Demi Lovato. Goode and fellow Drag Race contestants Jaida Essence Hall and Shea Couleé appeared in the Savage X Fenty fashion show and Amazon Prime Video special Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2. At the 46th People's Choice Awards, she won an award in the "Competition Contestant of 2020" category.
## Personal life
Initially identifying as genderfluid on RuPaul's Drag Race, Goode came out as transgender and non-binary on August 29, 2021, with a video on Instagram. She announced that she had started hormone replacement therapy in January 2021 and underwent facial feminization surgery. Goode uses she/her pronouns.
During quarantine in 2020 she was living with the Los Angeles-based House of Avalon, which was described by Vogue's Liam Hess as a "troupe of queer creatives", as of April 2020.
## Filmography
### Television
### Web series
### Music videos
## Discography
### Featured singles
## See also
- List of people with non-binary gender identities |
1,696,521 | British B-class submarine | 1,134,777,829 | British submarine class | [
"British B-class submarines",
"Submarine classes",
"Vickers"
]
| The B class was a class of 11 submarines, built by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy, and launched in 1904–06. One boat was sunk by a collision in 1912, but the remainder served in World War I. Three boats protected the transfer of the British Expeditionary Force to France in 1914, but were soon relegated to local defence and training duties. Six submarines were in the Mediterranean when the war began and were quickly sent to the Dardanelles to prevent a breakout by the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau into the Eastern Mediterranean. B11 ventured into the Dardanelles in December 1914 and sank the elderly Turkish ironclad Mesudiye.
The arrival of more modern submarines to blockade the Dardanelles made the B-class boats redundant and they were mostly withdrawn to Malta in 1915. They were transferred to Venice after Italy entered the war, where B10 became the first submarine to be sunk by air attack in 1916. The B-class submarines were transferred back to Malta in late 1916 as they were no longer deemed suitable for combat. In mid-1917 they were converted to surface patrol boats and sent to patrol the Otranto Barrage. They proved to be unreliable and were soon sent back to Malta where they were finally paid off. Only B3 was still in commission when the war ended and that was only because it was being used for experimental work and serving as a target to train anti-submarine forces. All surviving boats were sold for scrap in 1919–21.
## Design and description
The B-class boats were similar in design to the preceding A class and intended for coastal patrol work. The boats had a petrol engine for surface propulsion and batteries for underwater propulsion. The design was intended to overcome the limitations of speed, endurance and seakeeping that affected the boats of the A class, and the boats were substantially larger than the earlier class. The B-class submarines were 142 feet 2.5 inches (43.3 m) long overall. They had a beam of 12 feet 7 inches (3.8 m) and a draught of 11 feet 2 inches (3.4 m). They displaced 287 long tons (292 t) on the surface and 316 long tons (321 t) submerged. The boats were over 40 feet (12.2 m) longer, slightly wider, and displaced more than 120 long tons (120 t) more than the older boats. Their additional size increased their buoyancy and made them far less liable to unexpectedly plunge beneath the surface in bad weather. The addition of a deck casing above the hull also improved their seakeeping abilities.
Diving planes were initially only fitted at the stern, but additional planes were mounted on the conning tower during construction of B1, B2, and B3; B4 was not fitted with them and it is uncertain if the remaining boats received them during construction. These greatly improved the boats' depth-keeping, surfacing and diving abilities compared to the A-class boats. These were later exchanged for bow planes; the last boat to receive them was B6, which did not get hers until January 1916. The B-class submarines lacked any internal bulkheads which exposed the crew to the petrol engine's exhaust fumes. Mice were used to detect any concentrations of carbon monoxide inside the hull. Ventilation was provided for the batteries, but none for the crew's living area. No accommodations were provided for the crew and they were forced to improvise while at sea. In recognition of this issue, the crew's endurance was only expected to be four days during the summer and three days during the winter.
The submarines' hulls were tested to a nominal depth of 100 feet (30.5 m) by filling the hull with water and subjecting it to a pressure of 35 psi (241 kPa; 2 kgf/cm<sup>2</sup>), but the maximum operational depth was considered to be 50 feet (15.2 m). Nonetheless several boats safely dived to 95 feet (29.0 m) during World War I. It took about three minutes to dive the boat due to the shape of the boat and that it could dive out of control if water was pumped into the ballast tanks too quickly. Submerged endurance was officially considered to be 10 hours, but several boats were submerged for 16 hours during the war.
### Propulsion
The B-class submarines had a single 16-cylinder petrol engine that had a designed output of 600 horsepower (450 kW) and drove a single propeller. This engine was developed by Vickers from the 450-horsepower (340 kW) Wolseley engine used in the A class. Submerged the submarine used an electric motor powered by 159 battery cells at a working voltage of only 100 volts. This originally lasted only three hours and 45 minutes at full speed, but this time was continually increased over the career of the boats as more powerful batteries were fitted.
On the surface the petrol engine gave a top speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) while the maximum speed submerged was 6.5 knots (12.0 km/h; 7.5 mph). This was about the same speed surfaced as the older submarines, but the B-class boats were about 1 knot (1.9 km/h; 1.2 mph) slower underwater. They carried a maximum of 15.5 long tons (15.7 t) of petrol that provided a range of 740 nautical miles (1,370 km; 850 mi) at a speed of 8.7 knots (16.1 km/h; 10.0 mph).
### Armament
The B-class boats were armed with a pair of 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes side by side in the bow and angled slightly downwards. Space was provided for a pair of reloads, but the addition of extra equipment over the years meant that they could only be carried if an equivalent weight of fuel was discarded. By the start of World War I the boats could carry the 18-inch Mark VIII torpedo which had two speed and range settings. At 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) the torpedo had a range of 2,500 yards (2,300 m), but a range of 4,000 yards (3,700 m) at 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph). It had a warhead that consisted of 320 pounds (150 kg) of TNT.
## History
Each submarine was built by Vickers at their Barrow-in-Furness shipyard. B1 was originally ordered as A14 in the 1903–04 Naval Programme, but it was cancelled and reordered as the first boat of the new class. The remaining 10 boats were ordered as part of the 1904–05 Programme.
In mid-1912 most of the B-class submarines were transferred to the Mediterranean. B6, B7, and B8 were sent to Gibraltar while B9, B10 and B11 sailed for Malta. B1, B2, B3, B4, and B5 remained in the United Kingdom, the latter four assigned to the 3rd Submarine Flotilla. During exercises in October 1912 off Dover with the 6th and 7th Torpedo Boat Flotillas B2 was rammed amidships by the German passenger liner SS Amerika on 4 October 1912. Cut nearly in half, she sank almost immediately and only one man was rescued by the submarine C16.
### World War I
#### Home waters
By the beginning of World War I, B3, B4, and B5 were at Dover and were deployed on a line between Calais and the Goodwin Sands to protect the passage of the British Expeditionary Force to France. Each submarine would sail from Dover before dawn to be secured at the buoy marking their billet at dawn, the idea being that they would be able to slip from the buoy when they spotted an enemy ship and manoeuvre to attack. That this was not a good tactic was proved when B3 narrowly avoided a torpedo from a German U-boat on the morning of 2 October. Nonetheless the scheme was successful and the BEF crossed to France without loss.
B1 remained at Portsmouth for local defence and training duties through 1916 before being paid off. B3 and B4 were transferred to Ardrossan by the end of 1915 to relieve two even more obsolescent A-class boats on local defence duties in the Firth of Clyde. B3 was transferred to Leith during mid-1916 where she was fitted with an experimental hull-mounted directional hydrophone system and later sent to Rosyth in 1917 where she was used as either a target to train anti-submarine forces or experimental work for the rest of the war. B4 was paid off before the end of 1916. B5 moved to Portsmouth during 1915 where she too was paid off before the end of 1916.
#### Mediterranean waters
The three Malta-based boats were sent to the Dardanelles in mid-September 1914 to prevent a sortie by the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau into the Eastern Mediterranean. The entrance to the Dardanelles was patrolled from dawn to dusk by these boats as well as four French submarines which arrived later. Neither the British nor the French submarines had enough battery power or underwater speed to combat the south-flowing currents in the Dardanelles to reach the Sea of Marmara, but B11 was selected for a sortie that would attempt to penetrate as far as the town of Chanak, halfway up the Dardanelles, because she had the newest, and thus most powerful, batteries. Special guards were fitted over the forward diving planes to make sure that any mooring wires of mines would not get entangled and dragged down to the boat.
On 13 December 1914, B11, commanded by Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook, entered the Dardanelles in the early morning. Shortly after departure one of the guards broke and began banging against the hull, making a lot of noise and vibration. Lieutenant Holbrook ordered the boat to the surface in an attempt to cut the guard loose even though the boat was in full view of the Turkish guns defending the entrance. They succeeded before dawn revealed their presence to the Turks and proceeded up the Dardanelles at a depth of 80 feet (24.4 m) to avoid the Turkish minefields. Two and a half hours later B11 came to periscope depth and Holbrook spotted the elderly Turkish ironclad Mesudiye. He fired one torpedo that struck the ship, which settled by the stern and then capsized. Before sinking, Mesudiye spotted B11 and fired on her periscope which revealed her position to the shore batteries. Attempting to leave the area, B11 briefly grounded herself, breaking the surface, but was able to get herself off. B11's compass became fogged and prevented the submarine from navigating at depth; instead Holbrook had to con the boat at periscope depth which meant he had to go through the minefields, not below them. Nevertheless, the boat made it back safely; Holbrook was awarded the Victoria Cross, his First Lieutenant, the Distinguished Service Order and every enlisted man the Distinguished Service Medal.
B6 and B8 arrived from Gibraltar in mid-February 1915 as did B7 a month later. Other, more modern submarines followed, and several attempts were made to reach the Sea of Marmara. The British submarine E15 ran aground in April during one of these attempts and had to be abandoned. B6 was sent to destroy her with torpedoes to prevent the Turks from salvaging her. One of the torpedoes hit a barge alongside and the other torpedo missed. After running out of fuel it drifted down the Dardanelles and was recovered by the destroyer Scorpion which returned it to B6. B11 attempted again the following day, but was thwarted by fog.
The B-class boats were deemed redundant once more capable submarines arrived in early 1915 and most returned to Malta. B6 and B11, however, were sent to Alexandria where they conducted patrols along the Libyan coast to prevent arms deliveries to rebellious tribesmen. During one incident on 16 August 1915 a party of Arabs and officers in European uniforms were spotted displaying a flag of truce. The two submarines anchored and Lieutenant Holbrook was rowed ashore to talk to them. They opened fire, killing one man and wounding three, including Holbrook. The submarines were soon withdrawn from this task as they were totally unsuitable for this duty, lacking any deck armament at all.
#### Adriatic waters
In September 1915, after the Italian declaration of war on the Central Powers, the transfer of the B-class boats to the Adriatic was suggested by the Admiralty. Originally they were to be based at Brindisi, but this was changed to Venice as there were already 14 British and French submarines based at Brindisi. B4, B7, and B9 were the first to arrive, but B4 collided en route with the Italian tug escorting them and required immediate docking upon her arrival. B9 made the first patrol on 18 October and a total of 81 patrols were made by the B-class submarines before they ceased in October 1916. Nothing of note was directly accomplished by the submarines, but they fulfilled the ultimate goal of keeping the Austro-Hungarians from attacking the Italian coast.
B11, now commanded by Lieutenant Gravener, encountered an Austro-Hungarian seaplane on 11 November that had been forced down by engine trouble. B11 attempted to engage the seaplane with the one Maxim gun she had aboard, but it jammed almost immediately and Gravener attempted to ram the aircraft. The Austrians managed to restart their engine, however, and flew off, easily avoiding Gravener's ramming attempt. On 17 January B11 encountered another seaplane with engine trouble. This time the Austrians were unable to repair their engine and were captured. B9 was spotted by an Austrian seaplane on 29 March and eventually forced to dive after both sides failed to damage each other with machine gun fire. B7 had a narrow escape off the Austrian naval base at Pola three months later when she was damaged by another seaplane that jammed her diving planes in the "hard to rise" position which meant she could not submerge until they were repaired. Both B8 and B11 were missed by torpedoes fired by Austrian submarines in early 1916. On one patrol the gear teeth of B11's steering mechanism were stripped which made the rudder loose and the boat unsteerable. Relieving tackles were rigged, despite the heavy seas, but they parted under the strain after 15 minutes. Slowly the boat began to drift towards the enemy coast, but a northwesterly breeze sprang up before dawn and the seas moderated which allowed her to make about 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph) by going astern. By this time she was overdue and the Italians began to search for her. She was towed back to Venice by an Italian destroyer that found her about mid-morning.
B10 became the first submarine sunk by air attack when she was sunk at her mooring in Venice on 9 August 1916 after a near-miss during an Austrian air raid. The bomb blew a hole about 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter in her pressure hull. She was re-floated, but a fire gutted her while she was under repair and she was sold for scrap.
The B-class boats had reached the limits of their usefulness and the survivors were withdrawn to Malta on 30 October where they were paid off pending a decision on their fate. In August 1917 the boats were converted at Malta to surface patrol boats with a raised wheelhouse, given a 3-inch (76 mm) 12-pounder gun and renamed S6 to S9, and S11. They were assigned to patrol the Otranto Barrage, but their age and small size worked against them and they were soon paid off at Malta where they were sold after the war. |
24,506,514 | Preggers | 1,171,420,579 | null | [
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"Pregnancy-themed television episodes",
"Television episodes written by Brad Falchuk"
]
| "Preggers" is the fourth episode of the American television series Glee. The episode premiered on the Fox network on September 23, 2009, and was written and directed by executive producer Brad Falchuk. "Preggers" sees glee club member Kurt (Chris Colfer) join the football team and admit his homosexuality to his father, Burt (Mike O'Malley). Cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Agron) discovers she is pregnant and tells her boyfriend Finn (Cory Monteith) the baby is his, when in fact the father is his best friend Puck (Mark Salling). Faculty members Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) and Sandy Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) team up in an effort to bring down the glee club, luring away a disillusioned Rachel (Lea Michele), who quits when club director Will (Matthew Morrison) refuses to award her a solo song. This episode features the first appearance of O'Malley as Burt Hummel.
"Preggers" features covers of two songs, and several dance performances of Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". A studio recording of Michele's cover of "Taking Chances" was released as a single, available for digital download and features on the album Glee: The Music, Volume 1. The scene in which Kurt comes out to his father was based on the personal experience of series creator Ryan Murphy. Murphy's intention was to move away from previous shows he has worked on in which gay characters have not been given happy endings, by allowing Kurt to succeed and be accepted.
The episode was watched by 6.64 million United States viewers and received mixed reviews from critics. Shawna Malcom of the Los Angeles Times praised the show's fast pacing; however, The New York Times's Mike Hale felt that key characters were not given enough screen time. The football team's performance of "Single Ladies" and Kurt's coming out to his father were generally well received; however, Rachel's actions garnered little sympathy, and several reviewers commented negatively on Quinn's pregnancy, with Eric Goldman of IGN deeming it "a very soap opera plotline". However, the episode has grown in stature in later years, with many recognizing it as a key episode in building the major plotlines for the show's first season. In 2020, it was included on The Ringer's list of the 100 best television episodes of the 21st century.
## Plot
Glee club member Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) is caught dancing to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" by his father Burt (Mike O'Malley), and claims that it is a football exercise, and that he is now part of the team. Fellow glee club member and football quarterback Finn Hudson (Cory Monteith) helps Kurt to practice, and finds him to be a skilled kicker. Finn convinces coach Ken Tanaka (Patrick Gallagher) to let Kurt try out for the team. Ken is delighted to find such an asset for the team and adds Kurt as the kicker.
Finn's girlfriend Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) tells him she is pregnant, claiming her pregnancy as a result of Finn's premature ejaculation when they made out in Quinn's hot tub. Finn worries that his future prospects will be diminished by fatherhood. He asks glee club director Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) to coach the football team at dancing, believing it will help them to improve, increasing his chances of securing a football scholarship. Finn confides Quinn's news to his best friend Puck (Mark Salling), who later confronts Quinn, claiming to be the baby's father, since she said she was a virgin when they had sex. Quinn rejects Puck, calling him a "Lima loser" who could never support her and the baby like Finn. Will's wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) reveals to her sister Kendra (Jennifer Aspen) that she experienced a hysterical pregnancy and is not really carrying Will's baby. Kendra suggests that they acquire a baby, and when Terri learns of Quinn's pregnancy from Will, she confronts her, asking questions about her prenatal care.
Cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) approaches former glee club director Sandy Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) and enlists him in her plan to sabotage the club. She blackmails Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) into appointing Sandy as the school's new Arts director, and together they hold auditions for a school production of Cabaret, hoping to entice away the glee club's star, Rachel Berry (Lea Michele). Rachel feels slighted when Will awards Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz) a solo that she wanted, so she auditions for the musical and is given the lead role. When Will refuses to reassign the solo to Rachel, she quits the club.
The football team puts their dance training into practice by performing the "Single Ladies" routine in the middle of a game, confusing and distracting the opposition, and with Kurt's help is able to win. Buoyed by his success, Kurt comes out to his father Burt and tells him that he's gay; Burt tells him he knew all along and loves Kurt just the same.
## Production
"Preggers" was written and directed by Glee's executive producer and co-creator Brad Falchuk. Kurt Fuller guest stars as local news station owner Mr. McClung. The episode features covers of "Taking Chances" by Celine Dion and "Tonight" from West Side Story. Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" is also featured in several dance performances. Kurt's backup dancers for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" are series regular Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) and recurring character Brittany (Heather Morris). Dancer Morris was one of Beyonce's backup dancers for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" appearing on The Today Show, Ellen, and others. A studio recording of "Taking Chances" was released as a single, available for digital download, and appeared on the album Glee: The Music, Volume 1. The track charted at number 79 in Australia, 73 in Canada and 71 in the United States.
The scene in which Kurt comes out to his father was taken verbatim from series creator Ryan Murphy's own life. Murphy felt that the scene was "a great thing to put on television", as, while audiences have seen gay characters isolated and attacked, they have rarely seen them ultimately winning and triumphing. He commented that: "The show is about making you feel good in the end. It's about happy endings and optimism and the power of your personal journey and making you feel that the weird thing about me is the great thing about me. I’ve done other shows with gay characters, and I will say that in many of those cases, the gay characters didn't have a happy ending. And I thought you know what? Enough." Colfer has commented that his biggest challenge was in ensuring the scene felt "honest" and not comical or "used as a punchline". He explained: "I think it's probably the first time a character's sexuality has been respected and almost dignified in a way, and I think that's really important, and there needs to be more of that on TV."
## Reception
"Preggers" was watched by 6.64 million United States viewers and attained a 3.1/8 rating/share in the 18-49 demographic. It was the twenty-second most watched show in Canada for the week of broadcast, with 1.39 million viewers. In the UK, the episode was watched by 1.804 million viewers (1.397 million on E4, and 407,000 on timeshift), becoming the most-watched show on E4 and E4+1 for the week, and the most-watched show on cable for the week, as well as the most watched episode of the series at the time. The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Shawna Malcom for the Los Angeles Times reviewed the episode positively, praising the football team's performance of the "Single Ladies" dance and Kurt coming out to his father. Malcom also commented positively on the show's fast pacing; however, Mike Hale of the New York Post was less favorable, deeming the episode "overstuffed with story lines". He felt that key characters did not receive enough screentime, and that: "There was so much exposition going on that there didn’t seem to be much room for laughs."
Tim Stack for Entertainment Weekly wrote that, although the dancing in the episode was fun, "Preggers" was lacking in "big singing moments" apart from Rachel's performance of "Taking Chances". He deemed Quinn's pregnancy "a good dramatic twist", but hoped that it would not be a long-lasting storyline. Eric Goldman of IGN rated the episode 8.8 out of 10. He called the "Single Ladies" performance "a memorable TV moment", and wrote that Quinn's pregnancy was a "very soap opera plotline" however commented: "luckily Glee is the kind of show to handle it with humor."
James Poniewozik for Time deemed Kurt's coming out "beautifully handled", commenting: "the fact that Dad (Mike O'Malley, who has turned out to be a pretty good character actor) ends up not being the boor we think he's going to be is one of the first signs that Glee is growing up as a series, that having established a world of primary-color stereotypes, it's now willing to subvert those expectations." Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal criticized Rachel's actions in the episode, and felt that: "Rachel has become insufferable. The disagreements with Mr. Schue about her own development as a bona fide triple-threat have branded her as an overbearing prima donna to the rest of Glee."
The comedic pairing of Sue and Sandy attracted some praise, with Stack deeming them "the best villains ever". Goldman said that: "Tobolowsky is terrific in this role, as Sandy manages to make everything he says [...] sound amazingly disturbing." Hale criticized Lynch as Sue, however, writing that she gave a "one-note performance", suggesting that she had been miscast in the role. |
19,597 | Machinima | 1,171,673,136 | Use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production | [
"Animation technology",
"Articles containing video clips",
"Emergent gameplay",
"Film styles",
"Machinima",
"Works based on video games"
]
| Machinima, originally machinema (/məˈʃiːnɪmə, -ˈʃɪn-/) is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema. According to Guinness World Records, machinima is the art of making animated narrative films from computer graphics, most commonly using the engines found in video games.
Machinima-based artists, sometimes called machinimists or machinimators, are often fan laborers, by virtue of their re-use of copyrighted materials (see below). Machinima offers to provide an archive of gaming performance and access to the look and feel of software and hardware that may already have become obsolete or even unavailable. For game studies, "Machinima's gestures grant access to gaming's historical conditions of possibility and how machinima offers links to a comparative horizon that informs, changes, and fully participates in videogame culture."
The practice of using graphics engines from video games arose from the animated software introductions of the 1980s demoscene, Disney Interactive Studios' 1992 video game Stunt Island, and 1990s recordings of gameplay in first-person shooter (FPS) video games, such as id Software's Doom and Quake. Originally, these recordings documented speed runs—attempts to complete a level as quickly as possible—and multiplayer matches. The addition of storylines to these films created "Quake movies". The more general term machinima, a blend of machine and cinema, arose when the concept spread beyond the Quake series to other games and software. After this generalization, machinima appeared in mainstream media, including television series and advertisements.
Machinima has advantages and disadvantages when compared to other styles of filmmaking. Its relative simplicity over traditional frame-based animation limits control and range of expression. Its real-time nature favors speed, cost saving, and flexibility over the higher quality of pre-rendered computer animation. Virtual acting is less expensive, dangerous, and physically restricted than live action. Machinima can be filmed by relying on in-game artificial intelligence (AI) or by controlling characters and cameras through digital puppetry. Scenes can be precisely scripted, and can be manipulated during post-production using video editing techniques. Editing, custom software, and creative cinematography may address technical limitations. Game companies have provided software for and have encouraged machinima, but the widespread use of digital assets from copyrighted games has resulted in complex, unresolved legal issues.
Machinima productions can remain close to their gaming roots and feature stunts or other portrayals of gameplay. Popular genres include dance videos, comedy, and drama. Alternatively, some filmmakers attempt to stretch the boundaries of the rendering engines or to mask the original 3-D context. The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima, recognizes exemplary productions through Mackie awards given at its annual Machinima Film Festival. Some general film festivals accept machinima, and game companies, such as Epic Games, Valve, Blizzard Entertainment and Jagex, have sponsored contests involving it.
## History
### Precedent
1980s software crackers added custom introductory credits sequences (intros) to programs whose copy protection they had removed. Increasing computing power allowed for more complex intros, and the demoscene formed when focus shifted to the intros instead of the cracks. The goal became to create the best 3-D demos in real-time with the least amount of software code. Disk storage was too slow for this, so graphics had to be calculated on the fly and without a pre-existing game engine.
In Disney Interactive Studios' 1992 computer game Stunt Island, users could stage, record, and play back stunts. As Nitsche stated, the game's goal was "not ... a high score but a spectacle." Released the following year, id Software's Doom included the ability to record gameplay as sequences of events that the game engine could later replay in real-time. Because events and not video frames were saved, the resulting game demo files were small and easily shared among players. A culture of recording gameplay developed, as Henry Lowood of Stanford University called it, "a context for spectatorship.... The result was nothing less than a metamorphosis of the player into a performer." Another important feature of Doom was that it allowed players to create their own modifications, maps, and software for the game, thus expanding the concept of game authorship. In machinima, there is a dual register of gestures: the trained motions of the player determine the in-game images of expressive motion.
In parallel of the video game approach, in the media art field, Maurice Benayoun's Virtual Reality artwork The Tunnel under the Atlantic (1995), often compared to video games, introduced a virtual film director, fully autonomous intelligent agent, to shoot and edit in real time a full video from the digging performance in the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary art in Montreal. The full movie, Inside the Tunnel under the Atlantic, 21h long, was followed in 1997 by Inside the Paris New-Delhi Tunnel (13h long). Only short excerpts were presented to the public. The complex behavior of the Tunnel's virtual director makes it a significant precursor of later application to video games based machinimas.
Doom's 1996 successor, Quake, offered new opportunities for both gameplay and customization, while retaining the ability to record demos. Multiplayer video games became popular, and demos of matches between teams of players (clans) were recorded and studied. Paul Marino, executive director of the AMAS, stated that deathmatches, a type of multiplayer game, became more "cinematic". At this point, however, they still documented gameplay without a narrative.
### Quake movies
On October 26, 1996, a well-known gaming clan, the Rangers, surprised the Quake community with Diary of a Camper, the first widely known machinima film. This short, 100-second demo file contained the action and gore of many others, but in the context of a brief story, rather than the usual deathmatch. An example of transformative or emergent gameplay, this shift from competition to theater required both expertise in and subversion of the game's mechanics. The Ranger demo emphasized this transformation by retaining specific gameplay references in its story.
Diary of a Camper inspired many other "Quake movies," as these films were then called. A community of game modifiers (modders), artists, expert players, and film fans began to form around them. The works were distributed and reviewed on websites such as The Cineplex, Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, and the Quake Movie Library (QML). Production was supported by dedicated demo-processing software, such as Uwe Girlich's Little Movie Processing Center (LMPC) and David "crt" Wright's non-linear editor Keygrip, which later became known as "Adobe Premiere for Quake demo files". Among the notable films were Clan Phantasm's Devil's Covenant, the first feature-length Quake movie; Avatar and Wendigo's Blahbalicious, which the QML awarded seven Quake Movie Oscars; and Clan Undead's Operation Bayshield, which introduced simulated lip synchronization and featured customized digital assets.
Released in December 1997, id Software's Quake II improved support for user-created 3-D models. However, without compatible editing software, filmmakers continued to create works based on the original Quake. These included the ILL Clan's Apartment Huntin''' and the Quake done Quick group's Scourge Done Slick. Quake II demo editors became available in 1998. In particular, Keygrip 2.0 introduced "recamming", the ability to adjust camera locations after recording. Paul Marino called the addition of this feature "a defining moment for [m]achinima". With Quake II filming now feasible, Strange Company's 1999 production Eschaton: Nightfall was the first work to feature entirely custom-made character models.
The December 1999 release of id's Quake III Arena posed a problem to the Quake movie community. The game's demo file included information needed for computer networking; however, to prevent cheating, id warned of legal action for dissemination of the file format. Thus, it was impractical to enhance software to work with Quake III. Concurrently, the novelty of Quake movies was waning. New productions appeared less frequently, and, according to Marino, the community needed to "reinvent itself" to offset this development.
Borg War, a 90-minute animated Star Trek fan film, was produced using Elite Force 2 (a Quake III variant) and Starfleet Command 3, repurposing the games' voiceover clips to create a new plot. Borg War was nominated for two "Mackie" awards by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. An August 2007 screening at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas was the first time that CBS/Paramount had approved the screening of a non-parody fan film at a licensed convention.
### Generalization
In January 2000, Hugh Hancock, the founder of Strange Company, launched a new website, machinima.com. A misspelled contraction of machine cinema (machinema), the term machinima was intended to dissociate in-game filming from a specific engine. The misspelling stuck because it also referenced anime. The new site featured tutorials, interviews, articles, and the exclusive release of Tritin Films' Quad God. The first film made with Quake III Arena, Quad God was also the first to be distributed as recorded video frames, not game-specific instructions. This change was initially controversial among machinima producers who preferred the smaller size of demo files. However, demo files required a copy of the game to view. The more accessible traditional video format broadened Quad God's viewership, and the work was distributed on CDs bundled with magazines. Thus, id's decision to protect Quake III's code inadvertently caused machinima creators to use more general solutions and thus widen their audience. Within a few years, machinima films were almost exclusively distributed in common video file formats.
Machinima began to receive mainstream notice. Roger Ebert discussed it in a June 2000 article and praised Strange Company's machinima setting of Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias". At Showtime Network's 2001 Alternative Media Festival, the ILL Clan's 2000 machinima film Hardly Workin won the Best Experimental and Best in SHO awards. Steven Spielberg used Unreal Tournament to test special effects while working on his 2001 film Artificial Intelligence: A.I. Eventually, interest spread to game developers. In July 2001, Epic Games announced that its upcoming game Unreal Tournament 2003 would include Matinee, a machinima production software utility. As involvement increased, filmmakers released fewer new productions to focus on quality.
At the March 2002 Game Developers Conference, five machinima makers—Anthony Bailey, Hugh Hancock, Katherine Anna Kang, Paul Marino, and Matthew Ross—founded the AMAS, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting machinima. At QuakeCon in August, the new organization held the first Machinima Film Festival, which received mainstream media coverage. Anachronox: The Movie, by Jake Hughes and Tom Hall, won three awards, including Best Picture. The next year, "In the Waiting Line", produced by Ghost Robot, directed by Tommy Pallotta and animated by Randy Cole, utilizing Fountainhead Entertainment's Machinimation tools, it became the first machinima music video to air on MTV. As graphics technology improved, machinima filmmakers used other video games and consumer-grade video editing software. Using Bungie's 2001 game Halo: Combat Evolved, Rooster Teeth Productions created a popular comedy series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles. The series' second season premiered at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2004.
### Collapse of Machinima, Inc.
By 2013, Machinima was the most viewed YouTube channel worldwide, but it went through various changes in ownership before suddenly collapsing on January 18, 2019, causing the loss of thousands of gaming-related videos and cutting off money from creators who had contracts with the company. The closure resulted in 81 layoffs from the company. This was blamed on an "obvious misunderstanding of what Machinima actually was, or what traditional media companies were even buying when they purchased a [content network]", with the possibility of future machinima distribution networks of that size emerging being slim. The reaction of fans at the collapse showed that machinima was still extremely popular.
## Production
### Comparison to film techniques
The AMAS defines machinima as "animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3-D environment". In other 3-D animation methods, creators can control every frame and nuance of their characters but, in turn, must consider issues such as key frames and inbetweening. Machinima creators leave many rendering details to their host environments, but may thus inherit those environments' limitations. Second Life Machinima film maker Ozymandius King provided a detailed account of the process by which the artists at MAGE Magazine produce their videos. "Organizing for a photo shoot is similar to organizing for a film production. Once you find the actors / models, you have to scout locations, find clothes and props for the models and type up a shooting script. The more organized you are the less time it takes to shoot the scene." Because game animations focus on dramatic rather than casual actions, the range of character emotions is often limited. However, Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd state that a small range of emotions is often sufficient, as in successful Japanese anime television series.
Another difference is that machinima is created in real time, but other animation is pre-rendered. Real-time engines need to trade quality for speed and use simpler algorithms and models. In the 2001 animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, every strand of hair on a character's head was independent; real-time needs would likely force them to be treated as a single unit. Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd argue that improvement in consumer-grade graphics technology will allow more realism. Similarly, Paul Marino connects machinima to the increasing computing power predicted by Moore's law. For cut scenes in video games, issues other than visual fidelity arise. Pre-rendered scenes can require more digital storage space, weaken suspension of disbelief through contrast with real-time animation of normal gameplay, and limit interaction.
Like live action, machinima is recorded in real-time, and real people can act and control the camera. Filmmakers are often encouraged to follow traditional cinematic conventions, such as avoiding wide fields of view, the overuse of slow motion, and errors in visual continuity. Unlike live action, machinima involves less expensive, digital special effects and sets, possibly with a science-fiction or historical theme. Explosions and stunts can be tried and repeated without monetary cost and risk of injury, and the host environment may allow unrealistic physical constraints. University of Cambridge experiments in 2002 and 2003 attempted to use machinima to re-create a scene from the 1942 live-action film Casablanca. Machinima filming differed from traditional cinematography in that character expression was limited, but camera movements were more flexible and improvised. Nitsche compared this experiment to an unpredictable Dogme 95 production.
Berkeley sees machinima as "a strangely hybrid form, looking forwards and backwards, cutting edge and conservative at the same time". Machinima is a digital medium based on 3-D computer games, but most works have a linear narrative structure. Some, such as Red vs. Blue and The Strangerhood, follow narrative conventions of television situational comedy. Nitsche agrees that pre-recorded ("reel") machinima tends to be linear and offers limited interactive storytelling while machinima has more opportunities performed live and with audience interaction. In creating their improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry & Lenny Lumberjack and talk show Tra5hTa1k with ILL Will, the ILL Clan blended real and virtual performance by creating the works on-stage and interacting with a live audience. In another combination of real and virtual worlds, Chris Burke's talk show This Spartan Life takes place in Halo 2's open multiplayer environment. There, others playing in earnest may attack the host or his interviewee. Although other virtual theatrical performances have taken place in chat rooms and multi-user dungeons, machinima adds "cinematic camera work". Previously, such virtual cinematic performances with live audience interaction were confined to research labs equipped with powerful computers.
Machinima can be less expensive than other forms of filmmaking. Strange Company produced its feature-length machinima film BloodSpell for less than £10,000. Before using machinima, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum of Rooster Teeth Productions spent US\$9,000 to produce a live-action independent film. In contrast, the four Xbox game consoles used to make Red vs. Blue in 2005 cost \$600. The low cost caused a product manager for Electronic Arts to compare machinima to the low-budget independent film The Blair Witch Project, without the need for cameras and actors. Because these are seen as low barriers to entry, machinima has been called a "democratization of filmmaking". Berkeley weighs increased participation and a blurred line between producer and consumer against concerns that game copyrights limit commercialization and growth of machinima.
Comparatively, machinimists using pre-made virtual platforms like Second Life have indicated that their productions can be made quite successfully with no cost at all. Creators like Dutch director Chantal Harvey, producer of the 48 Hour Film Project Machinima sector, have created upwards of 200 films using the platform. Harvey's advocacy of the genre has resulted in the involvement of film director Peter Greenaway who served as a juror for the Machinima category and gave a keynote speech during the event.
### Character and camera control
Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd list four main methods of creating machinima. From simple to advanced, these are: relying on the game's AI to control most actions, digital puppetry, recamming, and precise scripting of actions. Although simple to produce, AI-dependent results are unpredictable, thus complicating the realization of a preconceived film script. For example, when Rooster Teeth produced The Strangerhood using The Sims 2, a game that encourages the use of its AI, the group had to create multiple instances of each character to accommodate different moods. Individual instances were selected at different times to produce appropriate actions.
In digital puppetry, machinima creators become virtual actors. Each crew member controls a character in real-time, as in a multiplayer game. The director can use built-in camera controls, if available. Otherwise, video is captured from the perspectives of one or more puppeteers who serve as camera operators. Puppetry allows for improvisation and offers controls familiar to gamers, but requires more personnel than the other methods and is less precise than scripted recordings. However, some games, such as the Halo series, (except for Halo PC and Custom Edition, which allow AI and custom objects and characters), allow filming only through puppetry. According to Marino, other disadvantages are the possibility of disruption when filming in an open multi-user environment and the temptation for puppeteers to play the game in earnest, littering the set with blood and dead bodies. However, Chris Burke intentionally hosts This Spartan Life in these unpredictable conditions, which are fundamental to the show. Other works filmed using puppetry are the ILL Clan's improvisational comedy series On the Campaign Trail with Larry & Lenny Lumberjack and Rooster Teeth Productions' Red vs. Blue. In recamming, which builds on puppetry, actions are first recorded to a game engine's demo file format, not directly as video frames. Without re-enacting scenes, artists can then manipulate the demo files to add cameras, tweak timing and lighting, and change the surroundings. This technique is limited to the few engines and software tools that support it.
A technique common in cutscenes of video games, scripting consists of giving precise directions to the game engine. A filmmaker can work alone this way, as J. Thaddeus "Mindcrime" Skubis did in creating the nearly four-hour The Seal of Nehahra (2000), the longest work of machinima at the time. However, perfecting scripts can be time-consuming. Unless what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editing is available, as in Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, changes may need to be verified in additional runs, and non-linear editing may be difficult. In this respect, Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd compare scripting to stop-motion animation. Another disadvantage is that, depending on the game, scripting capabilities may be limited or unavailable. Matinee, a machinima software tool included with Unreal Tournament 2004, popularized scripting in machinima.
### Limitations and solutions
When Diary of a Camper was created, no software tools existed to edit demo files into films. Rangers clan member Eric "ArchV" Fowler wrote his own programs to reposition the camera and to splice footage from the Quake demo file. Quake movie editing software later appeared, but the use of conventional non-linear video editing software is now common. For example, Phil South inserted single, completely white frames into his work No Licence to enhance the visual impact of explosions. In the post-production of Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, Rooster Teeth Productions added letterboxing with Adobe Premiere Pro to hide the camera player's head-up display.
Machinima creators have used different methods to handle limited character expression. The most typical ways that amateur-style machinima gets around limitations of expression include taking advantage of speech bubbles seen above players' heads when speaking, relying on the visual matching between a character's voice and appearance, and finding methods available within the game itself. Garry's Mod and Source Filmmaker include the ability to manipulate characters and objects in real-time, though the former relies on community addons to take advantage of certain engine features, and the latter renders scenes using non-real-time effects. In the Halo video game series, helmets completely cover the characters' faces. To prevent confusion, Rooster Teeth's characters move slightly when speaking, a convention shared with anime. Some machinima creators use custom software. For example, Strange Company uses Take Over GL Face Skins to add more facial expressions to their characters filmed in BioWare's 2002 role-playing video game Neverwinter Nights. Similarly, Atussa Simon used a "library of faces" for characters in The Battle of Xerxes. Some software, such as Epic Games' Impersonator for Unreal Tournament 2004 and Valve's Faceposer for Source games, have been provided by the developer. Another solution is to blend in non-machinima elements, as nGame did by inserting painted characters with more expressive faces into its 1999 film Berlin Assassins. It may be possible to point the camera elsewhere or employ other creative cinematography or acting. For example, Tristan Pope combined creative character and camera positioning with video editing to suggest sexual actions in his controversial film Not Just Another Love Story.
## Legal issues
New machinima filmmakers often want to use game-provided digital assets, but doing so raises legal issues. As derivative works, their films could violate copyright or be controlled by the assets' copyright holder, an arrangement that can be complicated by separate publishing and licensing rights. The software license agreement for The Movies stipulates that Activision, the game's publisher, owns "any and all content within... Game Movies that was either supplied with the Program or otherwise made available... by Activision or its licensors..." Some game companies provide software to modify their own games, and machinima makers often cite fair use as a defense, but the issue has never been tested in court. A potential problem with this defense is that many works, such as Red vs. Blue, focus more on satire, which is not as explicitly protected by fair use as parody. Berkeley adds that, even if machinima artists use their own assets, their works could be ruled derivative if filmed in a proprietary engine. The risk inherent in a fair-use defense would cause most machinima artists simply to yield to a cease-and-desist order. The AMAS has attempted to negotiate solutions with video game companies, arguing that an open-source or reasonably priced alternative would emerge from an unfavorable situation. Unlike The Movies, some dedicated machinima software programs, such as Reallusion's iClone, have licenses that avoid claiming ownership of users' films featuring bundled assets.
Generally, companies want to retain creative control over their intellectual properties and are wary of fan-created works, like fan fiction. However, because machinima provides free marketing, they have avoided a response demanding strict copyright enforcement. In 2003, Linden Lab was praised for changing license terms to allow users to retain ownership of works created in its virtual world Second Life. Rooster Teeth initially tried to release Red vs. Blue unnoticed by Halo's owners because they feared that any communication would force them to end the project. However, Microsoft, Bungie's parent company at the time, contacted the group shortly after episode 2, and allowed them to continue without paying licensing fees.
A case in which developer control was asserted involved Blizzard Entertainment's action against Tristan Pope's Not Just Another Love Story. Blizzard's community managers encouraged users to post game movies and screenshots, but viewers complained that Pope's suggestion of sexual actions through creative camera and character positioning was pornographic. Citing the user license agreement, Blizzard closed discussion threads about the film and prohibited links to it. Although Pope accepted Blizzard's right to some control, he remained concerned about censorship of material that already existed in-game in some form. Discussion ensued about boundaries between MMORPG player and developer control. Lowood asserted that this controversy demonstrated that machinima could be a medium of negotiation for players.
### Microsoft and Blizzard
In August 2007, Microsoft issued its Game Content Usage Rules, a license intended to address the legal status of machinima based on its games, including the Halo series. Microsoft intended the rules to be "flexible", and, because it was unilateral, the license was legally unable to reduce rights. However, machinima artists, such as Edgeworks Entertainment, protested the prohibitions on extending Microsoft's fictional universes (a common component of fan fiction) and on selling anything from sites hosting derivative works. Compounding the reaction was the license's statement, "If you do any of these things, you can expect to hear from Microsoft's lawyers who will tell you that you have to stop distributing your items right away."
Surprised by the negative feedback, Microsoft revised and reissued the license after discussion with Hugh Hancock and an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The rules allow noncommercial use and distribution of works derived from Microsoft-owned game content, except audio effects and soundtracks. The license prohibits reverse engineering and material that is pornographic or otherwise "objectionable". On distribution, derivative works that elaborate on a game's fictional universe or story are automatically licensed to Microsoft and its business partners. This prevents legal problems if a fan and Microsoft independently conceive similar plots.
A few weeks later, Blizzard Entertainment posted on WorldofWarcraft.com their "Letter to the Machinimators of the World", a license for noncommercial use of game content. It differs from Microsoft's declaration in that it addresses machinima specifically instead of general game-derived content, allows use of game audio if Blizzard can legally license it, requires derivative material to meet the Entertainment Software Rating Board's Teen content rating guideline, defines noncommercial use differently, and does not address extensions of fictional universes.
Hayes states that, although licensees' benefits are limited, the licenses reduce reliance on fair use regarding machinima. In turn, this recognition may reduce film festivals' concerns about copyright clearance. In an earlier analogous situation, festivals were concerned about documentary films until best practices for them were developed. According to Hayes, Microsoft and Blizzard helped themselves through their licenses because fan creations provide free publicity and are unlikely to harm sales. If the companies had instead sued for copyright infringement, defendants could have claimed estoppel or implied license because machinima had been unaddressed for a long time. Thus, these licenses secured their issuers' legal rights. Even though other companies, such as Electronic Arts, have encouraged machinima, they have avoided licensing it. Because of the involved legal complexity, they may prefer to under-enforce copyrights. Hayes believes that this legal uncertainty is a suboptimal solution and that, though limited and "idiosyncratic", the Microsoft and Blizzard licenses move towards an ideal video gaming industry standard for handling derivative works.
## Semiotic mode
Just as machinima can be the cause of legal dispute in copyright ownership and illegal use, it makes heavy use of intertextuality and raises the question of authorship. Machinima takes copyrighted property (such as characters in a game engine) and repurposes it to tell a story, but another common practice in machinima-making is to retell an existing story from a different medium in that engine.
This re-appropriation of established texts, resources, and artistic properties to tell a story or make a statement is an example of a semiotic phenomenon known as intertextuality or resemiosis. A more common term for this phenomenon is "parody", but not all of these intertextual productions are intended for humor or satire, as demonstrated by the Few Good G-Men video. Furthermore, the argument of how well-protected machinima is under the guise of parody or satire is still highly debated. A piece of machinima may be reliant upon a protected property, but may not necessarily be making a statement about that property. Therefore, it is more accurate to refer to it simply as resemiosis, because it takes an artistic work and presents it in a new way, form, or medium. This resemiosis can be manifested in a number of ways. The machinima-maker can be considered an author who restructures the story and/or the world that the chosen game engine is built around. In the popular web series Red vs. Blue, most of the storyline takes place within the game engine of Halo: Combat Evolved and its subsequent sequels. Halo: Combat Evolved has an extensive storyline already, but Red vs. Blue only ever makes mention of this storyline once in the first episode. Even after over 200 episodes of the show being broadcast onto the Internet since 2003, the only real similarities that can be drawn between Red vs. Blue and the game-world it takes place in are the character models, props, vehicles, and settings. Yet Burnie Burns and the machinima team at Rooster Teeth created an extensive storyline of their own using these game resources.
The ability to re-appropriate a game engine to film a video demonstrates intertextuality because it is an obvious example of art being a product of creation-through-manipulation rather than creation per se. The art historian Ernst Gombrich likened art to the "manipulation of a vocabulary" and this can be demonstrated in the creation of machinima. When using a game world to create a story, the author is influenced by the engine. For example, since so many video games are built around the concept of war, a significant portion of machinima films also take place in war-like environments.
Intertextuality is further demonstrated in machinima not only in the re-appropriation of content but in artistic and communicatory techniques. Machinima by definition is a form of puppetry, and thus this new form of digital puppetry employs age-old techniques from the traditional artform. It is also, however, a form of filmmaking, and must employ filmmaking techniques such as camera angles and proper lighting. Some machinima takes place in online environments with participants, actors, and "puppeteers" working together from thousands of miles apart. This means other techniques born from long-distance communication must also be employed. Thus, techniques and practices that would normally never be used in conjunction with one another in the creation of an artistic work end up being used intertextually in the creation of machinima.
Another way that machinima demonstrates intertextuality is in its tendency to make frequent references to texts, works, and other media just like TV ads or humorous cartoons such as The Simpsons might do. For example, the machinima series Freeman's Mind, created by Ross Scott, is filmed by taking a recording of Scott playing through the game Half Life as a player normally would and combining it with a voiceover (also recorded by Scott) to emulate an inner monologue of the normally voiceless protagonist Gordon Freeman. Scott portrays Freeman as a snarky, sociopathic character who makes frequent references to works and texts including science fiction, horror films, action movies, American history, and renowned novels such as Moby Dick. These references to works outside the game, often triggered by events within the game, are prime examples of the densely intertextual nature of machinima.
## Common genres
Nitsche and Lowood describe two methods of approaching machinima: starting from a video game and seeking a medium for expression or for documenting gameplay ("inside-out"), and starting outside a game and using it merely as animation tool ("outside-in"). Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd similarly distinguish between works that retain noticeable connections to games, and those closer to traditional animation. Belonging to the former category, gameplay and stunt machinima began in 1997 with Quake done Quick. Although not the first speedrunners, its creators used external software to manipulate camera positions after recording, which, according to Lowood, elevated speedrunning "from cyberathleticism to making movies". Stunt machinima remains popular. Kelland, Morris, and Lloyd state that Halo: Combat Evolved stunt videos offer a new way to look at the game, and compare Battlefield 1942 machinima creators to the Harlem Globetrotters. Built-in features for video editing and post-recording camera positioning in Halo 3 were expected to facilitate gameplay-based machinima. MMORPGs and other virtual worlds have been captured in documentary films, such as Miss Galaxies 2004, a beauty pageant that took place in the virtual world of Star Wars Galaxies. Footage was distributed in the cover disc of the August 2004 issue of PC Gamer. Douglas Gayeton's Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator documents the title character's interactions in Second Life.
Gaming-related comedy offers another possible entry point for new machinima producers. Presented as five-minute sketches, many machinima comedies are analogous to Internet Flash animations. After Clan Undead's 1997 work Operation Bayshield built on the earliest Quake movies by introducing narrative conventions of linear media and sketch comedy reminiscent of the television show Saturday Night Live, the New-York-based ILL Clan further developed the genre in machinima through works including Apartment Huntin''' and Hardly Workin. Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles chronicles a futile civil war over five seasons and 100 episodes. Marino wrote that although the series' humor was rooted in video games, strong writing and characters caused the series to "transcend the typical gamer". An example of a comedy film that targets a more general audience is Strange Company's Tum Raider, produced for the BBC in 2004.
Machinima has been used in music videos, of which the first documented example is Ken Thain's 2002 "Rebel vs. Thug", made in collaboration with Chuck D. For this, Thain used Quake2Max, a modification of Quake II that provided cel-shaded animation. The following year, Tommy Pallotta directed "In the Waiting Line" for the British group Zero 7. He told Computer Graphics World, "It probably would have been quicker to do the film in a 3D animated program. But now, we can reuse the assets in an improvisational way." Scenes of the game Postal 2 can be seen in the music video of the Black Eyed Peas single "Where Is the Love?". In television, MTV features video game characters on its show Video Mods. Among World of Warcraft players, dance and music videos became popular after dancing animations were discovered in the game.
Others use machinima in drama. These works may or may not retain signs of their video game provenance. Unreal Tournament is often used for science fiction and Battlefield 1942 for war, but some artists subvert their chosen game's setting or completely detach their work from it. In 1999, Strange Company used Quake II in Eschaton: Nightfall, a horror film based on the work of H. P. Lovecraft (although Quake I was also based on the Lovecraft lore). A later example is Damien Valentine's series Consanguinity, made using BioWare's 2002 computer game Neverwinter Nights and based on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another genre consists of experimental works that attempt to push the boundaries of game engines. One example, Fountainhead's Anna, is a short film that focuses on the cycle of life and is reminiscent of Fantasia. Other productions go farther and completely eschew a 3-D appearance. Friedrich Kirschner's The Tournament and The Journey deliberately appear hand-drawn, and Dead on Que's Fake Science resembles two-dimensional Eastern European modernist animation from the 1970s.
Another derivative genre termed machinima verite, from cinéma vérité, seeks to add a documentary and additional realism to the machinima piece. L.M. Sabo's CATACLYSM achieves a machinima verite style through displaying and recapturing the machinima video with a low resolution black and white hand-held video camera to produce a shaky camera effect. Other element of cinéma vérité, such as longer takes, sweeping camera transitions, and jump cuts may be included to complete the effect.
Some have used machinima to make political statements, often from left-wing perspectives. Alex Chan's take on the 2005 civil unrest in France, The French Democracy, attained mainstream attention and inspired other machinima commentaries on American and British society. Horwatt deemed Thuyen Nguyen's 2006 An Unfair War, a criticism of the Iraq War, similar in its attempt "to speak for those who cannot". Joshua Garrison mimicked Chan's "political pseudo-documentary style" in his Virginia Tech Massacre, a controversial Halo 3–based re-enactment and explanation of the eponymous real-life events. More recently, War of Internet Addiction addressed internet censorship in China using World of Warcraft.
## Competitions
After the QML's Quake Movie Oscars, dedicated machinima awards did not reappear until the AMAS created the Mackies for its first Machinima Film Festival in 2002. The annual festival has become an important one for machinima creators. Ho Chee Yue, a founder of the marketing company AKQA, helped to organize the first festival for the Asia chapter of the AMAS in 2006. In 2007, the AMAS supported the first machinima festival held in Europe. In addition to these smaller ceremonies, Hugh Hancock of Strange Company worked to add an award for machinima to the more general Bitfilm Festival in 2003. Other general festivals that allow machinima include the Sundance Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, and the New Media Film Festival. The Ottawa International Animation Festival opened a machinima category in 2004, but, citing the need for "a certain level of excellence", declined to award anything to the category's four entries that year.
Machinima has been showcased in contests sponsored by game companies. Epic Games' popular Make Something Unreal contest included machinima that impressed event organizer Jeff Morris because of "the quality of entries that really push the technology, that accomplish things that Epic never envisioned". In December 2005, Blizzard Entertainment and Xfire, a gaming-focused instant messaging service, jointly sponsored a World of Warcraft machinima contest.
## Mainstream appearances
Machinima has appeared on television, starting with G4's series Portal. MTV2's Video Mods re-creates music videos using characters from video games such as The Sims 2, BloodRayne, and Tribes. Blizzard Entertainment helped to set part of "Make Love, Not Warcraft", an Emmy Award–winning 2006 episode of the comedy series South Park, in its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft. By purchasing broadcast rights to Douglas Gayeton's machinima documentary Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator in September 2007, HBO became the first television network to buy a work created completely in a virtual world. In December 2008, machinima.com signed fifteen experienced television comedy writers—including Patric Verrone, Bill Oakley, and Mike Rowe—to produce episodes for the site.
Commercial use of machinima has increased. Rooster Teeth sells DVDs of their Red vs. Blue series and, under sponsorship from Electronic Arts, helped to promote The Sims 2 by using the game to make a machinima series, The Strangerhood. Volvo Cars sponsored the creation of a 2004 advertisement, Game: On, the first film to combine machinima and live action. Later, Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to promote their Madden NFL 07 video game. Blockhouse TV uses Moviestorm's machinima software to produce its pre-school educational DVD series Jack and Holly
Game developers have continued to increase support for machinima. Products such as Lionhead Studios' 2005 business simulation game The Movies, Linden Research's virtual world Second Life, and Bungie's 2007 first-person shooter Halo 3 encourage the creation of user content by including machinima software tools. Using The Movies, Alex Chan, a French resident with no previous filmmaking experience, took four days to create The French Democracy, a short political film about the 2005 civil unrest in France. Third-party mods like Garry's Mod usually offer the ability to manipulate characters and take advantage of custom or migrated content, allowing for the creation of works like Counter-Strike For Kids that can be filmed using assets from multiple games.
In a 2010 interview with PC Magazine, Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell said that they wanted to make a Half-Life feature film themselves, rather than hand it off to a big-name director like Sam Raimi, and that their recent Team Fortress 2 "Meet The Team" machinima shorts were experiments in doing just that. Two years later, Valve released their proprietary non-linear machinima software, Source Filmmaker.
Machinima has also been used for music video clips. The first machinima music video to air on MTV is that of Zero 7's "In the Waiting Line" in 2003, animated in the id Tech 3 engine by Tommy Pallotta. Second Life virtual artist Bryn Oh created a work for Australian performer Megan Bernard's song "Clean Up Your Life", released in 2016. The first music video for 2018's "Old Town Road", by Lil Nas X, was composed entirely of footage from the 2018 Western action-adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2.
## See also
- 3DMM
- Computer animation
- Computer-generated imagery
- The Flying Luna Clipper
- 1996 in machinima
- 2003 in machinima
- 2004 in machinima
- 2005 in machinima
- 2006 in machinima
- 2007 in machinima
- Overwatch and pornography |
56,572,918 | Marinette Dupain-Cheng | 1,172,567,684 | Fictional protagonist of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir | [
"Animated characters introduced in 2015",
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"Fictional Chinese diaspora",
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"Fictional people from Paris",
"French superheroes",
"Italian superheroes",
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"Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir characters",
"Superheroes with alter egos",
"Teenage characters in television",
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| Marinette Dupain-Cheng () is a fictional character and the female protagonist of the animated television series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir created by Thomas Astruc. Depicted as a teenage student of Chinese and French descent, she aspires to become a fashion designer and lives with her parents, Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng, who own a bakery. After she passes the test of Master Fu, the keeper of the magical objects named the Miraculouses, by helping him, Marinette is chosen as a soon-to-be superheroine alongside Cat Noir. As a result, she is given a pair of earrings known as the Ladybug Miraculous, which when worn grants Marinette the ability to transform into Ladybug, her superheroine alias. Ladybug and Cat Noir's goal is to protect Paris from the villain Hawk Moth (French: Papillon) and defeat him altogether. Unknown to Marinette, Cat Noir's civilian identity is Adrien Agreste, a classmate whom she has feelings for. As the holder of a Miraculous, Marinette is assisted by a small red creature resembling a ladybug called Tikki, who is a magical being known as a kwami. As Ladybug, Marinette's signature ability is creation (through her Lucky Charm power). Marinette appears in most Miraculous media, including the main series, the mobile running game, and the comic books.
Marinette's character was inspired by a young woman wearing a ladybug-themed T-shirt who once worked with Astruc. After creating a drawing that portrayed her as a ladybug-themed superheroine, Astruc felt this would be a good character, especially as he was not aware of the existence of another ladybug-related superhero. The woman's haircut served as inspiration for Marinette's hairstyle as well. Marinette is voiced by Cristina Vee in the English dub, while Anouck Hautbois voices her in the French version of the series.
Marinette's character has received a generally positive critical response, with writers characterizing her as a role model for viewers and as a great protagonist; both her civilian self and her superheroine identity have been praised. Meet-and-greet sessions with Ladybug have taken place. Several pieces of merchandise based on her, such as accessories, clothing items, and action figures, have been created.
## Development
### Concept and creation
The superheroine identity of Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Ladybug, was inspired by a young woman wearing a T-shirt with a ladybug depicted on it; she belonged to the production team of another show that also included Thomas Astruc, the creator of the animated television series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. Astruc stated that he had befriended her, and following this they had started creating and "exchanging ladybug-themed sticky notes"; a note drawn by Astruc portrayed the woman as a ladybug-themed superhero. Astruc did not know of the existence of a ladybug-related superhero and felt this character would be good. As a result, Ladybug's character was conceptualized. Astruc thought that a superhero based on this idea had not previously been created because of not being sufficiently masculine. Marinette's hairstyle was also conceived using the woman's haircut as a model. Astruc said that Ladybug's power was connected to luck since ladybugs are associated with good luck. He commented that Ladybug's character is comparable to Spider-Man.
Astruc stated that while Marinette is a girl of action, this does not prevent her from wearing pink. He characterized Ladybug as an "awesome", special, very positive, and bright character. He also described her as his favorite character from the series. Astruc hoped that children would view Ladybug as a positive example, and that she would become the mascot of Paris, being found on flyers at museums' entrances to inspire children to visit them. In regard to Marinette and Adrien Agreste, he commented that he had wished to depict "sunny", inspiring characters. Astruc mentioned that Ladybug is one of the two most "powerful teenagers" alongside Cat Noir since she has the power of creation. He stated that handling the dynamics between Marinette's and Adrien's identities was entertaining. Astruc said that couples of superheroes like the one consisting of Ladybug and Cat Noir are uncommon in shows, and he felt that the viewers enjoy the love situation formed between the two of them. A source of inspiration for the duo of the ladybug and the black cat was one of Astruc's previous romantic relationships. Astruc stated that, as long there was a villain in the show, a romantic relationship between Marinette and Adrien would be able to happen only under certain circumstances and would need to be handled carefully, commenting that such a relationship would be brittle and complicated.
Ladybug's costume was difficult to animate when it came to the show's original 2D version since it was red with black dots; the dots had to be in certain places and had to remain unmoved. In the 3D version, this problem disappeared since there was a model moving. In the 2D version, Marinette was supposed to be older than she currently is in the 3D version. The chibi design of Ladybug from the series Miraculous Chibi was conceived by character designer Angie Nasca. The bakery of Marinette's family was inspired by a real-life Parisian bakery.
Astruc commented that deciding how Ladybug would use a certain item created with the help of her Miraculous to defeat the villain takes a quarter of the writers' working time for an episode; Sébastien Thibaudeau, the writing director of Miraculous, stated that Ladybug is intelligent since she manages to do what in reality several people can think of only when collaborating with each other. According to Thibaudeau, the writers wanted Marinette to not be based on clichés and to resemble a contemporary girl, able to create things and desiring to achieve something in life; they also wished Marinette's transformation into a self-assured superhero to show that people can change and become stronger. Marinette is also meant to highlight that one has to fight and be open-minded and smart in order to be successful in life. Thibaudeau said Marinette tries to improve Adrien's difficult life. Fred Lenoir, also writing for Miraculous, stated that Marinette's relationship with Adrien, both as civilians and as superheroes, is the main part of the show. Astruc mentioned that the third season of the series served as a test for Marinette; Mélanie Duval, another writer of Miraculous, commented that Marinette had a lot of obstacles to overcome in that season.
Jeremy Zag, the president of the animation studio Zagtoon, described Marinette as "a fresh and modern girl character who is in line with kids' and teens' lives today". The first two images depicting Ladybug released by Zag, one showing her portrait and one featuring her on a rooftop in Paris, received enough attention to surround the world. Zag said the love situation that Marinette created alongside Adrien, their superhero identities, and their secrets represent some of the main parts of the story. Jared Wolfson, the executive producer of Miraculous, stated that the audience of girls had been waiting for "someone like a Spider-Man to come along" and that, because of Ladybug's character, they can now transform into her, becoming "stronger" and making "an effect in the world". With regard to Ladybug's character, Aton Soumache, the chief executive officer of the company Method Animation, said the producers had wished to "create a [glamorous] superhero character with a real European flair with Paris as backdrop", as a result of the previous lack of an action series centered on a female superhero.
Nicole D'Andria, a contributor to the creation of a Miraculous comic book, said that Ladybug is an admirable character. ZAG America's president of global consumer products, André Lake Mayer, stated that children are fond of Ladybug's character, and that the fans would enjoy playing as Ladybug in the Miraculous mobile running game. She felt that Ladybug "is instantaneously empowering to all women, all ages", saying that she "is mesmerizing both as Marinette and as Ladybug". Mayer stated that "even without knowing the story", "she is instinctively familiar, authentic and strong", adding that "Ladybug is an icon for wholesome girl empowerment". She also characterized Ladybug as "relatable", and as "unique".
### Voice
Anouck Hautbois voices Marinette in the French version of the series. Thomas Astruc regarded Hautbois and the rest of the French cast as fantastic.
Cristina Vee voices Marinette in the English dub. Vee stated that she loves Marinette, describing her as one of her favorite characters that she voiced. She said Marinette reminds her of the character Sailor Moon, commenting that "working on the show" had given her "the same feelings" as the ones she had experienced while "watching Sailor Moon growing up as a kid". She stated that she had auditioned for Marinette's role considerably, most likely more than she had previously done for other characters. Vee said she had first obtained the script for the audition around a year before being cast, adding that she had not received a reply after auditioning. Following this, she had acquired the script once again, and after the audition, she received two callbacks. She stated that ever since she had seen Marinette's character design and the script, she had known that "whoever was cast as this character, Ladybug, would be the luckiest girl", precisely "the luckiest voice actress". After reading the script for the first time, Vee felt that Marinette was a version "on paper" of herself. Vee said she had fallen in love with Ladybug immediately. She commented that she had not been aware of this show's existence before auditioning for Marinette's role, which surprised her since she kept herself up to date with anime-related news. After auditioning and before receiving the callbacks, she found out about the anime promotional video of the series. After seeing the video, she started wanting the role all the more.
Vee said that she resembles Marinette very much, sometimes being "pretty shy and clumsy" and stumbling over her "words and feet". While she liked that Marinette is affectionate toward Adrien and "mixes up her words sometimes", Vee regarded "fighting crime as Ladybug" as "her favorite part" of voicing her, stating that she enjoyed the moments when Marinette says her specific phrases for her transformation into Ladybug and for using her signature superhero ability. She mentioned that Marinette and Adrien learning about each other's identities would be "exciting", adding that she wished to see how they would "work together in a different way to fight crime". Vee characterized this show as "amazing", stating that she had never seen an animation like this before and that "every episode is just so beautiful".
Many voice actors auditioned for the roles of the main characters, including Marinette's, when the casting for the series started. Ezra Weisz, the voice director of Miraculous, said that the staff in charge of the casting had wished Marinette to sound confident yet not excessively proud as a superhero, and they had wanted to find someone whose voice would be able to distinguish Marinette's civilian identity from her superhero self. Weisz mentioned that Vee does a remarkable job on voicing Marinette. He stated that Vee "has a young heroine quality to her voice", adding that he had always wished Vee "to be an actual superhero" since he felt she is a superhero "in real life". Weisz commented that Vee portrays the idea of a nervous teenager who becomes embarrassed around the person they love very well. He said that when Vee "transforms into Ladybug, she gets to put on her confidence", stating that this is precisely what she emanates in the vocal booth.
Jared Wolfson mentioned that Vee is energetic. He said she has a "beautiful personality", describing her as "so sweet", "so kind", and "great". He stated that in the recording studio, Vee "goes from sweet Marinette to Ladybug", adding that "she is Ladybug in that room" and that this is "so fun to watch".
## Appearances
Marinette is the female protagonist of the Miraculous series. She is a 1.55 m tall, 14-year-old-girl (later turns 15) portrayed as a French-Chinese teenage student from Paris, who wishes to become a fashion designer. Marinette is the daughter of Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng, granddaughter of Rolland and Gina Dupain, and grandniece of Wang Cheng. Her parents own a bakery. One day, when rushing toward school, Marinette notices an elderly man in danger and immediately saves him. While Marinette is not aware of this at the time, the man is Master Fu, the keeper of the magical objects called the Miraculouses, who has prepared a test in order to find someone deserving of becoming a superhero. Since Marinette has saved him, Master Fu decides to offer her the Ladybug Miraculous, which is a pair of earrings. After Marinette sees the box that contains the earrings and opens it, a creature resembling a ladybug who presents herself as Tikki appears; she is a magical being known as a kwami, who grants Marinette the power to transform into a superhero when wearing the earrings.
When she sees Tikki for the first time, Marinette is afraid of her. She is also not thrilled by the idea of becoming a superhero, and the first time she transforms is by mistake. Nevertheless, she learns how to act as a superhero shortly after that and introduces her superhero alias, Ladybug. Marinette's superhero outfit derives from Tikki's appearance, resembling a ladybug. Marinette is in love with Adrien, a boy from her class whom she gets nervous around. Unknown to Marinette, Adrien is actually her superhero partner, Cat Noir, who fancies Ladybug. Since Marinette is not aware of Cat Noir's civilian identity, she constantly rejects his advances toward her. Ladybug and Cat Noir's objective is to protect Paris from Hawk Moth, a man who has the ability to turn people into supervillains; he wishes to acquire Ladybug's and Cat Noir's Miraculouses, and, unknown to them, is actually Adrien's father. As Ladybug, Marinette becomes more sure of herself. The transformation into Ladybug offers her new abilities. Her signature power is creation, named "Lucky Charm". Ladybug's superhero weapon is a yo-yo.
Marinette has a loving relationship with her parents, and a close bond with Tikki. She also has a mainly positive relationship with her classmates, particularly with her best friend, Alya Césaire; Alya often offers support to Marinette and is there for her when she needs help, and she is a big fan of Ladybug. Marinette also has a close relationship with Luka Couffaine, the older brother of one of her classmates, and a friendly relationship with Nino Lahiffe, who once had a crush on her. At the same time, Marinette does not get along with Chloé Bourgeois, nor with Lila Rossi, due to their constant bullying and verbal abuse they put on her.
Besides the main series, Marinette appears in most Miraculous media. She is present in the Christmas special episode, which consists of a musical format. Marinette appears in the special episode set in New York City, and she is also present in the special episode that takes place in Shanghai. She has been featured in the chibi episodes, in the Tales from Paris episodes, and in the Miraculous Secrets episodes. Marinette has appeared in several sequences where she has addressed to the viewers in a direct way, and in a live session sustained on the YouTube account of Disney Channel. She has been part of a video clip promoting proper hygiene among children. Marinette is a playable character in the Miraculous mobile running game. She appears in comic books inspired by the series; she is present in other types of books based on the show as well. Marinette is pictured in the official Miraculous magazine. She will appear in a Miraculous musical film, which was originally titled Ladybug & Cat Noir Awakening, and it was changed into Miraculous: Ladybug and Cat Noir: The Movie, and in a 2D OVA. Marinette is also depicted in live stage shows, including during a tour.
## Reception
### Critical response
Critical reception of Marinette has been generally positive, with writers describing her as a famous character, and as "pretty", charismatic, clever, sweet, and inventive. Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media characterized Marinette as "patient" and "kind". ComicsVerse writer Michele Kirichanskaya felt that the series "takes the time to address Marinette's heritage" in "a subtle and respectful manner", citing the "moments when she struggles with speaking Chinese" and has "cultural miscommunications with relatives". Kirichanskaya wrote that Marinette's complete name when "translated from both Chinese and French languages" is "appropriate for a girl whose family owns a bakery". She described Marinette as "loyal and devoted to her friends and family". Kirichanskaya said Marinette being "an aspiring fashion designer" who makes "new creations in her spare time" shows that "feminine interests [do not] necessarily detract from superheroic qualities", deeming this "a positive message for male and female viewers alike". She thought that the feelings Marinette has for Adrien "only define one aspect of her character". Caroline Gourdin of La Libre Belgique stated that Marinette's character is one of the main aspects of the series, adding that she can appeal to both girls and boys. Nerd Much? writer Emily Auten felt that "Marinette's shoujo-like crush on Adrien" is one of the "small aspects that anime fans can appreciate" in this show. Auten wrote that "Marinette takes center stage" as a protagonist despite the lack of heroines in television series; she also stated that "Marinette is a great female protagonist". Auten said Marinette is "very well-written", stating that she is "a great role model" for both children and adults "to look up to and relate with". She praised Cristina Vee's role as Marinette's voice actress. An El Intransigente writer said that the applauded protagonist of this series is a girl, unlike how it happens in other shows, and that Marinette has a big heart. Marinette was commented to have "innocent optimism". She was described as a very important character for children from many countries, including France.
Marinette's superhero form, Ladybug, has been commended. Elle Collins of ComicsAlliance said the way "Marinette transforms into Ladybug in a series of twirls and poses" resembles how "Sailor Moon and other magical girls always do". She felt that Marinette having "the guidance of some kind of talking ladybug creature" completes "another Magical Girl trope". Los Angeles Times writer Robert Lloyd commented that Marinette is a "smart girl" and characterized her superhero form as "a costumed crusader". Michele Kirichanskaya stated that while Marinette initially "appears to be just an ordinary girl", with the help of "a pair of magical earrings" she "can transform into the Miraculous Ladybug, one of Paris's greatest superheroes". She described Marinette as "a bright, talented, creative young woman, trying to balance her daily life with all the responsibilities that entail being France's greatest superheroine". Kirichanskaya characterized Ladybug as "an incredible hero" who is "fluid and confident in battle". She felt that "Marinette embodies the most" of both her ordinary and superhero lives "in a beautiful force of a character". Laura Aasland of Culture Honey praised that while Ladybug keeps "groaning at Cat Noir's puns", Marinette has feelings for Adrien. Ella Anders of BSCkids said that while "from a glance [Marinette] appears to be a typical high-school teen", she is "a champion of right" in reality. Epicstream's Caitlin Donovan described Marinette as "an adorable lead who is genuinely awkward as a civilian" yet "confident as a superhero", feeling this "makes for an interesting contrast". Best Movie writer Irene Rosignoli commended Marinette's ability to transform from her shy civilian self into a courageous, confident, and resolute superhero, viewing it as a constructive message for girls throughout the world. Ladybug was characterized as an amazing superhero who can immediately impress the young viewers, and she was deemed capable, brave, and girls' favorite superhero.
### Popularity and merchandise
Bandai's brand management vice president, Kenji Washida, described Marinette as "a quirky but lovable girl growing up, going to school and having first crushes", stating that she is a character "girls can relate to"; he said Marinette's superhero alter ego is "someone they want to be". Washida viewed "the concept of a young girl as a superhero" as "a game-changer in both toys and entertainment". Guess's chief creative officer and chairman, Paul Marciano, praised Marinette's secret identity and her relationship with Adrien. The licensing director of Gemma International, Tim Rudd-Clarke, characterized Ladybug as "a strong and empowered female superhero" who "fills a huge gap in the market that has been vacant for quite some time". The PGS Entertainment staff described Marinette as a female "lead superhero" who "instills positive values". A life-size wax statue depicting Ladybug has been showcased at the Musée Grévin. A Snapchat filter inspired by her has been created. Ladybug has been portrayed on buses. Indoor playgrounds based on Ladybug and Cat Noir have been built. Meet-and-greets containing Ladybug have been arranged, including at a theme park. She has served as inspiration for a Christmas event, and for face painting. Cosplays of her have been made.
Several pieces of merchandise inspired by Marinette's civilian and superhero identities have been created, including action figures, clothing items, accessories, masks, and stickers. Figurines portraying Ladybug have been developed by Funko, and by Burger King. Toys based on her have been produced, such as Kinder Surprise toys, and a toy telephone. Pez candy dispensers inspired by her have been launched. A game based on Ladybug and other Miraculous characters has been released. Beach-related items depicting Ladybug have been produced, and school-related items portraying her have also been invented. Sweets inspired by her have been created. Other products based on her, including bedclothes, have also been developed.
## See also
- Chinese community in Paris |
48,663,712 | Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 | 1,143,717,754 | null | [
"2016 in Greek television",
"Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016",
"Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest"
]
| Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "Utopian Land" written by Vladimiros Sofianidis and performed by the band Argo. The song was internally selected by the Greek broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) to represent Greece at the 2016 contest in Stockholm, Sweden. Argo were announced as the Greek representatives in February 2016, a month before their song "Utopian Land" was presented.
To promote the entry, a music video for "Utopian Land" was released and Argo performed the song at the INFE Greece Eurovision Party in Athens. Greece was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2016. Performing during the show in position 2, "Utopian Land" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. This marked the first time that Greece failed to qualify to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest since the introduction of semi-finals in . It was later revealed that Greece placed 16th out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 44 points.
## Background
Prior to the 2016 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 36 times since their debut in . To this point, the nation had won the contest on one occasion in with the song "My Number One" performed by Helena Paparizou. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the , Greece managed to thus far qualify to the final with each of their entries. Between 2004 and 2011, the nation achieved eight consecutive top ten placements in the final. To this point, Greece's least successful result in the final was 20th place, which they achieved in with the song "Mia krifi evaisthisia" by Thalassa and in with the song "Rise Up" by Freaky Fortune and RiskyKidd. In , Greece placed 19th in the final with the song "One Last Breath" performed by Maria Elena Kyriakou.
The Greek national broadcaster, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ERT had been in charge of Greece's participation in the contest since their debut in 1974 until 2013, when the broadcaster was shut down by a government directive and replaced with the interim Dimosia Tileorasi (DT) and later by the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT) broadcaster. On 28 April 2015, a legislative proposal that resulted in the renaming of NERIT to ERT was approved and signed into law by the Hellenic Parliament; ERT began broadcasting once again on 11 June. ERT then confirmed Greece's intentions to participate at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 on 28 August 2015.
For the three contests preceding 2016, television channel MAD TV had organised a national final to select the entry for Greece. For the 2016 contest, however, ERT regained the role of deciding the entry, opting for an internal selection. This was the first time since 2004 that Greece did not use a national final to select their artist and/or song.
## Before Eurovision
### Internal selection
On 2 February 2016, ERT announced that they would be selecting Greece's act and song internally. A week later on 9 February 2016, they issued a press release that confirmed the band Argo (formerly known as Europond) as the Greek representatives for the 2016 contest. Argo consisted of six members at the time of the announcement: Christina Lachana, Maria Venetikidou, Vladimiros Sofianidis, Kostas Topouzis, Ilias Kesidis and Alekos Papadopoulos. Prior to selecting Argo, ERT had also approached other artists including Mariza Rizou, Irene Skylakaki and Eleonora Zouganeli.
The song that Argo participated with in the Eurovision Song Contest, "Utopian Land", was presented on 10 March 2016 through a televised press conference and radio premiere. It was presented via three of Hellenic Radio's stations: ERA 1, ERA 2 and KOSMOS. The press conference was held at Hellenic Radio's Studio E at the House of Radio in Athens and was televised during the ERT1 programme Studio 3, hosted by Marilena Katsimi and Silas Seraphim. In regards to the song, ERT director Dionisis Tsaknis stated: "The song has strong ethnic and Balkan sounds, but not in a traditional way. It's an exciting song in Greek, bringing the country's own identity to the contest. The lyrics will refer to the refugee crisis and the financial difficulties we are facing, but the song is really happy and upbeat." "Utopian Land", which was written by Argo band member Vladimiros Sofianidis, contains lyrics in English and Greek including phrases in the Pontic Greek dialect.
### Promotion
To promote "Utopian Land", the official music video, produced by Beetroot productions and filmed in Thessaloniki, was screened on 10 March 2016 at the time of the song's reveal. A re-edited version of the video, adding shots of the song's singers, was later released in early May. To further promote the entry, the group performed live at the INFE Greece Eurovision Party in Athens where they were joined by the likes of Constantinos Christoforou, Barrice and RiskyKidd. They then spoke to Alpha TV responding to criticism their song had received from the public.
## At Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 took place at Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. It consisted of two semi-finals held on 10 and 12 May, respectively, and the final on 14 May 2016. According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five", consisting of , , , and the , were required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top 10 countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The EBU split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with the goal of reducing the amount of neighbourly voting. On 25 January 2016, an allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals and determined which half of the show they would perform in. Greece was placed into the first semi-final, held on 10 May 2016, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.
Once all the competing songs for the 2016 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Greece was set to perform second, following the entry from Finland and before the entry from Moldova. The two semi-finals and the final were televised in Greece on ERT1 and ERT HD, via radio on ERA 2 and Voice of Greece and online via www.ert.gr, all with commentary by Maria Kozakou and Giorgos Kapoutzidis.
### Performances
Argo took part in technical rehearsals on 2 and 6 May 2016, followed by dress rehearsals on 9 and 10 May. This included the jury show on 9 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries. Heading into the first semi-final, CNN reported that bookmakers and polls ranked the entry 34th of the 42 entries, indicating a likely non-qualification to the final.
The Greek performance featured five of the members of Argo performing together on stage with a male dancer; the female members were dressed in white outfits, while the male members were dressed in white shirts and light brown baggy trousers. The performance was choreographed by Maria Lyraraki with lighting design by Konstantinos Garinis and costumes designed by Yiorgos Mesimeris. For the performance, Argo member Elias Kesides was replaced by dancer Vasilis Roxenos.
At the end of the show, Greece was not announced among the top 10 entries in the first semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Greece placed 16th in the semi-final, receiving a total of 44 points: 22 points from the televoting and 22 points from the juries. This marked the first time that Greece failed to qualify to the final since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, and the first time that the nation was absent from a final since 2000. In response to the result, Greece's Star Channel wrote that most Greeks were not surprised since they never really supported its selection in the first place. Following continued criticism of the entry's result specifically blaming Tsaknis for Argo's selection, ERT's CEO Lambis Tagmatarchis released a statement defending Tsaknis, pointing out that it was a collective decision to send them and that Argo deserves "congratulations for their effort".
### Voting
Voting during the three shows was conducted under a new system that involved each country now awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be connected in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the final. Greece's jury consisted of Mariza Fakli, Lambros Konstantaras, Christiana Stamatelou, Georgios Segredakis and Adam Tsarouchis [el]. The Greek spokesperson, who announced the top 12-point score awarded by the Greek jury during the final, was Constantinos Christoforou, who previously represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest as a solo artist in 1996 and 2005 as well as in 2002 as part of the boy band One. Greece received its only top 12-point score from Cyprus' televote, while the nation awarded its 12 points to Cyprus through televote and Russia through jury in both the first semi-final and final. The tables below visualise a complete breakdown of points awarded to Greece in the first semi-final, as well as by the country in both the first semi-final and final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016.
#### Points awarded to Greece
#### Points awarded by Greece
#### Detailed voting results
The following members comprised the Greek jury:
- Mariza Fakli (jury chairperson) – artists' public relations
- Lambros Konstantaras – radio producer, journalist
- Christiana Stamatelou – journalist, music producer
- Georgios Segredakis – curator stage presence, costume designer
- Adam Tsarouchis [el] – singer |
57,917,674 | Iguana (song) | 1,058,584,573 | 2018 song by Inna | [
"2018 singles",
"2018 songs",
"Inna songs",
"Roc Nation singles",
"Songs written by Inna",
"Spanish-language songs"
]
| "Iguana" is a song by Romanian singer Inna. It was digitally released on 30 November 2018 as the second single for her sixth studio album Yo (2019) by Global Records and Roc Nation, although having already been made available for streaming and airplay earlier that month. It was written by Inna and Cristina Maria Chiluiza, while production was solely handled by David Ciente. Musically, the uptempo track has been described as being club and salsa-influenced, extending Inna's change in direction introduced with "Ra" (2018). The song's lyrics are in Spanish and see Inna discussing jealousy and lovesickness.
Upon its release, "Iguana" was well-received by music critics, who pointed out its catchiness and praised Inna's emotional vocal delivery. An accompanying music video was premiered on Inna's YouTube channel simultaneously with the song's digital release and was directed by Bogdan Păun. During the clip, the singer is shown at a night fiesta in an intoxicated state—as speculated by a reviewer—fighting back for her alleged love interest, who resides with another woman at an outside bar. The song was further promoted by live performances in Romania and Mexico, and reached number four on Romania's Airplay 100 chart. "Iguana" was used for the 2020 Milan Fashion Week.
## Background and composition
"Iguana" was written by Inna and Cristina Maria Chiluiza, while production was solely handled by David Ciente; he also engineered the song, and Max Kissaru provided mixing and mastering. In July 2018, the song, alongside three fellow tracks from Inna's sixth studio album Yo (2019), were released as promotional singles in Romania; for a Coca-Cola campaign, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar bottles were designed with QR codes that—when scanned with a smartphone—linked to Shazam, allowing users to stream the songs. Originally, it was announced that "Iguana" would be released as Yo's second single on 16 November 2018, but plans were scrapped; nonetheless it was made available for streaming by Roc Nation and was sent to Romanian radio stations that same month. The digital release of "Iguana" followed on 30 November 2018 and was also conducted by Roc Nation (by Global Records in Romania), with listeners being able to pre-order the single.
Musically, "Iguana" is club and salsa-influenced, and a more uptempo track than its predecessor "Ra" (2018), but extends Inna's change in direction introduced with the latter. It starts "gentle and rhythmically whilst Inna goes in hard with her lyrics" until the refrain is reached; there, club beats are introduced and the singer powerfully repeats the line "Sigo bailando sin ti" ("I keep dancing without you"). During the song's Spanish language lyrics, Inna implies an empowerment message and sings about a jealous and lovesick woman, who ultimately learns to continue enjoying her life without her love interest. Billboard noted "deafening beats and introspective lyrics" during the track, and pointed out that although "'no reservations' seems to be [Inna's] mantra, [...] a velvety croon of desolation flows throughout the song."
## Reception
Upon its release, "Iguana" was met with positive reviews from music critics. The staff of Cancan magazine praised the song's dance nature and Inna's energetic attitude, while both Mike Wass of Idolator and CelebMix's Jonathan Currinn called the track catchy. The latter also noted Inna's "most passionate vocals to date, truly meaning every single word." Billboard included "Iguana" in their Best Music Picks Of the Week list for the week ending 30 November 2018, praising Inna's "flawless" Spanish pronunciation and viewing the song as a "daring and frisky tune." Commercially, "Iguana" debuted at number 91 on Romania's Airplay 100 chart for the week ending 24 November 2018, and rose 54 places to number 37 the next week, standing as the highest climber. It has since peaked at number four.
## Music video and promotion
An accompanying music video for "Iguana" was originally announced to be released on 16 November 2018 by a teaser that has since been deleted. Another two previews were uploaded to Inna's YouTube channel on 26 and 29 November 2018, respectively, with the music video being ultimately released on 30 November 2018. It had already been broadcast by Romanian TV channels for several days beforehand. Produced by Loops Production, Bogdan Păun was the video's director and Alexandru Mureșan was hired as the director of photography; Andra Manea performed make-up, Sorin Stratulat did hair styling and RDStyling brought the outfits used. One scene in the music video shows product placement of a Coca-Cola Zero Sugar bottle.
During the music video, Inna is shown alongside another woman at a night fiesta in a crowd of "intermingling" and "enthusiastic" people. A critic described the place where the video was shot as a "Latin American village." Wearing a reversible sequined jacket—which reads the phrase "Rest in Peace" on its back—over floral underwear paired with trainers, the singer stumbles "hazily, possibly from a night out" and "probably drunk," encountering her "lost love" which resides with another woman at an outside bar. Inna walks towards them trying to "claim[...] ownership of her love," but is met with rejection and pulled away by her accompany; yet she continues to sing the song to them. Interspersed shots show her on a stage in front of Wilburn & Sons Wagon And Blacksmith Shop with a backup band, where she performs to the song and tosses her hair back and forth; Inna "does not let the incident ruin her night" as she repeatedly affirms that she will continue dancing, even if her love interest is not present. Other scenes show "Inna's point of view, establishing what she's seeing in her intoxicated state."
Billboard pointed out that Inna showed an "all-around bold attitude" during the music video. Europa FM called the clip a mixture of Spanish singers Nathy Peluso and Beatriz Luengo's works. For further promotion of "Iguana", the singer delivered a live performance of the track alongside performances of "Ra" and "Cola Song" (2014) at the 2018 Telehit Awards in Mexico City on 7 November 2018. Inna also appeared on Kiss FM to perform the single; Currinn of CelebMix spoke highly of her vocal performance, considering it superior to the studio track and writing that "she has literally managed to blow us away, [...] her vocal ability [is] definitely impressive and intricate, considering how technical this song is." In May 2019, Inna performed "Iguana" on Românii au talent. In October 2019, Sorana Darclee impersonated the singer and sang the track for Romanian reality talent show Te cunosc de undeva!.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from YouTube.
- Inna – lead vocals, songwriter
- Cristina Maria Chiluiza – songwriter
- David Ciente – producer, engineer
- Max Kissaru – mixing and mastering
## Track listing
- Digital download
1. "Iguana" – 2:41
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Release history |
2,267,911 | Willard Hershberger | 1,173,869,635 | American baseball player (1910–1940) | [
"1910 births",
"1940 deaths",
"1940 suicides",
"Baseball players from Fullerton, California",
"Baseball players from Tulare County, California",
"Cincinnati Reds players",
"El Paso Texans players",
"Fullerton Union High School alumni",
"Hollywood Stars players",
"Major League Baseball catchers",
"Major League Baseball players with retired numbers",
"Newark Bears (International League) players",
"Oakland Oaks (baseball) players",
"Suicides by sharp instrument in the United States",
"Suicides in Massachusetts"
]
| Willard McKee Hershberger (May 28, 1910 – August 3, 1940) was an American baseball catcher for the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1938 to 1940. In 160 career games, Hershberger recorded a batting average of .316 and accumulated 5 triples and 41 runs. He is the only major league player to date to commit suicide during the season.
Born and raised in California, Hershberger attended Fullerton Union High School where he was a baseball standout. He was signed by the New York Yankees and was part of their minor league system for eight years. He was traded after the 1937 season to the Cincinnati Reds, where he found a place on the major league roster as a backup behind Ernie Lombardi. For three seasons, Hershberger played in relief of Lombardi, stepping in if he needed a day off or was injured. After a slump in late July and early August, Hershberger committed suicide on August 3, 1940, in his hotel room; the Reds went on to win the 1940 World Series.
## Early life
Willard Hershberger was born in Lemon Cove, California. His family moved to Fullerton, California, when his father, Claude, got a job working in the city's oil fields. He lived in Fullerton with his father, his mother Maude, and his sister Lois. Hershberger attended Fullerton Union High School, where he distinguished himself on both the baseball and football teams, playing alongside Arky Vaughan and future President Richard Nixon. The 1926 baseball team won the California Interscholastic Federation championship, and in 2003, he was named to the school's All-Time baseball team.
Claude, Willard's father, was depressed over financial problems, and on November 21, 1928, he fatally shot himself with a shotgun in the family home's bathroom; Willard, then 18, discovered the body. Hershberger graduated high school in 1929; the high school yearbook called Hershberger "the boy with the golden toe" due to his status as the football team's placekicker and "the greatest little catcher to ever put on the Fullerton uniform." In 1930, scouts Bill Essick of the New York Yankees and Art Griggs of the Pittsburgh Pirates came to Fullerton to watch Vaughan and Hershberger play, respectively. Essick took a detour and Griggs ended up signing Vaughan instead, while Essick signed Hershberger to a contract to play in the Yankees organization.
## Minor league career
Hershberger made his professional debut with the El Paso Texans of the Arizona–Texas League, playing for them in 1930 and 1931; in 1931 he had a batting average of .356. He spent the 1932 season with three minor league teams, and mostly played for the Erie Sailors of the Central League where he hit .339 in 94 games. The following year, Hershberger was promoted to the Binghamton Triplets of the New York–Pennsylvania League (NYPL). For the season, he had a .306 batting average, was named to the NYPL All-Star Team, and helped the Triplets win the NYPL title. In 1934, he was promoted to the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), and had a .307 batting average and 18 doubles in 114 games. Hershberger was promoted to the Newark Bears of the International League in 1935, and had a batting average of .310. The following year, he split time with the Bears and the Oakland Oaks of the PCL. At one point in the season, he was batting .313, and was noted as a player who should have a shot at the major leagues. By the end of the season, his average went down to .263 over 89 games.
The 1937 season started off poorly for Hershberger. While he remained with the Newark Bears, the Yankees released him from his contract, and partly due to the success of catcher Bill Dickey, the Yankees no longer had an interest in Hershberger. He spent the full season with the Bears, splitting time with Buddy Rosar at catcher. The team ended up with a 109–43 record and the International League title; the Bears have been called the third greatest minor league team in history by Minor League Baseball. Hershberger hit 15 doubles and had a .325 average in 96 games, and hit .364 in the Junior Series against the Columbus Red Birds. As a result, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert noted that he would spend the offseason working to get the players on major league rosters. On December 3, 1937, Hershberger was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for shortstop Eddie Miller and \$40,000, ending his tenure in the Yankees organization.
## Cincinnati Reds
Reds manager Bill McKechnie noted that Hershberger was playing so well in spring training that there was the possibility of him beating out Ernie Lombardi for the starting catcher job in 1938. He made the roster and served as the backup to Lombardi that season, and played in 49 games and had a .276 batting average. He earned the nickname of "Little Slug" due to his pinch hitting, and as a contrast to Lombardi's nickname of "Big Slug". In 1939, Hershberger gained extra playing time due to a Lombardi injury in June; during that stretch, Hershberger had eight hits and five runs batted in in five games. For the season, he hit .345 in 63 games, and played in two games of the 1939 World Series against the Yankees. In the series, he had one hit in two at-bats as the Reds lost in four games. His one hit in the World Series brought in the tying run in Game 4, but the Yankees fought back to win the game and the series.
Hershberger spent the 1940 Cincinnati Reds season as the backup to Lombardi, as had been the case the previous two seasons. He had been hitting well in relief of Lombardi, and had a batting average of .429 at the end of May and .345 at the end of June. In July, Lombardi suffered an injured finger, and Hershberger's playing time increased that month as a result. Lombardi then sprained his ankle on July 26, putting Hershberger in the starting role indefinitely; at the time his batting average was .354. However, in a game against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on July 31, the Reds took a 4–1 lead into the ninth and lost 5–4, with the comeback capped by a game-ending home run by Harry Danning. After an off-day for the team, the Reds lost both games of a doubleheader on August 2 to the Boston Bees, by scores of 10–3 and 4–3. Hershberger played in the second game and went hitless in six trips to the plate.
## Death
Hershberger blamed himself for the losses to the Giants and Bees, telling third baseman Billy Werber that "If Ernie had been catching, we wouldn't have lost those ball games." He felt he called the wrong pitch to Danning, resulting in the home run. In the game against the Bees, Hershberger failed to field a bunt, and after the game alluded to his father's suicide to McKechnie in private, saying "My father killed himself, and I'm gonna do it too." However, after about an hour, Hershberger had calmed down considerably, and McKechnie believed he would be fine.
The following afternoon, Reds publicist and traveling secretary Gabe Paul called Hershberger's room at the Copley Plaza Hotel after Hershberger missed batting practice. He said that he wasn't going to play that afternoon because he wasn't feeling well; McKechnie, worried, wanted him there in street clothes, and Hershberger agreed. After he missed the first game of another doubleheader against the Bees, McKechnie had Dan Cohen, a friend of Hershberger's, head to the hotel to check up on him. He found the door locked, and asked an employee to open the door. Inside, Cohen found Hershberger's body by the bathtub with his throat slit. After the second game, McKechnie had coach Hank Gowdy bring all the players together in the locker room, stating, "I want to tell you something. Willard Hershberger has just destroyed himself."
After giving his team the news, McKechnie had the Reds dedicate themselves to winning the World Series "for Hershie". His number 5 was retired for the season by the team as a tribute. It would later be permanently retired in honor of the Reds' Hall of Fame catcher, Johnny Bench. McKechnie never publicly revealed what Willard Hershberger said to him during their meeting the day before: "It had nothing to do with anybody on the team", he told reporters. "He told it to me in confidence, and I will not utter it to anyone". The Cincinnati Reds would go on to defeat the American League champion Detroit Tigers in seven games to win the 1940 World Series. Reds players decided to share a portion of their championship money, totaling \$5,803, with Hershberger's mother, Maude. Hershberger was buried at Visalia Public Cemetery in Visalia, California.
## See also
- List of baseball players who died during their careers
- List of suicides |
1,887,274 | Grift of the Magi | 1,127,070,933 | null | [
"1999 American television episodes",
"American Christmas television episodes",
"The Simpsons (season 11) episodes"
]
| "Grift of the Magi" is the ninth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. Being the final episode to air in the 1990s, it originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 19, 1999. In the episode, mafia boss Fat Tony successfully extorts a large sum of money from Springfield Elementary School, forcing Principal Skinner to close it down. However, a toy company called Kid First Industries, led by Jim Hope, later buys the school and privatizes it. Classes now start focusing on toys and marketing only, and soon a new toy called Funzo that resembles the children's ideas is released by Kid First Industries in time for the Christmas shopping season. Bart and Lisa decide to destroy all Funzos in Springfield but Gary Coleman, Kid First Industries' security guard, tries to intercept them.
"Grift of the Magi", which satirizes the commercialization of Christmas, was written by Tom Martin and directed by Matthew Nastuk. The episode features several guest appearances; Tim Robbins as Jim Hope, Gary Coleman as himself, Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony, and Clarence Clemons as a narrator that tells the viewers at the end of the episode how the story ends.
Around 7.76 million American homes tuned in to watch the episode during its original airing. It was first released on DVD in 2003 in a collection of five Christmas-related Simpsons episodes, titled Christmas With the Simpsons.
Critics have given "Grift of the Magi" generally mixed reviews, particularly because of its plot. The episode has been praised for some of its gags and Coleman's appearance.
## Plot
Bart and Milhouse have to remain inside The Simpsons house when an ozone hole moves over Springfield. The two dress up as ladies and jump on the bed, singing "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves". When Homer comes in abruptly, Bart falls off of the bed and lands on one of Homer's bowling balls, breaking his coccyx. Dr. Hibbert informs Homer and Marge that Bart will have to use a wheelchair until the bone has healed. When Bart arrives at Springfield Elementary School the following day, he finds that he cannot enter because the school lacks ramps for the disabled. As Principal Skinner considers a ramp for the school, mafia boss Fat Tony suggests that his construction company could build it. Although the new ramp system almost immediately collapses (due to it being made out of breadsticks), Fat Tony informs Skinner that the construction supposedly cost \$200,000 and that the school will still have to pay. In response, Principal Skinner decides to close Springfield Elementary due to lack of funds (having used them to pay off Fat Tony and thus avoid brutal mob reprisals).
All pleas for financial help are in vain, including a private school play performed in front of Mr. Burns at his mansion, until Jim Hope, the president of a toy company named Kid First Industries, buys the school and privatizes it. The school's staff is replaced, and classes now focus on toys and marketing. After Lisa is sent to detention for doing math in marketing class, she soon discovers a secret room behind the blackboard, with evidence that the company is using students for research to make a new popular toy in time for the Christmas shopping season. She is then frightened by the appearance of a robotic figure. She tries to show the evidence to Homer, Marge and Chief Wiggum, only for the company to destroy the room beforehand, humiliating her. When Bart and Lisa are back at home, watching television, they see an advertisement for a toy named Funzo. It has many features suggested by Springfield Elementary students during brainstorming sessions at the school, including Lisa's accidental suggestion of the name. They visit Hope's office to complain, and he apologetically gives them a free Funzo toy. Bart and Lisa later discover that Funzo is programmed to destroy other toys.
On Christmas Eve, with Homer's help, the two steal all the Funzo toys from underneath every Christmas tree in Springfield with the intention of burning them in the town's long-running tire fire. However, Gary Coleman, who is a Kid First Industries security guard, comes to stop them. The two parties argue all night; in the morning they settle down into civilized discussion about the commercialization of Christmas. Coleman changes his opinion about the toy company and helps the Simpsons destroy the remaining Funzo toys. Coleman accepts Homer's invitation to Christmas dinner at the Simpsons', cancelling his Christmas plans with George Clooney. Burns shows up, having been visited by three ghosts that night; he has decided to donate to Springfield Elementary. Moe also comes, having decided not to commit suicide after seeing what the world would have been like if he had not been born. He then admits he dented Coleman's Jeep in the driveway. Upon hearing this, Coleman says, "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Moe?" The whole group laughs and Coleman turns around and asks the audience, "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Everyone."
## Production
"Grift of the Magi" was written by Tom Martin and directed by Matthew Nastuk as part of the eleventh season of The Simpsons (1999–2000). It was the first episode that Martin wrote on his own, having previously co-written the season ten episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" with George Meyer, Brian Scully, and The Simpsons showrunner Mike Scully. Martin got the inspiration for "Grift of the Magi" after reading a magazine article about how major companies were receiving permission to advertise their products in school students' textbooks. He thought it "seemed like a gigantic conflict that could lead to big problems", and therefore believed an episode based on it would be a good idea. According to DVD Talk reviewer Adam Tyner, the episode is a satire of the commercialization of Christmas. A writer for Newsday has commented that episode skewers "the annual craze for that one 'hot' toy." This has also been pointed out by Mike Scully, who said in 2008 that "Grift of the Magi" was produced around the time when "every year there seemed to be a hot toy. Like the Furbies, or whatever – some toy that kids just had to have that year." In response to Scully's comment, Martin added that every year "the media would create this gigantic rush at the toy store for various things. This [episode] was coming on the heels of, yeah, the Furby."
Guest stars in the episode include Tim Robbins as Jim Hope, Gary Coleman as himself, Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony, and Clarence Clemons as a narrator. Scully thought Robbins "did a great job" because the Simpsons staff wanted the character of Jim Hope to be "fun and upbeat and somebody the kids would love." Clemons narrates a few scenes at the end of the episode, telling the viewers how the story ends. When Coleman agrees to spend Christmas with the Simpsons, Clemons says, for example: "And Gary Coleman was as good as his word, and as for old Mr. Burns, he was visited by three ghosts during the night and agreed to fund the school with some money he found in his tuxedo pants." Shortly after Coleman's death in 2010, an article appeared in the newspaper El Comercio that noted that "the nod to the harsh reality of Gary Coleman in [the episode] is given: in real life a few years ago Gary had to make a living as a shop security guard."
## Release
"Grift of the Magi" originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 19, 1999. It was viewed in approximately 7.76 million households that night. With a Nielsen rating of 7.7, the episode finished 39th in the ratings for the week of December 13–19, 1999 (tied with an episode of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC)'s 20/20). It was the second highest-rated broadcast on Fox that week, following an episode of Ally McBeal (which received a 9.9 rating). On October 14, 2003, "Grift of the Magi" was released in the United States on a DVD collection titled Christmas With the Simpsons, along with the season one episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", the season four episode "Mr. Plow", the season nine episode "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace", and the season thirteen episode "She of Little Faith". On October 7, 2008, the episode was released on DVD again as part of the box set The Simpsons – The Complete Eleventh Season. Staff members Martin, Scully, Meyer, Matt Groening, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Matt Selman, Tim Long, and Lance Kramer participated in the DVD audio commentary for "Grift of the Magi". Deleted scenes from the episode were also included on the box set.
Since airing, "Grift of the Magi" has received generally mixed reviews from critics. While reviewing the eleventh season of The Simpsons, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson commented that the episode "feels like an amalgamation of elements from prior holiday programs and never really elicits much humor. Christmas is commercialized and corporations use and abuse their customers? Those aren’t exactly rich insights, so ['Grift of the Magi'] comes across as a below average episode." In his review of the DVD Christmas With the Simpsons, Digitally Obsessed critic Joel Cunningham wrote that the episode "comes from Season 11, well past the point when the series had sacrificed character for absurdist humor. Unless you don't think evil toy marketers, sentient Furbys, and Gary Coleman qualify. Anyway, after the school nearly goes bankrupt, Principal Skinner signs a contract with corporate backers who use the kids to conduct market research. There are some good gags, but the story doesn't hang together very well." Adam Tyner of DVD Talk argued that the episode "has a couple of good gags (Gary Coleman chatting on the phone being my favorite) but is quickly forgettable". Brian James of PopMatters described Coleman's cameo as "hysterical" in 2004, and Meghan Lewit of the same website listed "Grift of the Magi" at number eight on her 2009 list of the "10 best holiday themed TV episodes." |
28,689,578 | Peacock (song) | 1,166,129,207 | null | [
"2010 songs",
"Katy Perry songs",
"LGBT-related songs",
"Song recordings produced by Stargate (record producers)",
"Songs written by Ester Dean",
"Songs written by Katy Perry",
"Songs written by Mikkel Storleer Eriksen",
"Songs written by Tor Erik Hermansen"
]
| "Peacock" is a song by American singer Katy Perry, taken from her third studio album, Teenage Dream (2010). Because the song was filled with suggestive lyrics pertaining to male genitalia, Capitol Records initially opposed the idea of including it on her record. Similar to what happened with another song of hers – "I Kissed a Girl" (2008) – she refused to withdraw it from the record. "Peacock" was panned by music critics and, musically, was compared to the 1980s song "Mickey" by Toni Basil, and Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" (2005). On March 26, 2012, a remix version was released as a promotional single on iTunes.
Despite not being released as a single, the song entered several music charts worldwide. Its least successful charting territory was the United Kingdom, while it performed best in the US, topping the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart for a week, and has been certified Platinum by the RIAA. Perry has performed "Peacock" on several occasions, including during her 2011 world tour California Dreams Tour. When performing the track, the singer usually wears colorful or glittery clothing.
## Production
Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Ester Dean assisted Perry in writing "Peacock" for her third studio album, Teenage Dream, released in 2010. According to Perry, the whole point of writing "Peacock" was to play with words. Midway through recording the album, Perry recalled saying to the people she was working with: "Look I've got a lot of jewels, but I really don't have the crown. I really don't have that full-blown presentation". So she then decided to get back into the studio and work with Stargate, a production team co-producing Teenage Dream, during a late-night session and made several more songs, including "Firework" and "Peacock".
Originally, the singer's recording label, Capitol Records, was against the inclusion of the song as a track on Teenage Dream as they deemed "Peacock" too controversial. "They were all a bit worried about the word 'cock' and it gave me déjà vu because they did the exact same thing with 'I Kissed a Girl,'" Perry stated. Unhappy with the idea of making her music more family friendly, she insisted on including the songs the label objected to. "They said, 'We don't see it as a single, we don't want it on the album.' And I was like, 'You guys are idiots'." When asked about "Peacock", Perry stated: "I'm hoping it will be a gay-pride anthem, peacocks represent a lot of individuality..... It's not just like, 'I wanna see your bulge.'" And then she went on to clarify: "It does have the word cock in it, but art is also in fart! It's all in how you look at it." Prior to the release of Teenage Dream, the singer debuted "Peacock" in early August 2010 when she performed it at the MTV World Stage in Malaysia.
## Composition
"Peacock" is a dance-pop song, with an up-tempo house music beat, that lasts for three minutes and 51 seconds. The song is composed in the key of G minor and is set in time signature of common time, with a tempo of 138 beats per minute. Perry's vocal range spans over an octave, from B<sub>3</sub> to D<sub>5</sub>. Lyrically, the track contains a double entendre with suggestive wording. New York magazine writer Willa Paskin observed that Perry did the obvious with the song's hook ("she used a common word for penis and made it mean penis!"). Paskin also wrote that "Peacock" could perhaps be the most outrageous example of an entirely obvious double entendre. Perry herself has considered it to be the biggest innuendo in the world. During an interview with MTV News, the singer said that she is a fan of using puns and double entendres and often looks for ways to incorporate it into her material. In the song, Perry repeatedly asks to see their peacock, if they are "brave enough" to do so. Its composition was compared to Toni Basil's cheerleader anthem "Mickey" by many reviews as both songs are stomping jams, bursting with double meanings. Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly dubbed it a shamelessly silly revival of Basil's 1980s track. Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone noticed the two songs shared a drum hook, and thought of "Peacock" as a sequel to Gwen Stefani's 2005 single, "Hollaback Girl".
## Critical reception
The track garnered generally negative reviews and criticism from critics, who mostly criticized the song's "cock, cock, cock" line. Greg Kot from the Chicago Tribune said that "Peacock" adapting the beat from Basil's "Mickey" into a suggestive metaphor "barely qualifies as an off-color joke let alone a song." Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic found the singer to have distinguished herself through "desperate vulgarity". Erlewine concluded: "All this stylized provocation is exhausting, and not just because there's so much of it (none of it actually arousing). It's tiring because, at her heart, Perry is old-fashioned and is invested in none of her aggressive teasing."
Elysa Gardner from USA Today advised people who buy the album to skip the song. In his negative review for the album, Matthew Cole of Slant Magazine found it difficult to think of a song more unrefined or more irritating than "Peacock". He believed all reviews of Teenage Dream will discuss the track, which will be because it is "potentially historic in its badness, to the point that, once you've heard it, you too will have to describe it to other people just to convince yourself that it really exists." Spin magazine writer Mikael Wood remarked that the song contains a double entendre that even a performer such as Kesha could find crude.
Writing in music website Sputnikmusic, Rudy Klapper said she would bet that "Peacock" would "never [be] seeing the light of day, primarily because it's a terrible song with a double entendre so blunt it would make Ke\$ha blush". Klapper also said the lyrics do not complement Perry's writing skills. The Washington Post staff writer Chris Richards' review of the track was also negative. Talking about how hooks on Teenage Dream are catchy, but quickly start to erode if listeners pay more attention to the words, he cited "Peacock" as an example of this. Describing its chorus as "an earworm of the highest order," he said some of the lyrics are enough to make people clench their teeth.
## Chart performance
Despite not being released as a single, "Peacock" managed to chart in some territories. The song peaked at number fifty-six on the Canadian Hot 100 and performed similarly in the Czech Republic, where it charted at number fifty-two. The UK Singles Chart was where "Peacock" had its lowest charting entry. In the week ending on September 11, 2010, the track found its peak at number one-hundred-twenty-five. On Billboard's US Dance Club Songs, the song had its highest peak position. After eight weeks of appearing on the chart, "Peacock" reached the top spot, replacing La Roux's "In for the Kill", on December 4, 2010. However, by next week, it was superseded by the Richard Vission song "I Like That". The song also reached number five on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. In June 2014, the song was certified Platinum by the RIAA for selling one million copies.
## Live performances and cover versions
For most performances of "Peacock", the singer usually dons a glittery aquamarine bustier or a colorful piece of clothing attached to her back that is to resemble peacock feathers. Perry's first performance of the song took place during August 2010 at the MTV World Stage. The stage she performed on included props such as lifesize candy canes, background dancers dressed up like candy canes and a video of a blue eye surrounded by peacock feathers playing in the backdrop. While dancing across the stage, Perry wore a white glitter unitard and tutu.
In November, Perry also performed "Peacock" at New York's Roseland Ballroom, where she introduced herself by popping out of a giant cake, dressed in a purple skin-tight cupcake print dress. Additionally, Perry included "Peacock" in her setlist for her worldwide concert tour, California Dreams Tour (February 2011 – January 2012). When singing the song, the performance would include an elaborated feathered fan dance number. She wore a turquoise/green one-piece swimsuit with a peacock tail attached accompanied by female dancers dressed in a similar way, two male dancers and mimes. Concert reviewer Jim Abbott for the Orlando Sentinel felt that detailed performances such as the ones done for "Peacock" were a highlight for the singer's tour.
Monthly LGBT-interest magazine The Advocate called "Peacock" "very gay". Ryan James Yezak, who had already parodied another of Perry's songs, "California Gurls", did the same for "Peacock". While fewer than James Yezak's parody of the former, his "Peacock" video received more than 130,000 reviews on the internet just two days after its release.
The song was included on the 2016 film, How to Be Single.
## Track listing
Digital download – Cory Enemy & Mia Moretti Remix
1. "Peacock" (Cory Enemy & Mia Moretti Remix) – 5:32
Digital download – Yuksek Remix
1. "Peacock" (Yuksek Remix) – 4:19
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the Teenage Dream liner notes.
- Assistant: Tim Robbins
- Mixers: Serban Ghenea
- Mix engineer: John Hanes
- Producers: Stargate
- Recorders: Mikkel S. Eriksen, Miles Walker
- Backing vocals, Lead vocals: Katy Perry
- Writers: Katy Perry, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Ester Dean
## Charts
## Certifications
## See also
- List of Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs number ones of 2010 |
70,967,859 | 1957 Latin Cup | 1,167,244,377 | 1957 club football tournament | [
"International association football competitions hosted by Spain",
"June 1957 sports events in Europe",
"Latin Cup",
"S.L. Benfica matches"
]
| The 1957 Latin Cup (Spanish: Copa Latina de 1957) was the eighth and final edition of the annual Latin Cup. It was contested by the domestic league champions the Southwest European nations of France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The clubs which competed in the tournament were AS Saint-Étienne, AC Milan, SL Benfica, and Real Madrid CF.
The four-match knockout tournament, was hosted in Madrid, Spain at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. In the semifinals on 20 June, SL Benfica defeated AS Saint-Étienne by a score of 1–0, and Real Madrid CF defeated AC Milan by a score of 5–1. The third place match was held on 23 June, where AC Milan defeated AS Saint-Étienne 4–3. The final, which was held on the same day, saw Real Madrid CF claim its second Latin Cup title in a 1–0 victory. A total of 15 goals were scored in the tournament, and Real Madrid's Francisco Gento was the top goalscorer with 3 goals, all of which were scored against AC Milan in the semifinals.
Real Madrid had won the 1956–57 European Cup less than one month before the 1957 Latin Cup and became one of only three teams, together with FC Barcelona and AC Milan, to win the Latin Cup on two occasions. Additionally, the country of Spain was awarded a trophy for its overall success in the prior four Latin Cups.
## Participating teams
The Latin Cup was an international club tournament which was contested by the domestic league champions of France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The tournament served as a regional championship for Southwestern Europe, similar to the Mitropa Cup for Central Europe and Balkans Cup for the Balkans, prior to the establishment of the European Cup. The following league champions qualified for the 1957 Latin Cup:
## Venues
The host of the tournament was Spain and all matches were played at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid.
## Tournament
### Semifinals
Lots were drawn to determine the semifinal matches of the 1957 Latin Cup, and both semifinal matches were held on 20 June. The first match was Benfica versus Saint-Étienne. The match was refereed by Daniel Zariquiegui Izco of the Spanish Football Federation and resulted in a 1–0 victory for Benfica; Portuguese midfielder Francisco Calado scored the match's lone goal.
The second match was Real Madrid versus Milan. Not only were both clubs champions of their respective domestic leagues, but Milan was the Latin Cup's defending champion and Real Madrid had just won its second consecutive European Cup title in Madrid on 30 May 1957. The match refereed by Marcel Lequesne of the French Football Federation and resulted in a 5–1 victory for Real Madrid. Spanish forward Francisco Gento scored the tournament's only hat-trick during the match, scoring three goals.
### Third place match
Milan and Saint-Étienne faced each other in the third place match on 23 June. The match was refereed by Joaquim Fernandes de Campos of the Portuguese Football Federation. Saint-Étienne took an early lead with a 9th minute goal from François Wicart, however, consecutive goals from Milan in the 18th minute by Eduardo Ricagni, the 42nd minute by Amos Mariani, and the 70th minute by Nils Liedholm helped give Milan a 3–1 lead. Saint-Étienne responded with goals from Rachid Mekhloufi in the 78th minute and Eugène N'Jo Léa in the 80th minute to level the match at 3–3, but a goal from Nils Liedholm in the 88th minute allowed Milan to defeat Saint-Étienne by a final score of 4–3.
### Final
The final match was contested by Real Madrid and Benfica on 23 June 1957; Lequesne was the match's referee. Both clubs had previously won the tournament, as Benfica defeated FC Girondins de Bordeaux in 1950 and Real Madrid defeated Stade de Reims in 1955. During the final, Spanish forward Alfredo Di Stéfano scored the match's lone goal at the 50th minute for Real Madrid in a 1–0 victory. Additionally, Portuguese midfielder Zézinho received the only red card of the tournament during the match in the 54th minute. The 1957 Latin Cup was Real Madrid's second Latin Cup title, and Real Madrid was the Latin Cup's last ever champion.
## Bracket
## Statistics
### Goalscorers
A total of 15 goals were scored during the tournament: 6 by Real Madrid, 5 by Milan, 3 by Saint-Étienne, and 1 by Benfica. Gento was the tournament's top scorer, scoring 3 goals in a hat-trick against Milan in the semifinals. Di Stéfano scored the tournament's final goal—the lone goal in the final match against Benfica.
## Aftermath
The 1957 Latin Cup was the final edition of the tournament ever hosted. As happened in 1954, the 1958 edition of the tournament was canceled due to the conflicting schedule of the 1958 FIFA World Cup. Due to the rising popularity of the European Cup, however, the tournament was not hosted again. After the tournament, the four nations which participated in the 1953, 1955, 1956, and 1957 editions of the tournament were allocated points based on their clubs' performances. Spain, which won the 1955 and 1957 editions, was awarded a trophy for topping the other three nations in point totals.
## See also
- 1957 Mitropa Cup, a similar competition |
67,270,590 | Squatting in the Philippines | 1,171,393,065 | Occupation of derelict land or abandoned buildings | [
"History of the Philippines (1946–1965)",
"History of the Philippines (1965–1986)",
"History of the Philippines (1986–present)",
"Housing in the Philippines",
"Poverty in the Philippines",
"Squatting in the Philippines"
]
| Squatting in the Philippines occurs when people build makeshift houses called "barong-barong"; urban areas such as Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao have large informal settlements. The Philippine Statistics Authority has defined a squatter, or alternatively "informal dwellers", as "One who settles on the land of another without title or right or without the owner's consent whether in urban or rural areas". Squatting is criminalized by the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (RA 7279), also known as the Lina Law. There have been various attempts to regularize squatter settlements, such as the Zonal Improvement Program and the Community Mortgage Program. In 2018, the Philippine Statistics Authority estimated that out of the country's population of about 106 million, 4.5 million were homeless.
## Overview
The Philippine Statistics Authority has defined a squatter as "One who settles on the land of another without title or right or without the owner's consent whether in urban or rural areas". Local media and journalists refer to squatters as "informal settlers."
Out of the country's population of about 106 million, an estimated 4.5 million were homeless according to the Philippine Statistics Authority; of these 3 million were in the capital Manila. Causes of homelessness include poverty and destruction of homes due to natural calamities and climate change.
The growth of homelessness and squatting in urban areas are linked to internal migration from poorer regions. Rural poverty, a major factor in internal migration, has been rooted on various factors, including farmer dispossession and land grabbing, violent suppression of peasant movements, decline of the agricultural sector, and the deterioration of living conditions in rural areas.
Residents of informal settlements tend to experience poor living conditions and may lack access to basic services as water, sanitation, and health care.
## History
Squatters build makeshift houses called "barong-barong" on unused land. The occupations increased after World War II as people moved from rural to urban areas. In Cebu City, colonies of squatters emerged after the city was bombed to ruin. By 1974, it was reported that Cebu City had 34 informal settlements and by 1985, it was estimated that there were 232,520 squatters, which had comprised 40% of the city's population. In Davao City, there was a scramble for land previously owned by Japanese people and these occupations were legalized in the 1950s by the government. By 1968, there were an estimated 75,000 squatters living in informal settlements and inner-city slums. At the Port of Manila, land was reclaimed in the 1950s in Tondo and quickly occupied by squatters. By 1968, there were over 20,000 households in the informal settlement. Elsewhere in Manila, parks and military land were occupied. The Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO) was set up in 1970 to represent squatter interests in Tondo and campaign for land rights. It inspired other groups and the Ugnayan ng Maralitang Tagalunsod (UMT) was founded in 1976 to campaign for squatters on a national scale. The first mass eviction on record in Manila was in 1951 and the largest took place in late 1963 and early 1964 when 90,000 people were displaced. By 1978, there were estimated to be two million squatters in Manila, occupying 415 different locations.
President Ferdinand Marcos announced martial law in December 1972 and by 1975 he had introduced a decree criminalizing squatting in an attempt to stop the expansion of informal settlements. The dictatorship often forcibly relocated squatters to sites 30 or 40 km outside cities. First Lady Imelda Marcos wanted to beautify Manila and therefore evicted thousands of squatters when the city hosted the 1974 Miss Universe Pageant and the 1976 meeting of the IMF and World Bank. She commented in 1982 that "professional squatters [were] plain land-grabbers taking advantage of the compassionate society". The government attempted to resettle the squatters elsewhere, only for the squatters to return to their homes which were near where they worked, so the Zonal Improvement Program (ZIP) was started in the late 1970s. Slums were then upgraded in situ: The occupations were regularized and supplied with sanitation and electricity. There were squatters at the U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay and the Clark Air Base in the 1980s. In this time, the government began to forcibly resettle squatters again, moving them to places such as Bagong Silang in Caloocan and Payatas in Quezon City. Resistance to evictions fed into the opposition to the Marcos dictatorship and resulted in the 1986 People Power Revolution.
The Community Mortgage Program was set up in 1992, aiming to help low-income families transition from squatting to affordable housing. By 2001, around 106,000 families had found secure housing in over 800 separate communities. In 1993, slums in Metro Manila were estimated to contain 2.39 million people, or 30.5 per cent of the area's total population and 706,185 people had been assisted by the ZIP. Impoverished squatters lived on landfill sites such as Smokey Mountain and Payatas dumpsite, working as scavengers.
On January 12, 2000, informal settlers living along Circumferential Road 4 (C-4 Road) in Malabon City were forcibly removed from the area by local policemen, who were conducting a clearing operation to make way for the Camanava Mega-Flood Control project, and squatters who refused to cooperate were temporarily sent to the Malabon police station via dump trucks. Up to 93 squatters and policemen sustained injuries from the operation. The Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay, or Federation of Mutual Aid for the Poor) carried out the Pandi housing project occupation in March 2017, which is considered a part of the global Occupy movement with its opposition to social and economic inequality. The occupation of over 5,000 housing units built by the National Housing Authority (NHA) in Bulacan was at first condemned by President Rodrigo Duterte and then regularized. The group then attempted to squat NHA property in Rodriguez, Rizal the following year and in 2019 it picketed the NHA offices in Quezon City.
## Legal
The Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (RA 7279), also known as the Lina Law after its proponent Joey Lina, criminalized squatting yet discouraged evictions except in certain cases, such as when the occupation was carried out by "professional squatters and squatting syndicates". The Marcos decree which had previously outlawed squatting was annulled by the Anti-Squatting Law Repeal Act of 1997 (RA 8368).
The Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, created on December 8, 1986, through Executive Order No. 82, is tasked to formulate policy and implement programs for the urban poor.
The Community Mortgage Program, set up following the People Power Revolution (EDSA I) of 1988, aims to help low-income families who are squatting find secure tenure by establishing community associations to buy land, set up infrastructure, and build houses.
The Philippine Commission on Human Rights recognizes adequate housing as a basic human right and provides guidance for the humane treatment of informal settlers.
In 2021, the Philippine House of Representatives declared a housing emergency in the country through House Resolution 1677. The resolution called on the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and other government agencies to address the housing gap by providing housing to the homeless population and to families living in informal settlements. The department estimated the government's housing backlog at 6.5 million units in 2022.
## See also
- Land reform in the Philippines
- Street children in the Philippines
- Poverty in the Philippines |
45,632,133 | History of Roman and Byzantine domes | 1,152,307,235 | None | [
"Ancient Roman architectural elements",
"Byzantine architecture",
"Domes",
"History of structural engineering"
]
| Domes were a characteristic element of the architecture of Ancient Rome and of its medieval continuation, the Byzantine Empire. They had widespread influence on contemporary and later styles, from Russian and Ottoman architecture to the Italian Renaissance and modern revivals. The domes were customarily hemispherical, although octagonal and segmented shapes are also known, and they developed in form, use, and structure over the centuries. Early examples rested directly on the rotunda walls of round rooms and featured a central oculus for ventilation and light. Pendentives became common in the Byzantine period, provided support for domes over square spaces.
Early wooden domes are known only from a literary source, but the use of wooden formwork, concrete, and unskilled labor enabled domes of monumental size in the late Republic and early Imperial period, such as the so-called "Temple of Mercury" bath hall at Baiae. Nero introduced the dome into Roman palace architecture in the 1st century and such rooms served as state banqueting halls, audience rooms, or throne rooms. The Pantheon's dome, the largest and most famous example, was built of concrete in the 2nd century and may have served as an audience hall for Hadrian. Imperial mausolea, such as the Mausoleum of Diocletian, were domed beginning in the 3rd century. Some smaller domes were built with a technique of using ceramic tubes in place of a wooden centering for concrete, or as a permanent structure embedded in the concrete, but light brick became the preferred building material over the course of the 4th and 5th centuries. Brick ribs allowed for a thinner structure and facilitated the use of windows in the supporting walls, replacing the need for an oculus as a light source.
Christian baptisteries and shrines were domed in the 4th century, such as the Lateran Baptistery and the likely wooden dome over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Constantine's octagonal church in Antioch may have been a precedent for similar buildings for centuries afterward. The first domed basilica may have been built in the 5th century, with a church in southern Turkey being the earliest proposed example, but the 6th century architecture of Justinian made domed church architecture standard throughout the Roman east. His Hagia Sophia and Church of the Holy Apostles inspired copies in later centuries.
Cruciform churches with domes at their crossings, such as the churches of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki and St. Nicholas at Myra, were typical of 7th and 8th century architecture and bracing a dome with barrel vaults on four sides became the standard structural system. Domes over windowed drums of cylindrical or polygonal shape were standard after the 9th century. In the empire's later period, smaller churches were built with smaller diameter domes, normally less than 6 meters (20 ft) after the 10th century. Exceptions include the 11th century domed-octagons of Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni, and the 12th century Chora Church, among others. The cross-in-square plan, with a single dome at the crossing or five domes in a quincunx pattern, as at the Church of St. Panteleimon, was the most popular type from the 10th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
## Overview
Rounded arches, vaults, and domes distinguish Roman architecture from that of Ancient Greece and were facilitated by the use of concrete and brick. By varying the weight of the aggregate material in the concrete, the weight of the concrete could be altered, allowing lighter layers to be laid at the top of concrete domes. But concrete domes also required expensive wooden formwork, also called shuttering, to be built and kept in place during the curing process, which would usually have to be destroyed to be removed. Formwork for brick domes need not be kept in place as long and could be more easily reused. The mortar and aggregate of Roman concrete was built up in horizontal layers laid by hand against wooden form-work with the thickness of the layers determined by the length of the workday, rather than being poured into a mold as concrete is today. Roman concrete domes were thus built similarly to the earlier corbel domes of the Mediterranean region, although they have different structural characteristics. The aggregate used by the Romans was often rubble, but lightweight aggregate in the upper levels served to reduce stresses. Empty "vases and jugs" could be hidden inside to reduce weight. The dry concrete mixtures used by the Romans were compacted with rams to eliminate voids, and added animal blood acted as a water reducer. Because Roman concrete was weak in tension, it did not provide any structural advantage over the use of brick or stone. But, because it could be constructed with unskilled slave labor, it provided a constructional advantage and facilitated the building of large-scale domes.
Roman domes were used in baths, villas, palaces, and tombs. Oculi were common features. They were customarily hemispherical in shape and partially or totally concealed on the exterior. In order to buttress the horizontal thrusts of a large hemispherical masonry dome, the supporting walls were built up beyond the base to at least the haunches of the dome and the dome was then also sometimes covered with a conical or polygonal roof. A variety of other shapes, including shallow saucer domes, segmental domes, and ribbed domes were also sometimes used. The audience halls of many imperial palaces were domed. Domes were also very common over polygonal garden pavilions. Domes were "closely associated with senatorial, imperial, and state-sponsored patrons" and proliferated in the capital cities and other cities with imperial affiliations. Construction and development of domes declined in the west with the decline and fall of the western portion of the empire.
In Byzantine architecture, a supporting structure of four arches with pendentives between them allowed the spaces below domes to be opened up. Pendentives allowed for weight loads to be concentrated at just four points on a more practical square plan, rather than a circle. Until the 9th century, domes were low with thick buttressing and did not project much into the exterior of their buildings. Drums were cylindrical when used and likewise low and thick. After the 9th century, domes were built higher and used polygonal drums decorated with engaged columns and arcades. Exterior dome decoration was more elaborate by the 12th century and included engaged columns along with niches, blind arcades, and string courses. Multiple domes on a single building were normal.
Domes were important elements of baptisteries, churches, and tombs. They were normally hemispherical and had, with occasional exceptions, windowed drums. Roofing for domes ranged from simple ceramic tile to more expensive, more durable, and more form-fitting lead sheeting. The domes and drums typically incorporated wooden tension rings at several levels to resist deformation in the mortar and allow for faster construction. Metal clamps between stone cornice blocks, metal tie rods, and metal chains were also used to stabilize domed buildings. Timber belts at the bases of domes helped to stabilize the walls below them during earthquakes, but the domes themselves remained vulnerable to collapse. The surviving ribbed or pumpkin dome examples in Constantinople are structurally equivalent and those techniques were used interchangeably, with the number of divisions corresponding to the number of windows. Aided by the small scale of churches after the 6th century, such ribbed domes could be built with formwork only for the ribs. Pumpkin domes could have been built in self-supporting rings and small domical vaults were effectively corbelled, dispensing with formwork altogether.
## History
### Late Republic and early Imperial period
Roman baths played a leading role in the development of domed construction in general, and monumental domes in particular. Modest domes in baths dating from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC are seen in Pompeii, in the cold rooms of the Terme Stabiane and the Terme del Foro. These domes are very conical in shape, similar to those on an Assyrian bas-relief found in Nineveh. At a Roman era tepidarium in Cabrera de Mar, Spain, a dome has been identified from the middle of the 2nd century BC that used a refined version of the parallel arch construction found in an earlier Hellenistic bath dome in Sicily. According to Vitruvius, the temperature and humidity of domed warm rooms could be regulated by raising or lowering bronze discs located under an oculus. Domes were particularly well suited to the hot rooms of baths circular in plan to facilitate even heating from the walls. However, the extensive use of domes did not occur before the 1st century AD.
Varro's book on agriculture describes an aviary with a wooden dome decorated with the eight winds that is compared by analogy to the eight winds depicted on the Tower of the Winds, which was built in Athens at about the same time. This aviary with its wooden dome may represent a fully developed type. Wooden domes in general would have allowed for very wide spans. Their earlier use may have inspired the development and introduction of large stone domes of previously unprecedented size. Complex wooden forms were necessary for dome centering and support during construction, and they seem to have eventually become more efficient and standardized over time.
Domes reached monumental size in the Roman Imperial period. Although imprints of the formwork itself have not survived, deformations from the ideal of up to 22 centimeters (8.7 in) at the so-called "Temple of Mercury" in Baiae suggest a centering of eight radiating frames, with horizontal connectors supporting radial formwork for the shallow dome. The building, actually a concrete frigidarium pool for a bathhouse, dates to either the late Roman Republic, or the reign of the first emperor Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD), making it the first large Roman dome. There are five openings in the dome: a circular oculus and four square skylights. The dome has a span of 21.5 meters (71 ft) and is the largest known dome built before that of the Pantheon. It is also the earliest preserved concrete dome.
### First century
While there are earlier examples in the Republican period and early Imperial period, the growth of domed construction increased under Emperor Nero and the Flavians in the 1st century AD, and during the 2nd century. Centrally planned halls become increasingly important parts of palace and palace villa layouts beginning in the 1st century, serving as state banqueting halls, audience rooms, or throne rooms. Formwork was arranged either horizontally or radially, but there is not enough surviving evidence from the 1st and 2nd centuries to say what was typical.
The opulent palace architecture of the Emperor Nero (54 – 68 AD) marks an important development. There is evidence of a dome in his Domus Transitoria at the intersection of two corridors, resting on four large piers, which may have had an oculus at the center. In Nero's Domus Aurea, or "Golden House", planned by Severus and Celer, the walls of a large octagonal room transition to an octagonal domical vault, which then transitions to a dome with an oculus. This is the earliest known example of a dome in the city of Rome itself.
The Domus Aurea was built after 64 AD and the dome was over 13 meters (43 ft) in diameter. This octagonal and semicircular dome is made of concrete and the oculus is made of brick. The radial walls of the surrounding rooms buttress the dome, allowing the octagonal walls directly beneath it to contain large openings under flat arches and for the room itself to be unusually well lit. Because there is no indication that mosaic or other facing material had ever been applied to the surface of the dome, it may have been hidden behind a tent-like fabric canopy like the pavilion tents of Hellenistic (and earlier Persian) rulers. The oculus is unusually large, more than two-fifths the span of the room, and it may have served to support a lightweight lantern structure or tholos, which would have covered the opening. Circular channels on the upper surface of the oculus also support the idea that this lantern, perhaps itself domed, was the rotating dome referred to in written accounts.
According to Suetonius, the Domus Aurea had a dome that perpetually rotated on its base in imitation of the sky. It was reported in 2009 that newly discovered foundations of a round room may be those of a rotating domed dining hall. Also reported in contemporary sources is a ceiling over a dining hall in the palace fitted with pipes so that perfume could rain from the ceiling, although it is not known whether this was a feature of the same dome. The expensive and lavish decoration of the palace caused such scandal that it was abandoned soon after Nero's death and public buildings such as the Baths of Titus and the Colosseum were built at the site.
The only intact dome from the reign of Emperor Domitian is a 16.1-meter (53 ft) wide example in what may have been a nymphaeum at his villa at Albano. It is now the church of . Domitian's 92 AD Domus Augustana established the apsidal semi-dome as an imperial motif. Square chambers in his palace on the Palatine Hill used pendentives to support domes. His palace contained three domes resting over walls with alternating apses and rectangular openings. An octagonal domed hall existed in the domestic wing. Unlike Nero's similar octagonal dome, its segments extended all the way to the oculus. The dining hall of this private palace, called the Coenatio Jovis, or Dining Hall of Jupiter, contained a rotating ceiling like the one Nero had built, but with stars set into the simulated sky.
### Second century
During the reign of Emperor Trajan, domes and semi-domes over exedras were standard elements of Roman architecture, possibly due to the efforts of Trajan's architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, who was famed for his engineering ability. Two rotundas 20 meters (66 ft) in diameter were finished in 109 AD as part of the Baths of Trajan, built over the Domus Aurea, and exedras 13 and 18 meters (43 and 59 ft) wide were built as part of the markets north-east of his forum. The architecture of Trajan's successor, Hadrian, continued this style. Three 100-foot (30 m) wide exedras at Trajan's Baths have patterns of coffering that, as in the later Pantheon, align with lower niches only on the axes and diagonals and, also as in the Pantheon, that alignment is sometimes with the ribs between the coffers, rather than with the coffers themselves.
The Pantheon in Rome, completed by Emperor Hadrian as part of the Baths of Agrippa, has the most famous, best preserved, and largest Roman dome. Its diameter was more than twice as wide as any known earlier dome. Although considered an example of Hadrianic architecture, there is brickstamp evidence that the rebuilding of the Pantheon in its present form was begun under Trajan. Speculation that the architect of the Pantheon was Apollodorus has not been proven, although there are stylistic commonalities between his large coffered half-domes at Trajan's Baths and the dome of the Pantheon. Other indicators that the designer was either Apollodorus or someone in his circle who was "closer in artistic sensibility to Trajan’s era than Hadrian’s" are the monumental size and the incorporation of tiny passages in the structure. The building's dimensions seem to reference Archimedes' treatise On the Sphere and Cylinder, the dome may use rows of 28 coffers because 28 was considered by the Pythagoreans to be a perfect number, and the design balances its complexity with underlying geometrical simplicity. Dating from the 2nd century, it is an unreinforced concrete dome 43.4 meters (142 ft) wide resting on a circular wall, or rotunda, 6 meters (20 ft) thick. This rotunda, made of brick-faced concrete, contains a large number of relieving arches and voids. Seven interior niches and the entrance way divide the wall structurally into eight virtually independent piers. These openings and additional voids account for a quarter of the rotunda wall's volume. The only opening in the dome is the brick-lined oculus at the top, 9 meters (30 ft) in diameter, that provides light and ventilation for the interior.
The shallow coffering in the dome accounts for a less than five percent reduction in the dome's mass, and is mostly decorative. The aggregate material hand-placed in the concrete is heaviest at the base of the dome and changes to lighter materials as the height increases, dramatically reducing the stresses in the finished structure. In fact, many commentators have cited the Pantheon as an example of the revolutionary possibilities for monolithic architecture provided by the use of Roman pozzolana concrete. However, vertical cracks seem to have developed very early, such that in practice the dome acts as an array of arches with a common keystone, rather than as a single unit. The exterior step-rings used to compress the "haunches" of the dome, which would not be necessary if the dome acted as a monolithic structure, may be an acknowledgement of this by the builders themselves. Such buttressing was common in Roman arch construction. The cracks in the dome can be seen from the upper internal chambers of the rotunda, but have been covered by re-rendering on the inside surface of the dome and by patching on the outside of the building. The Pantheon's roof was originally covered with gilt bronze tiles, but these were removed in 663 by Emperor Constans II and replaced with lead roofing.
The function of the Pantheon remains an open question. Strangely for a temple, its inscription, which attributes this third building at the site to the builder of the first, Marcus Agrippa, does not mention any god or group of gods. Its name, Pantheon, comes from the Greek for "all gods" but is unofficial, and it was not included in the list of temples restored by Hadrian in the Historia Augusta. Circular temples were small and rare, and Roman temples traditionally allowed for only one divinity per room. The Pantheon more resembles structures found in imperial palaces and baths. Hadrian is believed to have held court in the rotunda using the main apse opposite the entrance as a tribune, which may explain its very large size. Later Roman buildings similar to the Pantheon include a (c. 145) in the old Hellenistic city of Pergamon and the so-called "Round Temple" at Ostia (c. 230–240), which may have been related to the Imperial cult. The Pergamon dome was about 80 Roman feet wide, versus about 150 for the Pantheon, and made of brick over a cut stone rotunda. The Ostia dome was 60 Roman feet wide and made of brick-faced concrete. No later dome built in the Imperial era came close to the span of the Pantheon. It remained the largest dome in the world for more than a millennium and is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.
Use of concrete facilitated the complex geometry of the octagonal domed hall at the 2nd century Small Thermal Baths of Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. The vaulting has collapsed, but a virtual reconstruction suggests that the walls of the octagonal hall, which alternate flat and convex, merged into a spherical cap. Segmented domes made of radially concave wedges, or of alternating concave and flat wedges, appear under Hadrian in the 2nd century and most preserved examples of the style date from this period. Hadrian's villa has examples at the Piazza D'Oro and in the semidome of the Serapeum. Recorded details of the decoration of the segmented dome at the Piazza D'Oro suggests it was made to evoke a billowing tent, perhaps in imitation of the canopies used by Hellenistic kings. Other examples exist at the Hadrianic baths of Otricoli and the so-called "Temple of Venus" at Baiae. This style of dome required complex centering and radially oriented formwork to create its tight curves, and the earliest surviving direct evidence of radial formwork is found at the caldarium of the Large Baths at Hadrian's villa. Hadrian was an amateur architect and it was apparently domes of Hadrian's like these that Trajan's architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, derisively called "pumpkins" prior to Hadrian becoming emperor. According to Dio Cassius, the memory of this insult contributed to Hadrian as emperor having Apollodorus exiled and killed.
In the middle of the 2nd century, some of the largest domes were built near present-day Naples, as part of large bath complexes taking advantage of the volcanic hot springs in the area. At the bath complex at Baiae, there are remains of a collapsed dome spanning 26.3 meters (86 ft), called the "Temple of Venus", and a larger half-collapsed dome spanning 29.5 meters (97 ft) called the "Temple of Diana". The dome of the "Temple of Diana", which may have been a nymphaeum as part of the bath complex, can be seen to have had an ogival section made of horizontal layers of mortared brick and capped with light tufa. It dates to the second half of the 2nd century and is the third largest dome known from the Roman world. The second largest is the collapsed "Temple of Apollo" built nearby along the shore of Lake Avernus. The span cannot be precisely measured due to its ruined state, but it was more than 36 meters (118 ft) in diameter.
Octagonal rooms of the Baths of Antoninus in Carthage were covered with cloister vaults and have been dated to 145–160.
In the second half of the 2nd century in North Africa, a distinctive type of nozzle tube shape was developed in the tradition of the terracotta tube dome at the Hellenistic era baths of Morgantina, an idea that had been preserved in the use of interlocking terracotta pots for kiln roofs. This tube could be mass-produced on potter's wheels and interlocked to form a permanent centering for concrete domes, avoiding the use of wooden centering altogether. This spread mainly in the western Mediterranean.
Although rarely used, the pendentive dome was known in 2nd century Roman architecture and possibly earlier, in funerary monuments such as the Sedia dei Diavolo and the Torracio della Secchina on the Via Nomentana. Pendentive domes would be used much more widely in the Byzantine period. A "Roman tomb in Palestine at Kusr-en-Nêuijîs" had a pendentive dome over the square intersection of cruciform barrel vaults and has been dated to the 2nd century. A small dome on spherical pendentives at Beurey-Beauguay on the Côte-d'Or department of France has been dated to the 2nd or 3rd century.
### Third century
The large rotunda of the Baths of Agrippa, the oldest public baths in Rome, has been dated to the Severan period at the beginning of the 3rd century, but it is not known whether this is an addition or simply a reconstruction of an earlier domed rotunda.
In the 3rd century, imperial mausolea began to be built as domed rotundas rather than tumulus structures or other types, following similar monuments by private citizens. Pagan and Christian domed mausolea from this time can be differentiated in that the structures of the buildings also reflect their religious functions. The pagan buildings are typically two story, dimly lit, free-standing structures with a lower crypt area for the remains and an upper area for devotional sacrifice. Christian domed mausolea contain a single well-lit space and are usually attached to a church. The first St. Peter's Basilica would later be built near a preexisting early 3rd century domed rotunda that may have been a mausoleum. In the 5th century the rotunda would be dedicated to St. Andrew and joined to the Mausoleum of Honorius.
Examples from the 3rd century include the brick dome of the Mausoleum of Diocletian, and the mausoleum at Villa Gordiani. The Villa Gordiani also contains remains of an oval gored dome. The Mausoleum of Diocletian uses small arched squinches of brick built up from a circular base in an overlapping scales pattern, called a "stepped squinches dome". The scales pattern was a popular Hellenistic motif adopted by the Parthians and Sasanians, and such domes are likely related to Persian "squinch vaults". In addition to the mausoleum, the Palace of Diocletian also contains a rotunda near the center of the complex that may have served as a throne room. It has side niches similar to those of an octagonal mausoleum but was located at the end of an apparently barrel-vaulted hall like the arrangement found in later Sasanian palaces.
Masonry domes were less common in the Roman provinces, although the 3rd century "Temple of Venus" at Baalbek was built with a stone dome 10 meters (33 ft) in diameter. A stone corbelled dome 5.806 meters (19.05 ft) wide, later known as "Arthur's O'on", was located in Scotland three kilometers north of the Falkirk fort on the Antonine Wall and may have been a Roman victory monument from the reign of Carausius. It was destroyed in 1743.
The technique of building lightweight domes with interlocking hollow ceramic tubes further developed in North Africa and Italy in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries. By the 4th century, the thin and lightweight tubed vaulting had become a vaulting technique in its own right, rather than simply serving as a permanent centering for concrete. It was used in early Christian buildings in Italy. Arranging these terracotta tubes in a continuous spiral created a dome that was not strong enough for very large spans, but required only minimal centering and formwork. The later dome of the Baptistry of Neon in Ravenna is an example.
### Fourth century
In the 4th century, Roman domes proliferated due to changes in the way domes were constructed, including advances in centering techniques and the use of brick ribbing. The so-called "Temple of Minerva Medica", for example, used brick ribs along with step-rings and lightweight pumice aggregate concrete to form a decagonal dome. The material of choice in construction gradually transitioned during the 4th and 5th centuries from stone or concrete to lighter brick in thin shells. The use of ribs stiffened the structure, allowing domes to be thinner with less massive supporting walls. Windows were often used in these walls and replaced the oculus as a source of light, although buttressing was sometimes necessary to compensate for large openings. The Mausoleum of Santa Costanza has windows beneath the dome and nothing but paired columns beneath that, using a surrounding barrel vault to buttress the structure.
The 24-meter (79 ft) dome of the Mausoleum of Galerius was built around 300 AD close to the imperial palace as either a mausoleum or a throne room. It was converted into a church in the 5th century. Also in Thessaloniki, at the Tetrarchic palace, an octagonal building has been excavated with a 24.95 meter span that may have been used as a throne room. It is known not to have been used as a church and was unsuitable as a mausoleum, and was used for some period between about 311 and when it was destroyed before about 450. The octagonal "Domus Aurea", or "Golden Octagon", built by Emperor Constantine in 327 at the imperial palace of Antioch likewise had a domical roof, presumably of wood and covered with gilded lead. It was dedicated two years after the Council of Nicea to "Harmony, the divine power that unites Universe, Church, and Empire". It may have been both the cathedral of Antioch as well as the court church of Constantine, and the precedent for the later octagonal plan churches near palaces of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and Hagia Sophia by Justinian and Aachen Cathedral by Charlemagne. The dome was rebuilt by 537–8 with cypress wood from Daphne after being destroyed in a fire. Most domes on churches in the Syrian region were built of wood, like that of the later Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and the dome of the Domus Aurea survived a series of earthquakes in the 6th century that destroyed the rest of the building. There is no record of the church being rebuilt after the earthquake of 588, perhaps due to the general abandonment of many public buildings in what was no longer a capital of the Empire.
Constantine built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem around 333 as a large basilica with an octagonal structure at the eastern end, over the cave said to be the birthplace of Jesus. The domed octagon had an external diameter of 18 meters. It was later destroyed and when rebuilt by Justinian the octagon was replaced with a tri-apsidal structure.
Centralized buildings of circular or octagonal plan also became used for baptistries and reliquaries due to the suitability of those shapes for assembly around a single object. Baptisteries began to be built in the manner of domed mausolea during the 4th century in Italy. The octagonal Lateran Baptistery or the baptistery of the Holy Sepulchre may have been the first, and the style spread during the 5th century. In the second half of the fourth century, domed octagonal baptisteries similar to the form of contemporary imperial mausolea developed in the region of North Italy near Milan. Examples include the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Fonte in Milan [it] (late 4th century), a domed baptistery in Naples (4th to 6th centuries), and a baptistery in Aquileia (late 4th century). Part of a baths complex begun in the early 4th century, the brick Church of St. George in Sofia was a caldarium that was converted in the middle of the fifth century. It is a rotunda with four apse niches in the corners. The best preserved example of Roman architecture in the city, it has been used as a baptistery, church, mosque, and mausoleum over the centuries. The dome rises to about 14 m from the floor with a diameter of about 9.5m. Its original function as a hypocaust hall is disputed and, based on its form, the building may originally have been a Christian martyrium. It was half-destroyed by the Huns in 447 and was rebuilt in the 11th century.
In the middle of the 4th century in Rome, domes were built as part of the Baths of Constantine and the Baths of Helena [it]. Domes over the calderia, or hot rooms, of the older Baths of Agrippa and the Baths of Caracalla were also rebuilt at this time. Between the second half of the 4th century and the middle of the 5th century, domed mausolea for wealthy families were built attached to a new type of martyrial basilica before burials within the basilica itself, closer to the martyr's remains, made such attached buildings obsolete. A pagan rotunda from this period located on the Via Sacra was later incorporated into the Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian as a vestibule around 526.
Christian mausolea and shrines developed into the "centralized church" type, often with a dome over a raised central space. The Church of the Holy Apostles, or Apostoleion, probably planned by Constantine but built by his successor Constantius in the new capital city of Constantinople, combined the congregational basilica with the centralized shrine. With a similar plan to that of the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites, four naves projected from a central rotunda containing Constantine's tomb and spaces for the tombs of the twelve Apostles. Above the center may have been a clerestory with a wooden dome roofed with bronze sheeting and gold accents. The oblong decagon of today's St. Gereon's Basilica in Cologne, Germany, was built upon an extraordinary and richly decorated 4th century Roman building with an apse, semi-domed niches, and dome. A church built in the city's northern cemetery, its original dedication is unknown. It may have been built by Julianus, the governor of Gaul from 355 to 360 who would later become emperor, as a mausoleum for his family. The oval space may have been patterned after imperial audience halls or buildings such as the Temple of Minerva Medica.
The largest centrally planned Early Christian church, Milan's San Lorenzo Maggiore, was built in the middle of the 4th century while that city served as the capital of the Western Empire and may have been domed with a light material, such as timber or cane. There are two theories about the shape of this dome: a Byzantine-style dome on spherical pendentives with a ring of windows similar to domes of the later Justinian era, or an octagonal cloister vault following Roman trends and like the vaulting over the site's contemporary chapel of Saint Aquiline, possibly built with vaulting tubes, pieces of which had been found in excavations. Although these tubes have been shown to date from a medieval reconstruction, there is evidence supporting the use of Roman concrete in the original. Alternatively, the central covering may have been a square groin vault. The building may have been the church of the nearby imperial palace and a proposed construction between 355-374 under the Arian bishop Auxentius of Milan, who later "suffered a kind of damnatio memoriae at the hands of his orthodox successors", may explain the lack of records about it. Fires in 1071 and 1075 damaged the building and the central covering collapsed in 1103. It was rebuilt with a Romanesque dome that lasted until 1573, when it collapsed and was replaced by the present structure. The original vaulting was concealed by a square drum externally rather than the octagon of today, which dates from the 16th century.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was likely built with a wooden dome over the shrine by the end of the 4th century. The rotunda, 33.7 meters (111 ft) in diameter and centered on the tomb of Christ, consisted of a domed center room surrounded by an ambulatory. The dome rose over a ground floor, gallery, and clerestory and may have had an oculus. The dome was about 21 meters (69 ft) wide. Razed to the ground in 1009 by the Fatimid Caliph, it was rebuilt in 1048 by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, reportedly with a mosaic depicting Christ and the Twelve Apostles. The current dome is a 1977 renovation in thin reinforced concrete.
### Fifth century
By the 5th century, structures with small-scale domed cross plans existed across the Christian world. Examples include the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, the martyrium attached to the Basilica of San Simpliciano, and churches in Macedonia and on the coast of Asia Minor. In Italy, the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Naples and the Church of Santa Maria della Croce in Casarano have surviving early Christian domes. In Tolentino, the mausoleum of Catervus was modeled on the Pantheon, but at one-quarter scale and with three protruding apses, around 390-410. The Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna was completed in the middle of the 5th century and there were 5th century domes in the baptisteries at Padula and Novara. Small brick domes are also found in towers of Constantinople's early 5th century land walls. Underground cisterns in Constantinople, such as the Cistern of Philoxenos and the Basilica Cistern, were composed of a grid of columns supporting small domes, rather than groin vaults. The square bay with an overhead sail vault or dome on pendentives became the basic unit of architecture in the early Byzantine centuries, found in a variety of combinations.
Early examples of Byzantine domes existed over the hexagonal hall of the Palace of Antiochos, the hexagon at Gülhane, the martyium of Sts. Karpos and Papylos, and the rotunda at the Myrelaion. The 5th century St. Mary's church in Ephesus had small rectangular side rooms with sail vaults made of arched brick courses. The brick dome of the baptistery at St. Mary's was composed of a series of tightly arched meridional sections. The Church of Saint Simeon Stylites likely had a wooden polygonal dome over its central 27-meter (89 ft) wide octagon.
In the city of Rome, at least 58 domes in 44 buildings are known to have been built before domed construction ended in the middle of the 5th century. The last imperial domed mausoleum in the city was that of Emperor Honorius, built in 415 next to St. Peter's Basilica. It was demolished in 1519 as part of the rebuilding of St. Peter's, but had a dome 15.7 meters wide and its appearance is known from some images. The last domed church in the city of Rome for centuries was Santo Stefano al Monte Celio around 460. It had an unusual centralized plan and a 22 meter wide dome made with vaulting tubes [it], a technique that may have been imported from the new western capital of Ravenna. Although they continued to be built elsewhere in Italy, domes would not be built again within Rome until 1453. Other 5th century Italian domes may include a church at Casaranello [it] (first half of the 5th century), the chapel of San Vittore in Milan [it] at the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, the chapel of St. Maria Mater Domini in the church of San Felice and Fortunato in Vicenza [it], and Sicily's Cuba [it] of Malvagna (5th or 6th century) and San Pietro ad Baias (5th or 6th century).
The Church of the Kathisma was built along the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem around 456 with an octagonal plan. It was built over the site of a rock said to be used as a seat by the Virgin Mary as she traveled to Bethlehem while pregnant with Jesus, corresponding to a story told in the Protoevangelium of James. The outer diameter was similar to that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchur at 26–27 meters, and the innermost octagon supported a dome 15.5 meters wide.
With the end of the Western Roman Empire, domes became a signature feature of the church architecture of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire. A transition from timber-roofed basilicas to vaulted churches seems to have occurred there between the late 5th century and the 7th century, with early examples in Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Cilicia. The first known domed basilica may have been a church at Meriamlik in southern Turkey, dated to between 471 and 494, although the ruins do not provide a definitive answer. It is possible earlier examples existed in Constantinople, where it has been suggested that the plan for the Meriamlik church itself was designed, but no domed basilica has been found there before the 6th century.
### Sixth century
The 6th century marks a turning point for domed church architecture. Centrally planned domed churches had been built since the 4th century for very particular functions, such as palace churches or martyria, with a slight widening of use around 500 AD, but most church buildings were timber-roofed halls on the basilica plan. The Church of St. Polyeuctus in Constantinople (524–527) may have been built as a large and lavish domed basilica similar to the Meriamlik church of fifty years before—and to the later Hagia Irene of Emperor Justinian—by Anicia Juliana, a descendant of the former imperial house, although the linear walls suggest a timber roof, rather than a brick dome. There is a story that she used the contribution to public funds that she had promised Justinian on his ascension to the throne to roof her church in gold. The church included an inscription praising Juliana for having "surpassed Solomon" with the building, and it may have been with this in mind that Justinian would later say of his Hagia Sophia, "Solomon, I have vanquished thee!".
In the second third of the 6th century, church building by the Emperor Justinian used the domed cross unit on a monumental scale, in keeping with Justinian's emphasis on bold architectural innovation. His church architecture emphasized the central dome and his architects made the domed brick-vaulted central plan standard throughout the Roman east. This divergence with the Roman west from the second third of the 6th century may be considered the beginning of a "Byzantine" architecture. Timber-roofed basilicas, which had previously been the standard church form, would continue to be so in the medieval west.
The earliest existing of Justinian's domed buildings may be the central plan Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople, completed by 536. It is called the "Little Hagia Sophia" mosque today, but may have been begun five years earlier than that building. The dome rests on an octagonal base created by eight arches on piers and is divided into sixteen sections. Those sections above the flat sides of the octagon are flat and contain a window at their base, alternating with sections from the corners of the octagon that are scalloped, creating an unusual kind of pumpkin dome. Its dates of construction are disputed and may have begun in 532. The alternating scalloped and flat surfaces of the current dome resemble those in Hadrian's half-dome Serapeum in Tivoli, but may have replaced an original drum and dome similar to that over the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. The building was built within the precinct of the Palace of Hormistas, the residence of Justinian before his ascension to the throne in 527, and includes an inscription mentioning the "sceptered Justinian" and "God-crowned Theodora".
The city of Ravenna, Italy, had served as the capital of the Western Roman Empire after Milan from 402 and the capital of the subsequent kingdoms of Odoacer and of Theodoric until Justinian's reconquest in 540. An octagonal building in Ravenna, begun under Theodoric in 525, was completed under the Byzantines in 547 as the Basilica of San Vitale and contains a terracotta dome. It may belong to a school of architecture from 4th and 5th century Milan. The building is similar to the Byzantine Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and the later Chrysotriklinos, or throne hall and palace church of Constantinople, and it would be used as the model for Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aix-la-Chapelle. Hollow amphorae were fitted inside one another to provide a lightweight structure for the dome and avoid additional buttressing. It is 18 meters (59 ft) in diameter. The amphorae were arranged in a continuous spiral, which required minimal centering and formwork but was not strong enough for large spans. The dome was covered with a timber roof, which would be the favored practice for later medieval architects in Italy although it was unusual at the time.
After the Nika Revolt destroyed much of the city of Constantinople in 532, including the churches of Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") and Hagia Irene ("Holy Peace"), Justinian had the opportunity to rebuild. Both had been basilica plan churches and both were rebuilt as domed basilicas, although the Hagia Sophia was rebuilt on a much grander scale. Built by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus in Constantinople between 532 and 537, the Hagia Sophia has been called the greatest building in the world. It is an original and innovative design with no known precedents in the way it covers a basilica plan with dome and semi-domes. Periodic earthquakes in the region have caused three partial collapses of the dome and necessitated repairs. The precise shape of the original central dome completed in 537 was significantly different from the current one and, according to contemporary accounts, much bolder.
Procopius wrote that the original dome seemed "not to rest upon solid masonry, but to cover the space with its golden dome suspended from heaven." Byzantine chronicler John Malalas reported that this dome was 20 byzantine feet lower than its replacement. One theory is that the original dome continued the curve of the existing pendentives (which were partially reconstructed after its collapse), creating a massive sail vault pierced with a ring of windows. This vault would have been part of a theoretical sphere 46 meters (151 ft) in diameter (the distance from the base of one pendentive to the base of the one opposite), 7 percent greater than the span of the Pantheon's dome. Another theory raises the shallow cap of this dome (the portion above what are today the pendentives) on a relatively short recessed drum containing the windows. This first dome partially collapsed due to an earthquake in 558 and the design was then revised to the present profile. Earthquakes also caused partial collapses of the dome in 989 and 1346, so that the present dome consists of portions dating from the 6th century, on the north and south sides, and portions from the 10th and 14th centuries on the west and east sides, respectively. There are irregularities where these sectors meet.
The current central dome, above the pendentives, is about 750 millimeters (30 in) thick. It is about 32 meters (105 ft) wide and contains 40 radial ribs that spring from between the 40 windows at its base. Four of the windows were blocked as part of repairs in the 10th century. The ring of windows at the base of the central dome are in the portion where the greatest hoop tension would have been expected and so they may have been used to help alleviate cracking along the meridians. Iron cramps between the marble blocks of its cornice helped to reduce outward thrusts at the base and limit cracking, like the wooden tension rings used in other Byzantine brick domes. The dome and pendentives are supported by four large arches springing from four piers. Additionally, two huge semi-domes of similar proportion are placed on opposite sides of the central dome and themselves contain smaller semi-domes between an additional four piers. The Hagia Sophia, as both the cathedral of Constantinople and the church of the adjacent Great Palace of Constantinople, has a form of octagonal plan.
In Constantinople, Justinian also tore down the aging Church of the Holy Apostles and rebuilt it on a grander scale between 536 and 550. The original building was a cruciform basilica with a central domed mausoleum. Justinian's replacement was apparently likewise cruciform but with a central dome and four flanking domes. The central dome over the crossing had pendentives and windows in its base, while the four domes over the arms of the cross had pendentives but no windows. The domes appear to have been radically altered between 944 and 985 by the addition of windowed drums beneath all five domes and by raising the central dome higher than the others. The second most important church in the city after the Hagia Sophia, it fell into disrepair after the Latin occupation of Constantinople between 1204 and 1261 and it was razed to the ground by Mehmed the Conqueror in 1461 to build his Fatih Mosque on the site. Justinian's Basilica of St. John at Ephesus and Venice's St Mark's Basilica are derivative of Holy Apostles. More loosely, the Cathedral of St. Front and the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua are also derived from this church.
Justinian and his successors modernized frontier fortifications throughout the century. The example at Qasr ibn Wardan (564) in the desert of eastern Syria is particularly impressive, containing a governor's palace, barracks, and a church built with techniques and to plans possibly imported from Constantinople. The church dome is unusual in that the pendentives sprang from an octagonal drum, rather than the four main arches, and in that it was made of brick, which was rare in Syria.
The Golden Triclinium, or Chrysotriklinos, of the Great Palace of Constantinople served as an audience hall for the Emperor as well as a palace chapel. Nothing of it has survived except descriptions, which indicate that it had a pumpkin dome containing sixteen windows in its webs and that the dome was supported by the arches of eight niches connecting to adjoining rooms in the building's likely circular plan. Alternatively, the building may have been octagonal in plan, rather than circular. The building was not free-standing and was located at the intersection of the public and private parts of the palace. Smaller windows filled with thin sheets of alabaster may have existed over each of the curtain-covered side niches and below the cornice at the base of the dome. The dome seems to have had webs that alternated straight and concave, like those of the dome of Justinian's Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, and may have been built about 40 years after that church. It was begun under Emperor Justin II, completed by his successor Tiberius II, and continued to be improved by subsequent rulers. It was connected to the imperial living quarters and was a space used for assembly before religious festivals, high promotions and consultations, as a banqueting hall, a chapel for the emperor, and a throne room. Never fully described in any of its frequent mentions in Byzantine texts, the room was restricted to members of the court and the "most highly rated foreigners". In the 10th century, the throne in the east niche chamber was directly below an icon of an enthroned Christ.
Other 6th century examples of domed constructions may include Nostra Segnora de Mesumundu in Siligo, Sardinia (before 534), Sant’Angelo in Perugia, San Miserino [it] near San Donaci (6th or 7th century), and the Trigona of Cittadella near Noto (6th or 7th century).
### Seventh century
The period of Iconoclasm, roughly corresponding to the 7th to 9th centuries, is poorly documented but can be considered a transitional period. The cathedral of Sofia has an unsettled date of construction, ranging from the last years of Justinian to the middle of the 7th century, as the Balkans were lost to the Slavs and Bulgars. It combines a barrel-vaulted cruciform basilica plan with a crossing dome hidden externally by the drum. It resembles some Romanesque churches of later centuries, although the type would not be popular in later Byzantine architecture.
Destruction by earthquakes or invaders in the seventh to ninth centuries seems to have encouraged the development of masonry domes and vaulting experimentation over basilicas in Anatolia. The Sivrihisar Kizil Kilise has a dome over an octagonal drum with windows on a square platform and was built around 600, before the battles in the region in the 640s. The domed Church of Mary in Ephesus may have been built in the late sixth or first half of the seventh century with reused bricks. The smaller Church of the Dormition of the Monastery of Hyacinth in Nicaea had a dome supported on four narrow arches and dates prior to 727. The lobed dome of the Church of St. Clement at Ancyra was supported by pendentives that also included squinch-like arches, a possible indication of unfamiliarity with pendentives by the builders. The upper portion of the Church of St. Nicholas at Myra was destroyed, but it had a dome on pendentives over the nave that might have been built between 602 and 655, although it has been attributed to the late eighth or early ninth centuries.
### Eighth century
Part of the fifth-century basilica of St. Mary at Ephesus seems to have been rebuilt in the eighth century as a cross-domed church, a development typical of the seventh to eighth centuries and similar to the cross-domed examples of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, St. Nicholas at Myra, St. Clement's at Ankara, and the church of the Koimesis at Nicaea.
With the decline in the empire's resources following losses in population and territory, domes in Byzantine architecture were used as part of more modest new buildings. The large-scale churches of Byzantium were, however, kept in good repair. The upper portion of the Church of Hagia Irene was thoroughly rebuilt after the 740 Constantinople earthquake. The nave was re-covered with an elliptical domical vault hidden externally by a low cylinder on the roof, in place of the earlier barrel vaulted ceiling, and the original central dome from the Justinian era was replaced with one raised upon a high windowed drum. The barrel vaults supporting these two new domes were also extended out over the side aisles, creating cross-domed units. By bracing the dome with broad arches on all four sides, the cross-domed unit provided a more secure structural system. These units, with most domes raised on drums, became a standard element on a smaller scale in later Byzantine church architecture, and all domes built after the transitional period were braced with bilateral symmetry. The dome over the Church of the Archangels at Sige was replaced in the 19th century, but the original was dated in the 18th century to 780.
A small, unisex monastic community in Bithynia, near Constantinople, may have developed the cross-in-square plan church during the Iconoclastic period, which would explain the plan's small scale and unified naos. The ruined church of St. John at Pelekete monastery is an early example. Monks had supported the use of icons, unlike the government-appointed secular clergy, and monasticism would become increasingly popular. A new type of privately funded urban monastery developed from the 9th century on, which may help to explain the small size of subsequent building.
### Ninth century
Timber-roofed basilicas, which had been the standard form until the 6th century, would be displaced by domed churches from the 9th century onward. In the Middle Byzantine period (c. 843 – 1204), domes were normally built to emphasize separate functional spaces, rather than as the modular ceiling units they had been earlier. Resting domes on circular or polygonal drums pierced with windows eventually became the standard style, with regional characteristics.
The cross-in-square plan, with a single dome at the crossing or five domes in a quincunx pattern, became widely popular in the Middle Byzantine period. Examples include an early 9th century church in Tirilye, now called the Fatih Mosque. The Nea Ekklesia of Emperor Basil I was built in Constantinople around 880 as part of a substantial building renovation and construction program during his reign. It had five domes, which are known from literary sources, but different arrangements for them have been proposed under at least four different plans. One has the domes arranged in a cruciform pattern like those of the contemporaneous Church of St. Andrew at Peristerai or the much older Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Others arrange them in a quincunx pattern, with four minor domes in the corners of a square and a larger fifth in the center, as part of a cross-domed or cross-in-square plan. It is often suggested that the five-domed design of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi, from 1164, is based on that of the Nea Ekklesia.
### Tenth century
In the Middle Byzantine period, more complex plans emerge, such as the integrated chapels of Theotokos of Lips, a monastic church in Constantinople that was built around 907. It included four small chapels on its second floor gallery level that may have been domed.
The cross-in-square is the most common church plan from the 10th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This type of plan, with four columns supporting the dome at the crossing, was best suited for domes less than 7 meters (23 ft) wide and, from the 10th to the 14th centuries, a typical Byzantine dome measured less than 6 meters (20 ft) in diameter. For domes beyond that width, variations in the plan were required such as using piers in place of the columns and incorporating further buttressing around the core of the building.
The palace chapel of the Myrelaion in Constantinople was built around 920 as a cross-in-square church and remains a good example. The earliest cross-in-square in Greece is the Panagia church at the monastery of Hosios Loukas, dated to the late 10th century, but variations of the type can be found from southern Italy to Russia and Anatolia. They served in a wide variety of church roles, including domestic, parish, monastic, palatial, and funerary.
The distinctive rippling eaves design for the roofs of domes began in the 10th century. In mainland Greece, circular or octagonal drums became the most common.
### Eleventh century
In Constantinople, drums with twelve or fourteen sides were popular beginning in the 11th century. The 11th century rock-cut churches of Cappadocia, such as Karanlik Kilise and Elmali Kilise in Göreme, have shallow domes without drums due to the dim natural lighting of cave interiors.
The domed-octagon plan is a variant of the cross-in-square plan. The earliest extant example is the katholikon at the monastery of Hosios Loukas, with a 9-meter (30 ft) wide dome built in the first half of the 11th century. This hemispherical dome was built without a drum and supported by a remarkably open structural system, with the weight of the dome distributed on eight piers, rather than four, and corbelling used to avoid concentrating weight on their corners. The use of squinches to transition from those eight supports to the base of the dome has led to speculation of a design origin in Arab, Sasanian, or Caucasian architecture, although with a Byzantine interpretation. Similar openness in design was used in the earlier Myrelaion church, as originally built, but the katholikon of Hosios Loukas is perhaps the most sophisticated design since the Hagia Sophia. The smaller monastic church at Daphni, c. 1080, uses a simpler version of this plan.
The katholikon of Nea Moni, a monastery on the island of Chios, was built some time between 1042 and 1055 and featured a nine sided, ribbed dome rising 15.62 meters (51.2 ft) above the floor (this collapsed in 1881 and was replaced with the slightly taller present version). The transition from the square naos to the round base of the drum is accomplished by eight conches, with those above the flat sides of the naos being relatively shallow and those in the corners of the being relatively narrow. The novelty of this technique in Byzantine architecture has led to it being dubbed the "island octagon" type, in contrast to the "mainland octagon" type of Hosios Loukas. Speculation on design influences have ranged from Arab influence transmitted via the recently built domed octagon chapels at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Al-Hakim Mosque in Islamic Cairo, to Caucasian buildings such as the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Later copies of the Nea Moni, with alterations, include the churches of Agios Georgios Sykousis, Agioi Apostoli at Pyrghi, Panagia Krina, and the Church of the Metamorphosis in Chortiatis.
### Twelfth century
The larger scale of some Byzantine buildings of the 12th century required a more stable support structure for domes than the four slender columns of the cross-in-square type could provide. The Byzantine churches today called Kalenderhane Mosque, Gül Mosque, and the Enez Fatih mosque all had domes greater than 7 meters (23 ft) in diameter and used piers as part of large cruciform plans, a practice that had been out of fashion for several centuries. A variant of the cross-in-square, the "so-called atrophied Greek cross plan", also provides greater support for a dome than the typical cross-in-square plan by using four piers projecting from the corners of an otherwise square naos, rather than four columns. This design was used in the Chora Church of Constantinople in the 12th century after the previous cross-in-square structure was destroyed by an earthquake.
The 12th century Pantokrator monastic complex (1118–36) was built with imperial sponsorship as three adjoining churches. The south church, a cross-in-square, has a ribbed dome over the naos, domical vaults in the corners, and a pumpkin dome over the narthex gallery. The north church is also a cross-in-square plan. The middle church, the third to be built, fills the long space between the two earlier churches with two oval domes of the pumpkin and ribbed types over what appear to be separate functional spaces. The western space was an imperial mausoleum, whereas the eastern dome covered a liturgical space.
There is a written account by Nicholas Mesarites of a Persian-style muqarnas dome built as part of a late 12th century imperial palace in Constantinople. Called the "Mouchroutas Hall", it may have been built as part of an easing in tensions between the court of Manuel I Komnenos and Kilij Arslan II of the Sultanate of Rum around 1161, evidence of the complex nature of the relations between the two states. The account, written by Nicholas Mesarites shortly before the Fourth Crusade, is part of a description of the coup attempt by John Komnenos in 1200, and may have been mentioned as a rhetorical device to disparage him.
### Thirteenth century
The Late Byzantine Period, from 1204 to 1453, has an unsettled chronology of buildings, especially during the Latin Occupation. The fragmentation of the empire, beginning in 1204, is reflected in a fragmentation of church design and regional innovations.
The church of Hagia Sophia in the Empire of Trebizond dates to between 1238 and 1263 and has a variation on the quincunx plan. Heavy with traditional detailing from Asia Minor, and possibly Armenian or Georgian influence, the brick pendentives and drum of the dome remain Byzantine.
After 1261, new church architecture in Constantinople consisted mainly of additions to existing monastic churches, such as the Monastery of Lips and Pammakaristos Church, and as a result the building complexes are distinguished in part by an asymmetric array of domes on their roofs. This effect may have been in imitation of the earlier triple-church Pantokrator monastic complex.
In the Despotate of Epirus, the Church of the Parigoritissa (1282–9) is the most complex example, with a domed octagon core and domed ambulatory. Built in the capital of Arta, its external appearance resembles a cubic palace. The upper level narthex and galleries have five domes, with the middle dome of the narthex an open lantern. This Greek-cross octagon design, similar to the earlier example at Daphni, is one of several among the various Byzantine principalities. Another is found in the Hagia Theodoroi at Mistra (1290–6).
### Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
Mistra was ruled from Constantinople after 1262, then was the suzerain of the Despotate of the Morea from 1348 to 1460. In Mistra, there are several basilica plan churches with domed galleries that create a five-domed cross-in-square over a ground-level basilica plan. The Aphentiko at Brontochion Monastery was built c. 1310–22 and the later church of the Pantanassa Monastery (1428) is of the same type. The Aphentiko may have been originally planned as a cross-in-square church, but has a blend of longitudinal and central plan components, with an interior divided into nave and aisles like a basilica. The barrel-vaulted nave and cross arms have a dome at their crossing, and the corner bays of the galleries are also domed to form a quincunx pattern. A remodeling of the Metropolis church in Mistra created an additional example. The Pantanassa incorporates Western elements in that domes in its colonnaded porch are hidden externally, and its domes have ribs of rectangular section similar to those of Salerno, Ravello, and Palermo.
In Thessaloniki, a distinctive type of church dome developed in the first two decades of the 14th century. It is characterized by a polygonal drum with rounded colonnettes at the corners, all brick construction, and faces featuring three arches stepped back within one another around a narrow "single-light window". One of the hallmarks of Thessalonian churches was the plan of a domed naos with a peristoon wrapped around three sides. The churches of Hagios Panteleimon, Hagia Aikaterine, and Hagioi Apostoloi have domes on these ambulatory porticoes. The five domes of the Hagioi Apostoloi, or Church of the Holy Apostles, in Thessaloniki (c. 1329) makes it an example of a five-domed cross-in-square church in the Late Byzantine style, as is the Gračanica monastery, built around 1311 in Serbia. The architect and artisans of the Gračanica monastery church probably came from Thessaloniki and its style reflects Byzantine cultural influence. The church has been said to represent "the culmination of Late Byzantine architectural design."
A 15th century account of a Russian traveler to Constantinople mentions an abandoned hall, presumably domed, "in which the sun, the moon, and the stars succeeded each other as in heaven."
## Influence
### Armenia
Constantinople's cultural influence extended from Sicily to Russia. Armenia, as a border state between the Roman-Byzantine and Sasanian empires, was influenced by both. The exact relationship between Byzantine architecture and that of the Caucasus is unclear. Georgia and Armenia produced many central planned, domed buildings in the 7th century and, after a lull during the Arab invasions, the architecture flourished again in the Middle Byzantine Period. Armenian church domes were initially wooden structures. Etchmiadzin Cathedral (c. 483) originally had a wooden dome covered by a wooden pyramidal roof before this was replaced with stone construction in 618. Churches with stone domes became the standard type after the 7th century, perhaps benefiting from a possible exodus of stonecutters from Syria, but the long traditions of wooden construction carried over stylistically. Some examples in stone as late as the 12th century are detailed imitations of clearly wooden prototypes. Armenian church building was prolific in the late 6th and 7th centuries and, by the 7th century, the churches tend to be either central plans or combinations of central and longitudinal plans. Domes were supported by either squinches (which were used in the Sasanian Empire but rarely in the Byzantine) or pendentives like those of the Byzantine empire, and the combination of domed-cross plan with the hall-church plan could have been influenced by the architecture of Justinian. Domes and cross arms were added to the longitudinal cathedral of Dvin from 608 to 615 and a church in Tekor. Other domed examples include Ptghnavank in Ptghni (c. 600), a church in T'alinn (662-85), the Cathedral of Mren (629-40), and the Mastara Church (9th and 10th centuries). An 11th century Armenian source names an Armenian architect, Trdat, as responsible for the rebuilding of the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after the 989 earthquake caused a partial collapse of the central dome. Although squinches were the more common supporting system used to support Armenian domes, pendentives are always used beneath the domes attributed to Trdat, which include the 10th century monasteries of Marmasen, Sanahin, and Halpat, as well as the patriarchal cathedral of Argina (c. 985), the Cathedral of Ani (989-1001), and the palace chapel of King Gagik II (c. 1001-1005).
### The Balkans
In the Balkans, where Byzantine rule weakened in the 7th and 8th centuries, domed architecture may represent Byzantine influence or, in the case of the centrally planned churches of 9th-century Dalmatia, the revival of earlier Roman mausoleum types. An interest in Roman models may have been an expression of the religious maneuvering of the region between the Church of Constantinople and that of Rome. Examples include the Church of Sv. Luka in Kotor, the Church of Sv. Trojce near Split, and the early 9th century Church of Sv. Donat in Zadar. The Church of Sv. Donat, originally domed, may have been built next to a palace and resembles palace churches in the Byzantine tradition. The architectural chronology of the central and eastern Balkans is unsettled during the period of the First Bulgarian Empire, in part because of similarity between Justinian-era churches from the 6th century and what may have been a revival of that style in the late 9th and early 10th centuries under the Christianized Bulgarian tsars. Remains of the Round Church in Preslav, a building traditionally associated with the rule Tsar Simeon (893–927), indicate that it was a domed palace chapel. Its construction features, however, resemble instead 3rd and 4th century Roman mausolea, perhaps due to the association of those structures with the imperial idea.
### The Rus'
Byzantine architecture was introduced to the Rus' people in the 10th century, with churches after the conversion of Prince Vladimir of Kiev being modeled after those of Constantinople, but made of wood. The Russian onion dome was a later development. The earliest architecture of Kiev, the vast majority of which was made of wood, has been lost to fire, but by the 12th century masonry domes on low drums in Kiev and Vladimir-Suzdal were little different than Byzantine domes, although modified toward the "helmet" type with a slight point. The Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev (1018–37) was distinctive in having thirteen domes, for Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, but they have since been remodeled in the Baroque style and combined with an additional eight domes. The pyramidal arrangement of the domes was a Byzantine characteristic, although, as the largest and perhaps most important 11th century building in the Byzantine tradition, many of the details of this building have disputed origins. Bulbous onion domes on tall drums were a development of northern Russia, perhaps due to the demands of heavy ice and snowfall along with the more rapid innovation permitted by the Novgorod region's emphasis on wooden architecture. The central dome of the Cathedral of St. Sophia (1045–62) in Novgorod dates from the 12th century and shows a transitional stage. Other churches built around this time are those of St. Nicholas (1113), the Nativity of the Virgin (1117), and St. George (1119–30).
### Romanesque Europe
In Romanesque Italy, Byzantine influence can most clearly be seen in Venice's St Mark's Basilica, from about 1063, but also in the domed churches of southern Italy, such as Canosa Cathedral (1071) and the (c. 1160). In Norman Sicily, architecture was a fusion of Byzantine, Islamic, and Romanesque forms, but the dome of the Palatine Chapel (1132–43) at Palermo was decorated with Byzantine mosaic, as was that of the church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (1140s). The unusual use of domes on pendentives in a series of seventy Romanesque churches in the Aquitaine region of France strongly suggests a Byzantine influence. St. Mark's Basilica was modeled on the now-lost Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, and Périgueux Cathedral in Aquitaine (c. 1120) likewise has five domes on pendentives in a Greek cross arrangement. Other examples include the domed naves of Angoulême Cathedral (1105–28), Cahors Cathedral (c. 1100–1119), and the (c. 1130).
### Orthodox Africa and Europe
The Throne Hall of Dongola, built in the 9th century at Old Dongola, was used by the kings of Makuria, the most powerful kingdom in medieval Africa, for 450 years until 1317. The upper floor contained a likely cruciform room with a small dome at the center, in imitation of the audience halls of the Byzantine emperors. Bulgarian tsars had similar halls.
Byzantium's neighboring Orthodox powers in Europe emerged as architectural centers in their own right during the Late Byzantine Period. The Bulgarian churches of Nesebar are similar to those in Constantinople at this time. The style and vaulting in the Nesebar cross-in-square churches of Christ Pantocrator and St John Aliturgetos, for example, are similar to examples in Constantinople. Following the construction of Gračanica monastery, the architecture of Serbia used the "so-called Athonite plan", for example at Ravanica (1375–7). In Romania, Wallachia was influenced by Serbian architecture and Moldavia was more original, such as in the Voroneț Monastery with its small dome. Moscow emerged as the most important center of architecture following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Cathedral of the Assumption (1475–79), built in the Kremlin to house the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, was designed in a traditional Russian style by an Italian architect.
### Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance architecture combined Roman and Romanesque practices with Byzantine structures and decorative elements, such as domes with pendentives over square bays. The Cassinese Congregation used windowed domes in the Byzantine style, and often also in a quincunx arrangement, in their churches built between 1490 and 1546, such as the Abbey of Santa Giustina. The technique of using wooden tension rings at several levels within domes and drums to resist deformation, frequently said to be a later invention of Filippo Brunelleschi, was common practice in Byzantine architecture. The technique of using double shells for domes, although revived in the Renaissance, originated in Byzantine practice. The dome of the Pantheon, as a symbol of Rome and its monumental past, was particularly celebrated and imitated, although copied only loosely. Studied in detail from the early Renaissance on, it was an explicit point of reference for the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and inspired the construction of domed rotundas with temple-front porches throughout western architecture into the modern era. Examples include Palladio's chapel at Maser (1579–80), Bernini's church of S. Maria dell'Assunzione (1662-4), the Library Rotunda of the University of Virginia (1817–26), and the church of St. Mary in Malta (1833–60). Other examples include the church of San Simeone Piccolo in Venice (1718–38), the church of Gran Madre di Dio in Turin (1818–31), and the church of San Francesco di Paola, Naples in Naples (19th century).
### Ottoman Empire
Ottoman architecture adopted the Byzantine dome form and continued to develop it. One type of mosque was modeled after Justinian's Church of Sergius and Bacchus with a dome over an octagon or hexagon contained within a square, such as the Üç Şerefeli Mosque (1437–47). The dome and semi-domes of the Hagia Sophia, in particular, were replicated and refined. A "universal mosque design" based upon this development spread throughout the world. The first Ottoman mosque to use a dome and semi-dome nave vaulting scheme like that of Hagia Sophia was the mosque of Beyazit II. Only two others were modeled similarly: Kılıç Ali Pasha Mosque and the Süleymaniye Mosque (1550–57). Other Ottoman mosques, although superficially similar to Hagia Sophia, have been described as structural criticisms of it. When Mimar Sinan set out to build a dome larger than that of Hagia Sophia with Selimiye Mosque (1569–74), he used a more stable octagonal supporting structure. The Selimiye Mosque is of the type originating with the Church of Sergius and Bacchus. Three other Imperial mosques in Istanbul built in this "Classical Style" of Hagia Sophia include four large semi-domes around the central dome, rather than two: Şehzade Camii, Sultan Ahmed I Camii (completed in 1616), and the last to be built: Yeni Cami (1597–1663).
### Modern revival
A Byzantine revival style of architecture occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. An early example of the revival style in Russia was the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (1839–84), which was approved by the Tsar to be a model for other churches in the empire. The style's popularity spread through scholarly publications produced after the independence of Greece and the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire. It was used throughout Europe and North America, peaking in popularity between 1890 and 1914. The Greek Orthodox St Sophia's Cathedral (1877–79) and Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral (begun 1895), both in London, are examples. The throne room of Neuschwanstein Castle (1885–86) was built by King Ludwig II in Bavaria. In the late 19th century, the Hagia Sophia became a widespread model for Greek Orthodox churches. In southeastern Europe, monumental national cathedrals built in the capital cities of formerly Ottoman areas used Neo-Classical or Neo-Byzantine styles. Sofia's Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and Belgrade's Church of Saint Sava are examples, and used Hagia Sophia as a model due to their large sizes. Synagogues in the United States were built in a variety of styles, as they had been in Europe (and often with a mixture of elements from different styles), but the Byzantine Revival style was the most popular in the 1920s. Domed examples include The Temple of Cleveland (1924), the synagogue of KAM Isaiah Israel (1924) in Chicago, based upon San Vitale in Ravenna and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and the synagogue of Congregation Emanu-El (1926) in San Francisco.
In the United States, Greek Orthodox churches beginning in the 1950s tended to use a large central dome with a ring of windows at its base evocative of the central dome of Hagia Sophia, rather than more recent or more historically common Byzantine types, such as the Greek-cross-octagon or five-domed quincunx plans. Examples include Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, completed in 1961 but designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957, Ascension Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Oakland (1960), and Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Atlanta (1967). The use of a large central dome in American Greek Orthodox churches continued in the 1960s and 1970s before moving toward smaller Middle Byzantine domes, or versions of Early Christian basilicas.
## See also
- List of Roman domes
- History of architecture |
47,039,714 | Maputeoa | 1,172,133,461 | Monarch of Mangareva and the other Gambier Islands | [
"1814 births",
"1857 deaths",
"19th-century monarchs in Oceania",
"Converts to Roman Catholicism",
"Deaths from respiratory disease",
"French Polynesian Roman Catholics",
"French Polynesian royalty",
"Gambier Islands",
"History of French Polynesia",
"People from the Gambier Islands",
"Roman Catholic monarchs"
]
| Te Maputeoa (baptized Gregorio Stanislas; reigned as Gregorio I; born c. 1814 – 20 June 1857) was a monarch of the Polynesian island of Mangareva and the other Gambier Islands. He was the King or ʻAkariki (paramount chief), as well as the penultimate king of the island of Mangareva, and other Gambier Islands including Akamaru, Aukena, Taravai and Temoe. He reigned from 1830 until his death in 1857.
During Maputeoa's reign, the country, which was deeply rooted in native beliefs and even cannibalism, became a Roman Catholic community. This was accomplished by removing all vestiges of native beliefs, such as destroying the traditional wooden images of their indigenous faith deified in maraes and replacing them with churches. The king was baptized into Catholicism on 25 August 1836. He learned about Christianity from the island's missionaries, headed by the French Picpus priests, Honoré Laval and François Caret. His uncle Matua, the High Priest of the local temple, also played a pivotal role in this activity.
## Biography
Maputeoa was the grandson of Mapurure (also known as Te Mateoa), who was known to be alive in 1825 and said to have died in 1830 or 1832. As Mapurure's son Te Ikatohara was killed by sharks in about 1824, Maputeoa, the grandson, became king after Mapurure's death. Because he was a minor, Maputeoa's uncle, Matua, the High Priest (taura tupua), became the regent; Matua enjoyed the full trust of his people and may have had intentions of usurping power. Maputeoa had complete authority over the kingdom, excepting his four uncles, who jointly owned the land with the king; the uncles' allegiance to the king was only formal. Mangareva also had nominal control over the other Gambier Islands including Akamaru, Aukena, and Taravai, which had their own kings who were vassals to the monarch at Rikitea.
Christian missionaries headed by Father Honoré Laval and Father François Caret from Chile of the order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, landed in August 1834, at Mangareva, which was then an independent kingdom under King Maputeoa. The king refused them access to the main island of Mangareva. However, the missionaries managed to land on a small island where the local chief gave them support to learn the Mangareva language and the islanders learned about Christianity. Within one of year of their arrival, the missionaries converted the islanders at Taravai, Aukena and Akamuru to Christianity, established churches, and even convinced the islanders to wear tunics.
Initially, Matua accepted the Catholic religious practices. He donated the maraes to the missionaries to build churches and advised them on how to overthrow the king. As Maputeoa recognized what Matua was trying to do, the king began appearing in churches during mass. Two years after the missionaries' arrival in Gambier, Maputeoa consented to dismantle the Te Keika marae, which was the largest of its kind on Rikitea, and in its place, St. Michael's Cathedral, Rikitea was built, which became the largest church in the South Pacific islands. Maputeoa was baptized at Church of Saint-Joseph-de-Taku on Mangareva along with 160 other people of the kingdom. He took the name Gregorio after baptism in honor of Pope Gregory XVI who had deputed the missionaries to eastern Oceania, and solemnly placed his islands under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Maputeoa died on 20 June 1857 of acute pleurisy or "the disease of the chest." He was succeeded as King of Mangareva by his young son, Joseph Gregorio II, with his widow Queen Maria Eutokia Toaputeitou as regent. King Joseph died childless after an eleven-year reign. After 1868, the island kingdom was ruled by regents until it was annexed by France in 1881. In 1977, French Polynesia issued a stamp with an image of Maputeoa. Maputeoa's crypt is located in the Chapelle St-Pierre behind St. Michael's Cathedral. |
7,044 | Beetle | 1,172,629,900 | Order of insects | [
"Beetles",
"Extant Pennsylvanian first appearances",
"Insects in culture"
]
| Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (/koʊliːˈɒptərə/), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal species; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. Found in almost every habitat except the sea and the polar regions, they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi, break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates. Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle, while others such as Coccinellidae (ladybirds or ladybugs) eat aphids, scale insects, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops.
Beetles typically have a particularly hard exoskeleton including the elytra, though some such as the rove beetles have very short elytra while blister beetles have softer elytra. The general anatomy of a beetle is quite uniform and typical of insects, although there are several examples of novelty, such as adaptations in water beetles which trap air bubbles under the elytra for use while diving. Beetles are endopterygotes, which means that they undergo complete metamorphosis, with a series of conspicuous and relatively abrupt changes in body structure between hatching and becoming adult after a relatively immobile pupal stage. Some, such as stag beetles, have a marked sexual dimorphism, the males possessing enormously enlarged mandibles which they use to fight other males. Many beetles are aposematic, with bright colors and patterns warning of their toxicity, while others are harmless Batesian mimics of such insects. Many beetles, including those that live in sandy places, have effective camouflage.
Beetles are prominent in human culture, from the sacred scarabs of ancient Egypt to beetlewing art and use as pets or fighting insects for entertainment and gambling. Many beetle groups are brightly and attractively colored making them objects of collection and decorative displays. Over 300 species are used as food, mostly as larvae; species widely consumed include mealworms and rhinoceros beetle larvae. However, the major impact of beetles on human life is as agricultural, forestry, and horticultural pests. Serious pests include the boll weevil of cotton, the Colorado potato beetle, the coconut hispine beetle, and the mountain pine beetle. Most beetles, however, do not cause economic damage and many, such as the lady beetles and dung beetles are beneficial by helping to control insect pests.
## Etymology
The name of the taxonomic order, Coleoptera, comes from the Greek koleopteros (κολεόπτερος), given to the group by Aristotle for their elytra, hardened shield-like forewings, from koleos, sheath, and pteron, wing. The English name beetle comes from the Old English word bitela, little biter, related to bītan (to bite), leading to Middle English betylle. Another Old English name for beetle is ċeafor, chafer, used in names such as cockchafer, from the Proto-Germanic \*kebrô ("beetle"; compare German Käfer, Dutch kever, Afrikaans kewer).
## Distribution and diversity
Beetles are by far the largest order of insects: the roughly 400,000 species make up about 40% of all insect species so far described, and about 25% of all animal species. A 2015 study provided four independent estimates of the total number of beetle species, giving a mean estimate of some 1.5 million with a "surprisingly narrow range" spanning all four estimates from a minimum of 0.9 to a maximum of 2.1 million beetle species. The four estimates made use of host-specificity relationships (1.5 to 1.9 million), ratios with other taxa (0.9 to 1.2 million), plant:beetle ratios (1.2 to 1.3), and extrapolations based on body size by year of description (1.7 to 2.1 million).
This immense diversity led the evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane to quip, when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Christian God from the works of His Creation, "An inordinate fondness for beetles".
However, the ranking of beetles as most diverse has been challenged. Multiple studies posit that Diptera (flies) and/or Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, ants and bees) may have more species.
Beetles are found in nearly all habitats, including freshwater and coastal habitats, wherever vegetative foliage is found, from trees and their bark to flowers, leaves, and underground near roots - even inside plants in galls, in every plant tissue, including dead or decaying ones. Tropical forest canopies have a large and diverse fauna of beetles, including Carabidae, Chrysomelidae, and Scarabaeidae.
The heaviest beetle, indeed the heaviest insect stage, is the larva of the goliath beetle, Goliathus goliatus, which can attain a mass of at least 115 g (4.1 oz) and a length of 11.5 cm (4.5 in). Adult male goliath beetles are the heaviest beetle in its adult stage, weighing 70–100 g (2.5–3.5 oz) and measuring up to 11 cm (4.3 in). Adult elephant beetles, Megasoma elephas and Megasoma actaeon often reach 50 g (1.8 oz) and 10 cm (3.9 in).
The longest beetle is the Hercules beetle Dynastes hercules, with a maximum overall length of at least 16.7 cm (6.6 in) including the very long pronotal horn. The smallest recorded beetle and the smallest free-living insect (as of 2015), is the featherwing beetle Scydosella musawasensis which may measure as little as 325 μm in length.
## Evolution
### Late Paleozoic and Triassic
The oldest known beetle is Coleopsis, from the earliest Permian (Asselian) of Germany, around 295 million years ago. Early beetles from the Permian, which are collectively grouped into the "Protocoleoptera" are thought to have been xylophagous (wood eating) and wood boring. Fossils from this time have been found in Siberia and Europe, for instance in the red slate fossil beds of Niedermoschel near Mainz, Germany. Further fossils have been found in Obora, Czech Republic and Tshekarda in the Ural mountains, Russia. However, there are only a few fossils from North America before the middle Permian, although both Asia and North America had been united to Euramerica. The first discoveries from North America made in the Wellington Formation of Oklahoma were published in 2005 and 2008. The earliest members of modern beetle lineages appeared during the Late Permian. In the Permian–Triassic extinction event at the end of the Permian, most "protocoleopteran" lineages became extinct. Beetle diversity did not recover to pre-extinction levels until the Middle Triassic.
### Jurassic
During the Jurassic (), there was a dramatic increase in the diversity of beetle families, including the development and growth of carnivorous and herbivorous species. The Chrysomeloidea diversified around the same time, feeding on a wide array of plant hosts from cycads and conifers to angiosperms. Close to the Upper Jurassic, the Cupedidae decreased, but the diversity of the early plant-eating species increased. Most recent plant-eating beetles feed on flowering plants or angiosperms, whose success contributed to a doubling of plant-eating species during the Middle Jurassic. However, the increase of the number of beetle families during the Cretaceous does not correlate with the increase of the number of angiosperm species. Around the same time, numerous primitive weevils (e.g. Curculionoidea) and click beetles (e.g. Elateroidea) appeared. The first jewel beetles (e.g. Buprestidae) are present, but they remained rare until the Cretaceous. The first scarab beetles were not coprophagous but presumably fed on rotting wood with the help of fungus; they are an early example of a mutualistic relationship.
There are more than 150 important fossil sites from the Jurassic, the majority in Eastern Europe and North Asia. Outstanding sites include Solnhofen in Upper Bavaria, Germany, Karatau in South Kazakhstan, the Yixian formation in Liaoning, North China, as well as the Jiulongshan formation and further fossil sites in Mongolia. In North America there are only a few sites with fossil records of insects from the Jurassic, namely the shell limestone deposits in the Hartford basin, the Deerfield basin and the Newark basin.
### Cretaceous
The Cretaceous saw the fragmenting of the southern landmass, with the opening of the southern Atlantic Ocean and the isolation of New Zealand, while South America, Antarctica, and Australia grew more distant. The diversity of Cupedidae and Archostemata decreased considerably. Predatory ground beetles (Carabidae) and rove beetles (Staphylinidae) began to distribute into different patterns; the Carabidae predominantly occurred in the warm regions, while the Staphylinidae and click beetles (Elateridae) preferred temperate climates. Likewise, predatory species of Cleroidea and Cucujoidea hunted their prey under the bark of trees together with the jewel beetles (Buprestidae). The diversity of jewel beetles increased rapidly, as they were the primary consumers of wood, while longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) were rather rare: their diversity increased only towards the end of the Upper Cretaceous. The first coprophagous beetles are from the Upper Cretaceous and may have lived on the excrement of herbivorous dinosaurs. The first species where both larvae and adults are adapted to an aquatic lifestyle are found. Whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae) were moderately diverse, although other early beetles (e.g. Dytiscidae) were less, with the most widespread being the species of Coptoclavidae, which preyed on aquatic fly larvae. A 2020 review of the palaeoecological interpretations of fossil beetles from Cretaceous ambers has suggested that saproxylicity was the most common feeding strategy, with fungivorous species in particular appearing to dominate.
Many fossil sites worldwide contain beetles from the Cretaceous. Most are in Europe and Asia and belong to the temperate climate zone during the Cretaceous. Lower Cretaceous sites include the Crato fossil beds in the Araripe basin in the Ceará, North Brazil, as well as overlying Santana formation; the latter was near the equator at that time. In Spain, important sites are near Montsec and Las Hoyas. In Australia, the Koonwarra fossil beds of the Korumburra group, South Gippsland, Victoria, are noteworthy. Major sites from the Upper Cretaceous include Kzyl-Dzhar in South Kazakhstan and Arkagala in Russia.
### Cenozoic
Beetle fossils are abundant in the Cenozoic; by the Quaternary (up to 1.6 mya), fossil species are identical to living ones, while from the Late Miocene (5.7 mya) the fossils are still so close to modern forms that they are most likely the ancestors of living species. The large oscillations in climate during the Quaternary caused beetles to change their geographic distributions so much that current location gives little clue to the biogeographical history of a species. It is evident that geographic isolation of populations must often have been broken as insects moved under the influence of changing climate, causing mixing of gene pools, rapid evolution, and extinctions, especially in middle latitudes.
## Phylogeny
The very large number of beetle species poses special problems for classification. Some families contain tens of thousands of species, and need to be divided into subfamilies and tribes. Polyphaga is the largest suborder, containing more than 300,000 described species in more than 170 families, including rove beetles (Staphylinidae), scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae), blister beetles (Meloidae), stag beetles (Lucanidae) and true weevils (Curculionidae). These polyphagan beetle groups can be identified by the presence of cervical sclerites (hardened parts of the head used as points of attachment for muscles) absent in the other suborders. Adephaga contains about 10 families of largely predatory beetles, includes ground beetles (Carabidae), water beetles (Dytiscidae) and whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae). In these insects, the testes are tubular and the first abdominal sternum (a plate of the exoskeleton) is divided by the hind coxae (the basal joints of the beetle's legs). Archostemata contains four families of mainly wood-eating beetles, including reticulated beetles (Cupedidae) and the telephone-pole beetle. The Archostemata have an exposed plate called the metatrochantin in front of the basal segment or coxa of the hind leg. Myxophaga contains about 65 described species in four families, mostly very small, including Hydroscaphidae and the genus Sphaerius. The myxophagan beetles are small and mostly alga-feeders. Their mouthparts are characteristic in lacking galeae and having a mobile tooth on their left mandible.
The consistency of beetle morphology, in particular their possession of elytra, has long suggested that Coleoptera is monophyletic, though there have been doubts about the arrangement of the suborders, namely the Adephaga, Archostemata, Myxophaga and Polyphaga within that clade. The twisted-wing parasites, Strepsiptera, are thought to be a sister group to the beetles, having split from them in the Early Permian.
Molecular phylogenetic analysis confirms that the Coleoptera are monophyletic. Duane McKenna et al. (2015) used eight nuclear genes for 367 species from 172 of 183 Coleopteran families. They split the Adephaga into 2 clades, Hydradephaga and Geadephaga, broke up the Cucujoidea into 3 clades, and placed the Lymexyloidea within the Tenebrionoidea. The Polyphaga appear to date from the Triassic. Most extant beetle families appear to have arisen in the Cretaceous. The cladogram is based on McKenna (2015). The number of species in each group (mainly superfamilies) is shown in parentheses, and boldface if over 10,000. English common names are given where possible. Dates of origin of major groups are shown in italics in millions of years ago (mya).
## External morphology
Beetles are generally characterized by a particularly hard exoskeleton and hard forewings (elytra) not usable for flying. Almost all beetles have mandibles that move in a horizontal plane. The mouthparts are rarely suctorial, though they are sometimes reduced; the maxillae always bear palps. The antennae usually have 11 or fewer segments, except in some groups like the Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles) and the Rhipiceridae (cicada parasite beetles). The coxae of the legs are usually located recessed within a coxal cavity. The genitalic structures are telescoped into the last abdominal segment in all extant beetles. Beetle larvae can often be confused with those of other endopterygote groups. The beetle's exoskeleton is made up of numerous plates, called sclerites, separated by thin sutures. This design provides armored defenses while maintaining flexibility. The general anatomy of a beetle is quite uniform, although specific organs and appendages vary greatly in appearance and function between the many families in the order. Like all insects, beetles' bodies are divided into three sections: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. Because there are so many species, identification is quite difficult, and relies on attributes including the shape of the antennae, the tarsal formulae and shapes of these small segments on the legs, the mouthparts, and the ventral plates (sterna, pleura, coxae). In many species accurate identification can only be made by examination of the unique male genitalic structures.
### Head
The head, having mouthparts projecting forward or sometimes downturned, is usually heavily sclerotized and is sometimes very large. The eyes are compound and may display remarkable adaptability, as in the case of the aquatic whirligig beetles (Gyrinidae), where they are split to allow a view both above and below the waterline. A few Longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) and weevils as well as some fireflies (Rhagophthalmidae) have divided eyes, while many have eyes that are notched, and a few have ocelli, small, simple eyes usually farther back on the head (on the vertex); these are more common in larvae than in adults. The anatomical organization of the compound eyes may be modified and depends on whether a species is primarily crepuscular, or diurnally or nocturnally active. Ocelli are found in the adult carpet beetle (Dermestidae), some rove beetles (Omaliinae), and the Derodontidae.
Beetle antennae are primarily organs of sensory perception and can detect motion, odor and chemical substances, but may also be used to physically feel a beetle's environment. Beetle families may use antennae in different ways. For example, when moving quickly, tiger beetles may not be able to see very well and instead hold their antennae rigidly in front of them in order to avoid obstacles. Certain Cerambycidae use antennae to balance, and blister beetles may use them for grasping. Some aquatic beetle species may use antennae for gathering air and passing it under the body whilst submerged. Equally, some families use antennae during mating, and a few species use them for defense. In the cerambycid Onychocerus albitarsis, the antennae have venom injecting structures used in defense, which is unique among arthropods. Antennae vary greatly in form, sometimes between the sexes, but are often similar within any given family. Antennae may be clubbed, threadlike, angled, shaped like a string of beads, comb-like (either on one side or both, bipectinate), or toothed. The physical variation of antennae is important for the identification of many beetle groups. The Curculionidae have elbowed or geniculate antennae. Feather like flabellate antennae are a restricted form found in the Rhipiceridae and a few other families. The Silphidae have a capitate antennae with a spherical head at the tip. The Scarabaeidae typically have lamellate antennae with the terminal segments extended into long flat structures stacked together. The Carabidae typically have thread-like antennae. The antennae arises between the eye and the mandibles and in the Tenebrionidae, the antennae rise in front of a notch that breaks the usually circular outline of the compound eye. They are segmented and usually consist of 11 parts, the first part is called the scape and the second part is the pedicel. The other segments are jointly called the flagellum.
Beetles have mouthparts like those of grasshoppers. The mandibles appear as large pincers on the front of some beetles. The mandibles are a pair of hard, often tooth-like structures that move horizontally to grasp, crush, or cut food or enemies (see defence, below). Two pairs of finger-like appendages, the maxillary and labial palpi, are found around the mouth in most beetles, serving to move food into the mouth. In many species, the mandibles are sexually dimorphic, with those of the males enlarged enormously compared with those of females of the same species.
### Thorax
The thorax is segmented into the two discernible parts, the pro- and pterothorax. The pterothorax is the fused meso- and metathorax, which are commonly separated in other insect species, although flexibly articulate from the prothorax. When viewed from below, the thorax is that part from which all three pairs of legs and both pairs of wings arise. The abdomen is everything posterior to the thorax. When viewed from above, most beetles appear to have three clear sections, but this is deceptive: on the beetle's upper surface, the middle section is a hard plate called the pronotum, which is only the front part of the thorax; the back part of the thorax is concealed by the beetle's wings. This further segmentation is usually best seen on the abdomen.
### Legs
The multisegmented legs end in two to five small segments called tarsi. Like many other insect orders, beetles have claws, usually one pair, on the end of the last tarsal segment of each leg. While most beetles use their legs for walking, legs have been variously adapted for other uses. Aquatic beetles including the Dytiscidae (diving beetles), Haliplidae, and many species of Hydrophilidae, the legs, often the last pair, are modified for swimming, typically with rows of long hairs. Male diving beetles have suctorial cups on their forelegs that they use to grasp females. Other beetles have fossorial legs widened and often spined for digging. Species with such adaptations are found among the scarabs, ground beetles, and clown beetles (Histeridae). The hind legs of some beetles, such as flea beetles (within Chrysomelidae) and flea weevils (within Curculionidae), have enlarged femurs that help them leap.
### Wings
The forewings of beetles are not used for flight, but form elytra which cover the hind part of the body and protect the hindwings. The elytra are usually hard shell-like structures which must be raised to allow the hindwings to move for flight. However, in the soldier beetles (Cantharidae), the elytra are soft, earning this family the name of leatherwings. Other soft wing beetles include the net-winged beetle Calopteron discrepans, which has brittle wings that rupture easily in order to release chemicals for defense.
Beetles' flight wings are crossed with veins and are folded after landing, often along these veins, and stored below the elytra. A fold (jugum) of the membrane at the base of each wing is characteristic. Some beetles have lost the ability to fly. These include some ground beetles (Carabidae) and some true weevils (Curculionidae), as well as desert- and cave-dwelling species of other families. Many have the two elytra fused together, forming a solid shield over the abdomen. In a few families, both the ability to fly and the elytra have been lost, as in the glow-worms (Phengodidae), where the females resemble larvae throughout their lives. The presence of elytra and wings does not always indicate that the beetle will fly. For example, the tansy beetle walks between habitats despite being physically capable of flight.
### Abdomen
The abdomen is the section behind the metathorax, made up of a series of rings, each with a hole for breathing and respiration, called a spiracle, composing three different segmented sclerites: the tergum, pleura, and the sternum. The tergum in almost all species is membranous, or usually soft and concealed by the wings and elytra when not in flight. The pleura are usually small or hidden in some species, with each pleuron having a single spiracle. The sternum is the most widely visible part of the abdomen, being a more or less sclerotized segment. The abdomen itself does not have any appendages, but some (for example, Mordellidae) have articulating sternal lobes.
## Anatomy and physiology
### Digestive system
The digestive system of beetles is primarily adapted for a herbivorous diet. Digestion takes place mostly in the anterior midgut, although in predatory groups like the Carabidae, most digestion occurs in the crop by means of midgut enzymes. In the Elateridae, the larvae are liquid feeders that extraorally digest their food by secreting enzymes. The alimentary canal basically consists of a short, narrow pharynx, a widened expansion, the crop, and a poorly developed gizzard. This is followed by the midgut, that varies in dimensions between species, with a large amount of cecum, and the hindgut, with varying lengths. There are typically four to six Malpighian tubules.
### Nervous system
The nervous system in beetles contains all the types found in insects, varying between different species, from three thoracic and seven or eight abdominal ganglia which can be distinguished to that in which all the thoracic and abdominal ganglia are fused to form a composite structure.
### Respiratory system
Like most insects, beetles inhale air, for the oxygen it contains, and exhale carbon dioxide, via a tracheal system. Air enters the body through spiracles, and circulates within the haemocoel in a system of tracheae and tracheoles, through whose walls the gases can diffuse.
Diving beetles, such as the Dytiscidae, carry a bubble of air with them when they dive. Such a bubble may be contained under the elytra or against the body by specialized hydrophobic hairs. The bubble covers at least some of the spiracles, permitting air to enter the tracheae. The function of the bubble is not only to contain a store of air but to act as a physical gill. The air that it traps is in contact with oxygenated water, so as the animal's consumption depletes the oxygen in the bubble, more oxygen can diffuse in to replenish it. Carbon dioxide is more soluble in water than either oxygen or nitrogen, so it readily diffuses out faster than in. Nitrogen is the most plentiful gas in the bubble, and the least soluble, so it constitutes a relatively static component of the bubble and acts as a stable medium for respiratory gases to accumulate in and pass through. Occasional visits to the surface are sufficient for the beetle to re-establish the constitution of the bubble.
### Circulatory system
Like other insects, beetles have open circulatory systems, based on hemolymph rather than blood. As in other insects, a segmented tube-like heart is attached to the dorsal wall of the hemocoel. It has paired inlets or ostia at intervals down its length, and circulates the hemolymph from the main cavity of the haemocoel and out through the anterior cavity in the head.
### Specialized organs
Different glands are specialized for different pheromones to attract mates. Pheromones from species of Rutelinae are produced from epithelial cells lining the inner surface of the apical abdominal segments; amino acid-based pheromones of Melolonthinae are produced from eversible glands on the abdominal apex. Other species produce different types of pheromones. Dermestids produce esters, and species of Elateridae produce fatty acid-derived aldehydes and acetates. To attract a mate, fireflies (Lampyridae) use modified fat body cells with transparent surfaces backed with reflective uric acid crystals to produce light by bioluminescence. Light production is highly efficient, by oxidation of luciferin catalyzed by enzymes (luciferases) in the presence of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and oxygen, producing oxyluciferin, carbon dioxide, and light.
Tympanal organs or hearing organs consist of a membrane (tympanum) stretched across a frame backed by an air sac and associated sensory neurons, are found in two families. Several species of the genus Cicindela (Carabidae) have hearing organs on the dorsal surfaces of their first abdominal segments beneath the wings; two tribes in the Dynastinae (within the Scarabaeidae) have hearing organs just beneath their pronotal shields or neck membranes. Both families are sensitive to ultrasonic frequencies, with strong evidence indicating they function to detect the presence of bats by their ultrasonic echolocation.
## Reproduction and development
Beetles are members of the superorder Endopterygota, and accordingly most of them undergo complete metamorphosis. The typical form of metamorphosis in beetles passes through four main stages: the egg, the larva, the pupa, and the imago or adult. The larvae are commonly called grubs and the pupa sometimes is called the chrysalis. In some species, the pupa may be enclosed in a cocoon constructed by the larva towards the end of its final instar. Some beetles, such as typical members of the families Meloidae and Rhipiphoridae, go further, undergoing hypermetamorphosis in which the first instar takes the form of a triungulin.
### Mating
Some beetles have intricate mating behaviour. Pheromone communication is often important in locating a mate. Different species use different pheromones. Scarab beetles such as the Rutelinae use pheromones derived from fatty acid synthesis, while other scarabs such as the Melolonthinae use amino acids and terpenoids. Another way beetles find mates is seen in the fireflies (Lampyridae) which are bioluminescent, with abdominal light-producing organs. The males and females engage in a complex dialog before mating; each species has a unique combination of flight patterns, duration, composition, and intensity of the light produced.
Before mating, males and females may stridulate, or vibrate the objects they are on. In the Meloidae, the male climbs onto the dorsum of the female and strokes his antennae on her head, palps, and antennae. In Eupompha, the male draws his antennae along his longitudinal vertex. They may not mate at all if they do not perform the precopulatory ritual. This mating behavior may be different amongst dispersed populations of the same species. For example, the mating of a Russian population of tansy beetle (Chysolina graminis) is preceded by an elaborate ritual involving the male tapping the female's eyes, pronotum and antennae with its antennae, which is not evident in the population of this species in the United Kingdom.
Competition can play a part in the mating rituals of species such as burying beetles (Nicrophorus), the insects fighting to determine which can mate. Many male beetles are territorial and fiercely defend their territories from intruding males. In such species, the male often has horns on the head or thorax, making its body length greater than that of a female. Copulation is generally quick, but in some cases lasts for several hours. During copulation, sperm cells are transferred to the female to fertilize the egg.
### Life cycle
#### Egg
Essentially all beetles lay eggs, though some myrmecophilous Aleocharinae and some Chrysomelinae which live in mountains or the subarctic are ovoviviparous, laying eggs which hatch almost immediately. Beetle eggs generally have smooth surfaces and are soft, though the Cupedidae have hard eggs. Eggs vary widely between species: the eggs tend to be small in species with many instars (larval stages), and in those that lay large numbers of eggs. A female may lay from several dozen to several thousand eggs during her lifetime, depending on the extent of parental care. This ranges from the simple laying of eggs under a leaf, to the parental care provided by scarab beetles, which house, feed and protect their young. The Attelabidae roll leaves and lay their eggs inside the roll for protection.
#### Larva
The larva is usually the principal feeding stage of the beetle life cycle. Larvae tend to feed voraciously once they emerge from their eggs. Some feed externally on plants, such as those of certain leaf beetles, while others feed within their food sources. Examples of internal feeders are most Buprestidae and longhorn beetles. The larvae of many beetle families are predatory like the adults (ground beetles, ladybirds, rove beetles). The larval period varies between species, but can be as long as several years. The larvae of skin beetles undergo a degree of reversed development when starved, and later grow back to the previously attained level of maturity. The cycle can be repeated many times (see Biological immortality). Larval morphology is highly varied amongst species, with well-developed and sclerotized heads, distinguishable thoracic and abdominal segments (usually the tenth, though sometimes the eighth or ninth).
Beetle larvae can be differentiated from other insect larvae by their hardened, often darkened heads, the presence of chewing mouthparts, and spiracles along the sides of their bodies. Like adult beetles, the larvae are varied in appearance, particularly between beetle families. Beetles with somewhat flattened, highly mobile larvae include the ground beetles and rove beetles; their larvae are described as campodeiform. Some beetle larvae resemble hardened worms with dark head capsules and minute legs. These are elateriform larvae, and are found in the click beetle (Elateridae) and darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae) families. Some elateriform larvae of click beetles are known as wireworms. Beetles in the Scarabaeoidea have short, thick larvae described as scarabaeiform, more commonly known as grubs.
All beetle larvae go through several instars, which are the developmental stages between each moult. In many species, the larvae simply increase in size with each successive instar as more food is consumed. In some cases, however, more dramatic changes occur. Among certain beetle families or genera, particularly those that exhibit parasitic lifestyles, the first instar (the planidium) is highly mobile to search out a host, while the following instars are more sedentary and remain on or within their host. This is known as hypermetamorphosis; it occurs in the Meloidae, Micromalthidae, and Ripiphoridae. The blister beetle Epicauta vittata (Meloidae), for example, has three distinct larval stages. Its first stage, the triungulin, has longer legs to go in search of the eggs of grasshoppers. After feeding for a week it moults to the second stage, called the caraboid stage, which resembles the larva of a carabid beetle. In another week it moults and assumes the appearance of a scarabaeid larva—the scarabaeidoid stage. Its penultimate larval stage is the pseudo-pupa or the coarcate larva, which will overwinter and pupate until the next spring.
The larval period can vary widely. A fungus feeding staphylinid Phanerota fasciata undergoes three moults in 3.2 days at room temperature while Anisotoma sp. (Leiodidae) completes its larval stage in the fruiting body of slime mold in 2 days and possibly represents the fastest growing beetles. Dermestid beetles, Trogoderma inclusum can remain in an extended larval state under unfavourable conditions, even reducing their size between moults. A larva is reported to have survived for 3.5 years in an enclosed container.
#### Pupa and adult
As with all endopterygotes, beetle larvae pupate, and from these pupae emerge fully formed, sexually mature adult beetles, or imagos. Pupae never have mandibles (they are adecticous). In most pupae, the appendages are not attached to the body and are said to be exarate; in a few beetles (Staphylinidae, Ptiliidae etc.) the appendages are fused with the body (termed as obtect pupae).
Adults have extremely variable lifespans, from weeks to years, depending on the species. Some wood-boring beetles can have extremely long life-cycles. It is believed that when furniture or house timbers are infested by beetle larvae, the timber already contained the larvae when it was first sawn up. A birch bookcase 40 years old released adult Eburia quadrigeminata (Cerambycidae), while Buprestis aurulenta and other Buprestidae have been documented as emerging as much as 51 years after manufacture of wooden items.
## Behaviour
### Locomotion
The elytra allow beetles to both fly and move through confined spaces, doing so by folding the delicate wings under the elytra while not flying, and folding their wings out just before takeoff. The unfolding and folding of the wings is operated by muscles attached to the wing base; as long as the tension on the radial and cubital veins remains, the wings remain straight. Some beetle species (many Cetoniinae; some Scarabaeinae, Curculionidae and Buprestidae) fly with the elytra closed, with the metathoracic wings extended under the lateral elytra margins. The altitude reached by beetles in flight varies. One study investigating the flight altitude of the ladybird species Coccinella septempunctata and Harmonia axyridis using radar showed that, whilst the majority in flight over a single location were at 150–195 m above ground level, some reached altitudes of over 1100 m.
Many rove beetles have greatly reduced elytra, and while they are capable of flight, they most often move on the ground: their soft bodies and strong abdominal muscles make them flexible, easily able to wriggle into small cracks.
Aquatic beetles use several techniques for retaining air beneath the water's surface. Diving beetles (Dytiscidae) hold air between the abdomen and the elytra when diving. Hydrophilidae have hairs on their under surface that retain a layer of air against their bodies. Adult crawling water beetles use both their elytra and their hind coxae (the basal segment of the back legs) in air retention, while whirligig beetles simply carry an air bubble down with them whenever they dive.
### Communication
Beetles have a variety of ways to communicate, including the use of pheromones. The mountain pine beetle emits a pheromone to attract other beetles to a tree. The mass of beetles are able to overcome the chemical defenses of the tree. After the tree's defenses have been exhausted, the beetles emit an anti-aggregation pheromone. This species can stridulate to communicate, but others may use sound to defend themselves when attacked.
### Parental care
Parental care is found in a few families of beetle, perhaps for protection against adverse conditions and predators. The rove beetle Bledius spectabilis lives in salt marshes, so the eggs and larvae are endangered by the rising tide. The maternal beetle patrols the eggs and larvae, burrowing to keep them from flooding and asphyxiating, and protects them from the predatory carabid beetle Dicheirotrichus gustavi and from the parasitoidal wasp Barycnemis blediator, which kills some 15% of the larvae.
Burying beetles are attentive parents, and participate in cooperative care and feeding of their offspring. Both parents work to bury small animal carcass to serve as a food resource for their young and build a brood chamber around it. The parents prepare the carcass and protect it from competitors and from early decomposition. After their eggs hatch, the parents keep the larvae clean of fungus and bacteria and help the larvae feed by regurgitating food for them.
Some dung beetles provide parental care, collecting herbivore dung and laying eggs within that food supply, an instance of mass provisioning. Some species do not leave after this stage, but remain to safeguard their offspring.
Most species of beetles do not display parental care behaviors after the eggs have been laid.
Subsociality, where females guard their offspring, is well-documented in two families of Chrysomelidae, Cassidinae and Chrysomelinae.
### Eusociality
Eusociality involves cooperative brood care (including brood care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. Few organisms outside Hymenoptera exhibit this behavior; the only beetle to do so is the weevil Austroplatypus incompertus. This Australian species lives in horizontal networks of tunnels, in the heartwood of Eucalyptus trees. It is one of more than 300 species of wood-boring Ambrosia beetles which distribute the spores of ambrosia fungi. The fungi grow in the beetles' tunnels, providing food for the beetles and their larvae; female offspring remain in the tunnels and maintain the fungal growth, probably never reproducing. Cooperative brood care is also found in the bess beetles (Passalidae) where the larvae feed on the semi-digested faeces of the adults.
### Feeding
Beetles are able to exploit a wide diversity of food sources available in their many habitats. Some are omnivores, eating both plants and animals. Other beetles are highly specialized in their diet. Many species of leaf beetles, longhorn beetles, and weevils are very host-specific, feeding on only a single species of plant. Ground beetles and rove beetles (Staphylinidae), among others, are primarily carnivorous and catch and consume many other arthropods and small prey, such as earthworms and snails. While most predatory beetles are generalists, a few species have more specific prey requirements or preferences. In some species, digestive ability relies upon a symbiotic relationship with fungi - some beetles have yeasts living their guts, including some yeasts previously undiscovered anywhere else.
Decaying organic matter is a primary diet for many species. This can range from dung, which is consumed by coprophagous species (such as certain scarab beetles in the Scarabaeidae), to dead animals, which are eaten by necrophagous species (such as the carrion beetles, Silphidae). Some beetles found in dung and carrion are in fact predatory. These include members of the Histeridae and Silphidae, preying on the larvae of coprophagous and necrophagous insects. Many beetles feed under bark, some feed on wood while others feed on fungi growing on wood or leaf-litter. Some beetles have special mycangia, structures for the transport of fungal spores.
## Ecology
### Anti-predator adaptations
Beetles, both adults and larvae, are the prey of many animal predators including mammals from bats to rodents, birds, lizards, amphibians, fishes, dragonflies, robberflies, reduviid bugs, ants, other beetles, and spiders. Beetles use a variety of anti-predator adaptations to defend themselves. These include camouflage and mimicry against predators that hunt by sight, toxicity, and defensive behaviour.
#### Camouflage
Camouflage is common and widespread among beetle families, especially those that feed on wood or vegetation, such as leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae, which are often green) and weevils. In some species, sculpturing or various colored scales or hairs cause beetles such as the avocado weevil Heilipus apiatus to resemble bird dung or other inedible objects. Many beetles that live in sandy environments blend in with the coloration of that substrate.
#### Mimicry and aposematism
Some longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) are effective Batesian mimics of wasps. Beetles may combine coloration with behavioural mimicry, acting like the wasps they already closely resemble. Many other beetles, including ladybirds, blister beetles, and lycid beetles secrete distasteful or toxic substances to make them unpalatable or poisonous, and are often aposematic, where bright or contrasting coloration warn off predators; many beetles and other insects mimic these chemically protected species.
Chemical defense is important in some species, usually being advertised by bright aposematic colors. Some Tenebrionidae use their posture for releasing noxious chemicals to warn off predators. Chemical defenses may serve purposes other than just protection from vertebrates, such as protection from a wide range of microbes. Some species sequester chemicals from the plants they feed on, incorporating them into their own defenses.
Other species have special glands to produce deterrent chemicals. The defensive glands of carabid ground beetles produce a variety of hydrocarbons, aldehydes, phenols, quinones, esters, and acids released from an opening at the end of the abdomen. African carabid beetles (for example, Anthia) employ the same chemicals as ants: formic acid. Bombardier beetles have well-developed pygidial glands that empty from the sides of the intersegment membranes between the seventh and eighth abdominal segments. The gland is made of two containing chambers, one for hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide, the other holding hydrogen peroxide and catalase enzymes. These chemicals mix and result in an explosive ejection, reaching a temperature of around 100 °C (212 °F), with the breakdown of hydroquinone to hydrogen, oxygen, and quinone. The oxygen propels the noxious chemical spray as a jet that can be aimed accurately at predators.
#### Other defenses
Large ground-dwelling beetles such as Carabidae, the rhinoceros beetle and the longhorn beetles defend themselves using strong mandibles, or heavily sclerotised (armored) spines or horns to deter or fight off predators. Many species of weevil that feed out in the open on leaves of plants react to attack by employing a drop-off reflex. Some combine it with thanatosis, in which they close up their appendages and "play dead". The click beetles (Elateridae) can suddenly catapult themselves out of danger by releasing the energy stored by a click mechanism, which consists of a stout spine on the prosternum and a matching groove in the mesosternum. Some species startle an attacker by producing sounds through a process known as stridulation.
### Parasitism
A few species of beetles are ectoparasitic on mammals. One such species, Platypsyllus castoris, parasitises beavers (Castor spp.). This beetle lives as a parasite both as a larva and as an adult, feeding on epidermal tissue and possibly on skin secretions and wound exudates. They are strikingly flattened dorsoventrally, no doubt as an adaptation for slipping between the beavers' hairs. They are wingless and eyeless, as are many other ectoparasites. Others are kleptoparasites of other invertebrates, such as the small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) that infests honey bee nests, while many species are parasitic inquilines or commensal in the nests of ants. A few groups of beetles are primary parasitoids of other insects, feeding off of, and eventually killing their hosts.
### Pollination
Beetle-pollinated flowers are usually large, greenish or off-white in color, and heavily scented. Scents may be spicy, fruity, or similar to decaying organic material. Beetles were most likely the first insects to pollinate flowers. Most beetle-pollinated flowers are flattened or dish-shaped, with pollen easily accessible, although they may include traps to keep the beetle longer. The plants' ovaries are usually well protected from the biting mouthparts of their pollinators. The beetle families that habitually pollinate flowers are the Buprestidae, Cantharidae, Cerambycidae, Cleridae, Dermestidae, Lycidae, Melyridae, Mordellidae, Nitidulidae and Scarabaeidae. Beetles may be particularly important in some parts of the world such as semiarid areas of southern Africa and southern California and the montane grasslands of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
### Mutualism
Mutualism is well known in a few beetles, such as the ambrosia beetle, which partners with fungi to digest the wood of dead trees. The beetles excavate tunnels in dead trees in which they cultivate fungal gardens, their sole source of nutrition. After landing on a suitable tree, an ambrosia beetle excavates a tunnel in which it releases spores of its fungal symbiont. The fungus penetrates the plant's xylem tissue, digests it, and concentrates the nutrients on and near the surface of the beetle gallery, so the weevils and the fungus both benefit. The beetles cannot eat the wood due to toxins, and uses its relationship with fungi to help overcome the defenses of its host tree in order to provide nutrition for their larvae. Chemically mediated by a bacterially produced polyunsaturated peroxide, this mutualistic relationship between the beetle and the fungus is coevolved.
### Tolerance of extreme environments
About 90% of beetle species enter a period of adult diapause, a quiet phase with reduced metabolism to tide unfavourable environmental conditions. Adult diapause is the most common form of diapause in Coleoptera. To endure the period without food (often lasting many months) adults prepare by accumulating reserves of lipids, glycogen, proteins and other substances needed for resistance to future hazardous changes of environmental conditions. This diapause is induced by signals heralding the arrival of the unfavourable season; usually the cue is photoperiodic. Short (decreasing) day length serves as a signal of approaching winter and induces winter diapause (hibernation). A study of hibernation in the Arctic beetle Pterostichus brevicornis showed that the body fat levels of adults were highest in autumn with the alimentary canal filled with food, but empty by the end of January. This loss of body fat was a gradual process, occurring in combination with dehydration.
All insects are poikilothermic, so the ability of a few beetles to live in extreme environments depends on their resilience to unusually high or low temperatures. The bark beetle Pityogenes chalcographus can survive whilst overwintering beneath tree bark; the Alaskan beetle Cucujus clavipes puniceus is able to withstand ; its larvae may survive . At these low temperatures, the formation of ice crystals in internal fluids is the biggest threat to survival to beetles, but this is prevented through the production of antifreeze proteins that stop water molecules from grouping together. The low temperatures experienced by Cucujus clavipes can be survived through their deliberate dehydration in conjunction with the antifreeze proteins. This concentrates the antifreezes several fold. The hemolymph of the mealworm beetle Tenebrio molitor contains several antifreeze proteins. The Alaskan beetle Upis ceramboides can survive −60 °C: its cryoprotectants are xylomannan, a molecule consisting of a sugar bound to a fatty acid, and the sugar-alcohol, threitol.
Conversely, desert dwelling beetles are adapted to tolerate high temperatures. For example, the Tenebrionid beetle Onymacris rugatipennis can withstand . Tiger beetles in hot, sandy areas are often whitish (for example, Habroscelimorpha dorsalis), to reflect more heat than a darker color would. These beetles also exhibits behavioural adaptions to tolerate the heat: they are able to stand erect on their tarsi to hold their bodies away from the hot ground, seek shade, and turn to face the sun so that only the front parts of their heads are directly exposed.
The fogstand beetle of the Namib Desert, Stenocara gracilipes, is able to collect water from fog, as its elytra have a textured surface combining hydrophilic (water-loving) bumps and waxy, hydrophobic troughs. The beetle faces the early morning breeze, holding up its abdomen; droplets condense on the elytra and run along ridges towards their mouthparts. Similar adaptations are found in several other Namib desert beetles such as Onymacris unguicularis.
Some terrestrial beetles that exploit shoreline and floodplain habitats have physiological adaptations for surviving floods. In the event of flooding, adult beetles may be mobile enough to move away from flooding, but larvae and pupa often cannot. Adults of Cicindela togata are unable to survive immersion in water, but larvae are able to survive a prolonged period, up to 6 days, of anoxia during floods. Anoxia tolerance in the larvae may have been sustained by switching to anaerobic metabolic pathways or by reducing metabolic rate. Anoxia tolerance in the adult carabid beetle Pelophilia borealis was tested in laboratory conditions and it was found that they could survive a continuous period of up to 127 days in an atmosphere of 99.9% nitrogen at 0 °C.
### Migration
Many beetle species undertake annual mass movements which are termed as migrations. These include the pollen beetle Meligethes aeneus and many species of coccinellids. These mass movements may also be opportunistic, in search of food, rather than seasonal. A 2008 study of an unusually large outbreak of Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) in British Columbia found that beetles were capable of flying 30–110 km per day in densities of up to 18,600 beetles per hectare.
## Relationship to humans
### In ancient cultures
Several species of dung beetle, especially the sacred scarab, Scarabaeus sacer, were revered in Ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphic image of the beetle may have had existential, fictional, or ontologic significance. Images of the scarab in bone, ivory, stone, Egyptian faience, and precious metals are known from the Sixth Dynasty and up to the period of Roman rule. The scarab was of prime significance in the funerary cult of ancient Egypt. The scarab was linked to Khepri, the god of the rising sun, from the supposed resemblance of the rolling of the dung ball by the beetle to the rolling of the sun by the god. Some of ancient Egypt's neighbors adopted the scarab motif for seals of varying types. The best-known of these are the Judean LMLK seals, where eight of 21 designs contained scarab beetles, which were used exclusively to stamp impressions on storage jars during the reign of Hezekiah. Beetles are mentioned as a symbol of the sun, as in ancient Egypt, in Plutarch's 1st century Moralia. The Greek Magical Papyri of the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD describe scarabs as an ingredient in a spell.
Pliny the Elder discusses beetles in his Natural History, describing the stag beetle: "Some insects, for the preservation of their wings, are covered with an erust (elytra)—the beetle, for instance, the wing of which is peculiarly fine and frail. To these insects a sting has been denied by Nature; but in one large kind we find horns of a remarkable length, two-pronged at the extremities, and forming pincers, which the animal closes when it is its intention to bite." The stag beetle is recorded in a Greek myth by Nicander and recalled by Antoninus Liberalis in which Cerambus is turned into a beetle: "He can be seen on trunks and has hook-teeth, ever moving his jaws together. He is black, long and has hard wings like a great dung beetle". The story concludes with the comment that the beetles were used as toys by young boys, and that the head was removed and worn as a pendant.
### As pests
About 75% of beetle species are phytophagous in both the larval and adult stages. Many feed on economically important plants and stored plant products, including trees, cereals, tobacco, and dried fruits. Some, such as the boll weevil, which feeds on cotton buds and flowers, can cause extremely serious damage to agriculture. The boll weevil crossed the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas, to enter the United States from Mexico around 1892, and had reached southeastern Alabama by 1915. By the mid-1920s, it had entered all cotton-growing regions in the US, traveling 40 to 160 miles (60–260 km) per year. It remains the most destructive cotton pest in North America. Mississippi State University has estimated, since the boll weevil entered the United States, it has cost cotton producers about \$13 billion, and in recent times about \$300 million per year.
The bark beetle, elm leaf beetle and the Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) are among the species that attack elm trees. Bark beetles (Scolytidae) carry Dutch elm disease as they move from infected breeding sites to healthy trees. The disease has devastated elm trees across Europe and North America.
Some species of beetle have evolved immunity to insecticides. For example, the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata, is a destructive pest of potato plants. Its hosts include other members of the Solanaceae, such as nightshade, tomato, eggplant and capsicum, as well as the potato. Different populations have between them developed resistance to all major classes of insecticide. The Colorado potato beetle was evaluated as a tool of entomological warfare during World War II, the idea being to use the beetle and its larvae to damage the crops of enemy nations. Germany tested its Colorado potato beetle weaponisation program south of Frankfurt, releasing 54,000 beetles.
The death watch beetle, Xestobium rufovillosum (Ptinidae), is a serious pest of older wooden buildings in Europe. It attacks hardwoods such as oak and chestnut, always where some fungal decay has taken or is taking place. The actual introduction of the pest into buildings is thought to take place at the time of construction.
Other pests include the coconut hispine beetle, Brontispa longissima, which feeds on young leaves, seedlings and mature coconut trees, causing serious economic damage in the Philippines. The mountain pine beetle is a destructive pest of mature or weakened lodgepole pine, sometimes affecting large areas of Canada.
### As beneficial resources
Beetles can be beneficial to human economics by controlling the populations of pests. The larvae and adults of some species of lady beetles (Coccinellidae) feed on aphids that are pests. Other lady beetles feed on scale insects, whitefly and mealybugs. If normal food sources are scarce, they may feed on small caterpillars, young plant bugs, or honeydew and nectar. Ground beetles (Carabidae) are common predators of many insect pests, including fly eggs, caterpillars, and wireworms. Ground beetles can help to control weeds by eating their seeds in the soil, reducing the need for herbicides to protect crops. The effectiveness of some species in reducing certain plant populations has resulted in the deliberate introduction of beetles in order to control weeds. For example, the genus Zygogramma is native to North America but has been used to control Parthenium hysterophorus in India and Ambrosia artemisiifolia in Russia.
Dung beetles (Scarabidae) have been successfully used to reduce the populations of pestilent flies, such as Musca vetustissima and Haematobia exigua which are serious pests of cattle in Australia. The beetles make the dung unavailable to breeding pests by quickly rolling and burying it in the soil, with the added effect of improving soil fertility, tilth, and nutrient cycling. The Australian Dung Beetle Project (1965–1985), introduced species of dung beetle to Australia from South Africa and Europe to reduce populations of Musca vetustissima, following successful trials of this technique in Hawaii. The American Institute of Biological Sciences reports that dung beetles save the United States cattle industry an estimated US\$380 million annually through burying above-ground livestock feces.
The Dermestidae are often used in taxidermy and in the preparation of scientific specimens, to clean soft tissue from bones. Larvae feed on and remove cartilage along with other soft tissue.
### As food and medicine
Beetles are the most widely eaten insects, with about 344 species used as food, usually at the larval stage. The mealworm (the larva of the darkling beetle) and the rhinoceros beetle are among the species commonly eaten. A wide range of species is also used in folk medicine to treat those suffering from a variety of disorders and illnesses, though this is done without clinical studies supporting the efficacy of such treatments.
### As biodiversity indicators
Due to their habitat specificity, many species of beetles have been suggested as suitable as indicators, their presence, numbers, or absence providing a measure of habitat quality. Predatory beetles such as the tiger beetles (Cicindelidae) have found scientific use as an indicator taxon for measuring regional patterns of biodiversity. They are suitable for this as their taxonomy is stable; their life history is well described; they are large and simple to observe when visiting a site; they occur around the world in many habitats, with species specialised to particular habitats; and their occurrence by species accurately indicates other species, both vertebrate and invertebrate. According to the habitats, many other groups such as the rove beetles in human-modified habitats, dung beetles in savannas and saproxylic beetles in forests have been suggested as potential indicator species.
### In art and adornment
Many beetles have durable elytra that has been used as material in art, with beetlewing the best example. Sometimes, they are incorporated into ritual objects for their religious significance. Whole beetles, either as-is or encased in clear plastic, are made into objects ranging from cheap souvenirs such as key chains to expensive fine-art jewellery. In parts of Mexico, beetles of the genus Zopherus are made into living brooches by attaching costume jewelry and golden chains, which is made possible by the incredibly hard elytra and sedentary habits of the genus.
### In entertainment
Fighting beetles are used for entertainment and gambling. This sport exploits the territorial behavior and mating competition of certain species of large beetles. In the Chiang Mai district of northern Thailand, male Xylotrupes rhinoceros beetles are caught in the wild and trained for fighting. Females are held inside a log to stimulate the fighting males with their pheromones. These fights may be competitive and involve gambling both money and property. In South Korea the Dytiscidae species Cybister tripunctatus is used in a roulette-like game.
Beetles are sometimes used as instruments: the Onabasulu of Papua New Guinea historically used the "hugu" weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus as a musical instrument by letting the human mouth serve as a variable resonance chamber for the wing vibrations of the live adult beetle.
### As pets
Some species of beetle are kept as pets, for example diving beetles (Dytiscidae) may be kept in a domestic fresh water tank.
In Japan the practice of keeping horned rhinoceros beetles (Dynastinae) and stag beetles (Lucanidae) is particularly popular amongst young boys. Such is the popularity in Japan that vending machines dispensing live beetles were developed in 1999, each holding up to 100 stag beetles.
### As things to collect
Beetle collecting became extremely popular in the Victorian era. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace collected (by his own count) a total of 83,200 beetles during the eight years described in his 1869 book The Malay Archipelago, including 2,000 species new to science.
### As inspiration for technologies
Several coleopteran adaptations have attracted interest in biomimetics with possible commercial applications. The bombardier beetle's powerful repellent spray has inspired the development of a fine mist spray technology, claimed to have a low carbon impact compared to aerosol sprays. Moisture harvesting behavior by the Namib desert beetle (Stenocara gracilipes) has inspired a self-filling water bottle which utilises hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials to benefit people living in dry regions with no regular rainfall.
Living beetles have been used as cyborgs. A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funded project implanted electrodes into Mecynorhina torquata beetles, allowing them to be remotely controlled via a radio receiver held on its back, as proof-of-concept for surveillance work. Similar technology has been applied to enable a human operator to control the free-flight steering and walking gaits of Mecynorhina torquata as well as graded turning and backward walking of Zophobas morio.
Research published in 2020 sought to create a robotic camera backpack for beetles. Miniature cameras weighing 248 mg were attached to live beetles of the Tenebrionid genera Asbolus and Eleodes. The cameras filmed over a 60° range for up to 6 hours.
### In conservation
Since beetles form such a large part of the world's biodiversity, their conservation is important, and equally, loss of habitat and biodiversity is essentially certain to impact on beetles. Many species of beetles have very specific habitats and long life cycles that make them vulnerable. Some species are highly threatened while others are already feared extinct. Island species tend to be more susceptible as in the case of Helictopleurus undatus of Madagascar which is thought to have gone extinct during the late 20th century. Conservationists have attempted to arouse a liking for beetles with flagship species like the stag beetle, Lucanus cervus, and tiger beetles (Cicindelidae). In Japan the Genji firefly, Luciola cruciata, is extremely popular, and in South Africa the Addo elephant dung beetle offers promise for broadening ecotourism beyond the big five tourist mammal species. Popular dislike of pest beetles, too, can be turned into public interest in insects, as can unusual ecological adaptations of species like the fairy shrimp hunting beetle, Cicinis bruchi. |
1,052,632 | Sylvester–Gallai theorem | 1,158,704,897 | Existence of a line through two points | [
"Articles containing proofs",
"Euclidean plane geometry",
"Matroid theory",
"Theorems in discrete geometry"
]
| The Sylvester–Gallai theorem in geometry states that every finite set of points in the Euclidean plane has a line that passes through exactly two of the points or a line that passes through all of them. It is named after James Joseph Sylvester, who posed it as a problem in 1893, and Tibor Gallai, who published one of the first proofs of this theorem in 1944.
A line that contains exactly two of a set of points is known as an ordinary line. Another way of stating the theorem is that every finite set of points that is not collinear has an ordinary line. According to a strengthening of the theorem, every finite point set (not all on one line) has at least a linear number of ordinary lines. An algorithm can find an ordinary line in a set of $n$ points in time $O(n\log n)$.
## History
The Sylvester–Gallai theorem was posed as a problem by . suggests that Sylvester may have been motivated by a related phenomenon in algebraic geometry, in which the inflection points of a cubic curve in the complex projective plane form a configuration of nine points and twelve lines (the Hesse configuration) in which each line determined by two of the points contains a third point. The Sylvester–Gallai theorem implies that it is impossible for all nine of these points to have real coordinates.
`claimed to have a short proof of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem, but it was already noted to be incomplete at the time of publication. proved the theorem (and actually a slightly stronger result) in an equivalent formulation, its projective dual. Unaware of Melchior's proof, again stated the conjecture, which was subsequently proved by Tibor Gallai, and soon afterwards by other authors.`
In a 1951 review, Erdős called the result "Gallai's theorem", but it was already called the Sylvester–Gallai theorem in a 1954 review by Leonard Blumenthal. It is one of many mathematical topics named after Sylvester.
## Equivalent versions
The question of the existence of an ordinary line can also be posed for points in the real projective plane RP<sup>2</sup> instead of the Euclidean plane. The projective plane can be formed from the Euclidean plane by adding extra points "at infinity" where lines that are parallel in the Euclidean plane intersect each other, and by adding a single line "at infinity" containing all the added points. However, the additional points of the projective plane cannot help create non-Euclidean finite point sets with no ordinary line, as any finite point set in the projective plane can be transformed into a Euclidean point set with the same combinatorial pattern of point-line incidences. Therefore, any pattern of finitely many intersecting points and lines that exists in one of these two types of plane also exists in the other. Nevertheless, the projective viewpoint allows certain configurations to be described more easily. In particular, it allows the use of projective duality, in which the roles of points and lines in statements of projective geometry can be exchanged for each other. Under projective duality, the existence of an ordinary line for a set of non-collinear points in RP<sup>2</sup> is equivalent to the existence of an ordinary point in a nontrivial arrangement of finitely many lines. An arrangement is said to be trivial when all its lines pass through a common point, and nontrivial otherwise; an ordinary point is a point that belongs to exactly two lines.
Arrangements of lines have a combinatorial structure closely connected to zonohedra, polyhedra formed as the Minkowski sum of a finite set of line segments, called generators. In this connection, each pair of opposite faces of a zonohedron corresponds to a crossing point of an arrangement of lines in the projective plane, with one line for each generator. The number of sides of each face is twice the number of lines that cross in the arrangement. For instance, the elongated dodecahedron shown is a zonohedron with five generators, two pairs of opposite hexagon faces, and four pairs of opposite parallelogram faces. In the corresponding five-line arrangement, two triples of lines cross (corresponding to the two pairs of opposite hexagons) and the remaining four pairs of lines cross at ordinary points (corresponding to the four pairs of opposite parallelograms). An equivalent statement of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem, in terms of zonohedra, is that every zonohedron has at least one parallelogram face (counting rectangles, rhombuses, and squares as special cases of parallelograms). More strongly, whenever sets of $n$ points in the plane can be guaranteed to have at least $t_2(n)$ ordinary lines, zonohedra with $n$ generators can be guaranteed to have at least $2t_2(n)$ parallogram faces.
## Proofs
The Sylvester–Gallai theorem has been proved in many different ways. Gallai's 1944 proof switches back and forth between Euclidean and projective geometry, in order to transform the points into an equivalent configuration in which an ordinary line can be found as a line of slope closest to zero; for details, see . The 1941 proof by Melchior uses projective duality to convert the problem into an equivalent question about arrangements of lines, which can be answered using Euler's polyhedral formula. Another proof by Leroy Milton Kelly shows by contradiction that the connecting line with the smallest nonzero distance to another point must be ordinary. And, following an earlier proof by Steinberg, H. S. M. Coxeter showed that the metric concepts of slope and distance appearing in Gallai's and Kelly's proofs are unnecessarily powerful, instead proving the theorem using only the axioms of ordered geometry.
### Kelly's proof
This proof is by Leroy Milton Kelly. call it "simply the best" of the many proofs of this theorem.
Suppose that a finite set $S$ of points is not all collinear. Define a connecting line to be a line that contains at least two points in the collection. By finiteness, $S$ must have a point $P$ and a connecting line $\ell$ that are a positive distance apart but are closer than all other point-line pairs. Kelly proved that $\ell$ is ordinary, by contradiction.
Assume that $\ell$ is not ordinary. Then it goes through at least three points of $S$. At least two of these are on the same side of $P'$, the perpendicular projection of $P$ on $\ell$. Call them $B$ and $C$, with $B$ being closest to $P'$ (and possibly coinciding with it). Draw the connecting line $m$ passing through $P$ and $C$, and the perpendicular from $B$ to $B'$ on $m$ . Then $BB'$ is shorter than $PP'$. This follows from the fact that $PP'C$ and $BB'C$ are similar triangles, one contained inside the other.
However, this contradicts the original definition of $P$ and $\ell$ as the point-line pair with the smallest positive distance. So the assumption that $\ell$ is not ordinary cannot be true, QED.
### Melchior's proof
In 1941 (thus, prior to Erdős publishing the question and Gallai's subsequent proof) Melchior showed that any nontrivial finite arrangement of lines in the projective plane has at least three ordinary points. By duality, this results also says that any finite nontrivial set of points on the plane has at least three ordinary lines.
Melchior observed that, for any graph embedded in the real projective plane, the formula $V-E+F$ must equal $1$, the Euler characteristic of the projective plane. Here $V$, $E$, and $F$ are the number of vertices, edges, and faces of the graph, respectively. Any nontrivial line arrangement on the projective plane defines a graph in which each face is bounded by at least three edges, and each edge bounds two faces; so, double counting gives the additional inequality $F\le 2E/3$. Using this inequality to eliminate $F$ from the Euler characteristic leads to the inequality $E\le 3V-3$. But if every vertex in the arrangement were the crossing point of three or more lines, then the total number of edges would be at least $3V$, contradicting this inequality. Therefore, some vertices must be the crossing point of only two lines, and as Melchior's more careful analysis shows, at least three ordinary vertices are needed in order to satisfy the inequality $E\le 3V-3$.
As note, the same argument for the existence of an ordinary vertex was also given in 1944 by Norman Steenrod, who explicitly applied it to the dual ordinary line problem.
#### Melchior's inequality
By a similar argument, Melchior was able to prove a more general result. For every $k\ge 2$, let $t_k$ be the number of points to which $k$ lines are incident. Then
$\displaystyle \sum_{k\geq2} (k-3) t_k \leq -3.$
or equivalently,
$\displaystyle t_2 \geqslant 3 + \sum_{k\geq4} (k-3) t_k.$
### Axiomatics
`writes of Kelly's proof that its use of Euclidean distance is unnecessarily powerful, "like using a sledge hammer to crack an almond". Instead, Coxeter gave another proof of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem within ordered geometry, an axiomatization of geometry in terms of betweenness that includes not only Euclidean geometry but several other related geometries. Coxeter's proof is a variation of an earlier proof given by Steinberg in 1944. The problem of finding a minimal set of axioms needed to prove the theorem belongs to reverse mathematics; see for a study of this question.`
The usual statement of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem is not valid in constructive analysis, as it implies the lesser limited principle of omniscience, a weakened form of the law of excluded middle that is rejected as an axiom of constructive mathematics. Nevertheless, it is possible to formulate a version of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem that is valid within the axioms of constructive analysis, and to adapt Kelly's proof of the theorem to be a valid proof under these axioms.
## Finding an ordinary line
Kelly's proof of the existence of an ordinary line can be turned into an algorithm that finds an ordinary line by searching for the closest pair of a point and a line through two other points. report the time for this closest-pair search as $O(n^3)$, based on a brute-force search of all triples of points, but an algorithm to find the closest given point to each line through two given points, in time $O(n^2)$, was given earlier by , as a subroutine for finding the minimum-area triangle determined by three of a given set of points. The same paper of also shows how to construct the dual arrangement of lines to the given points (as used in Melchior and Steenrod's proof) in the same time, $O(n^2)$, from which it is possible to identify all ordinary vertices and all ordinary lines. first showed how to find a single ordinary line (not necessarily the one from Kelly's proof) in time $O(n\log n)$, and a simpler algorithm with the same time bound was described by .
The algorithm of is based on Coxeter's proof using ordered geometry. It performs the following steps:
1. Choose a point $p_0$ that is a vertex of the convex hull of the given points.
2. Construct a line $\ell_0$ that passes through $p_0$ and otherwise stays outside of the convex hull.
3. Sort the other given points by the angle they make with $p_0$, grouping together points that form the same angle.
4. If any of the points is alone in its group, then return the ordinary line through that point and $p_0$.
5. For each two consecutive groups of points, in the sorted sequence by their angles, form two lines, each of which passes through the closest point to $p_0$ in one group and the farthest point from $p_0$ in the other group.
6. For each line $\ell_i$ in the set of lines formed in this way, find the intersection point of $\ell_i$ with $\ell_0$
7. Return the line $\ell_i$ whose intersection point with $\ell_0$ is the closest to $p_0$.
As the authors prove, the line returned by this algorithm must be ordinary. The proof is either by construction if it is returned by step 4, or by contradiction if it is returned by step 7: if the line returned in step 7 were not ordinary, then the authors prove that there would exist an ordinary line between one of its points and $p_0$, but this line should have already been found and returned in step 4.
## The number of ordinary lines
While the Sylvester–Gallai theorem states that an arrangement of points, not all collinear, must determine an ordinary line, it does not say how many must be determined. Let $t_2(n)$ be the minimum number of ordinary lines determined over every set of $n$ non-collinear points. Melchior's proof showed that $t_2(n)\ge 3$. raised the question of whether $t_2(n)$ approaches infinity with $n$. confirmed that it does by proving that $t_2(n)\ge\sqrt n$. conjectured that $t_2\ge\lfloor n/2\rfloor$, for all values of $n$, a conjecture that still stands as of 2013. This is often referred to as the Dirac–Motzkin conjecture; see for example . proved that $t_2(n)\ge 3n/7$.
Dirac's conjectured lower bound is asymptotically the best possible, as the even numbers $n$ greater than four have a matching upper bound $t_2(n)\le n/2$. The construction, due to Károly Böröczky, that achieves this bound consists of the vertices of a regular $m$-gon in the real projective plane and another $m$ points (thus, $n=2m$) on the line at infinity corresponding to each of the directions determined by pairs of vertices. Although there are $m(m-1)/2$ pairs of these points, they determine only $m$ distinct directions. This arrangement has only $m$ ordinary lines, the lines that connect a vertex $v$ with the point at infinity collinear with the two neighbors of $v$. As with any finite configuration in the real projective plane, this construction can be perturbed so that all points are finite, without changing the number of ordinary lines.
For odd $n$, only two examples are known that match Dirac's lower bound conjecture, that is, with $t_2(n)=(n-1)/2$ One example, by , consists of the vertices, edge midpoints, and centroid of an equilateral triangle; these seven points determine only three ordinary lines. The configuration in which these three ordinary lines are replaced by a single line cannot be realized in the Euclidean plane, but forms a finite projective space known as the Fano plane. Because of this connection, the Kelly–Moser example has also been called the non-Fano configuration. The other counterexample, due to McKee, consists of two regular pentagons joined edge-to-edge together with the midpoint of the shared edge and four points on the line at infinity in the projective plane; these 13 points have among them 6 ordinary lines. Modifications of Böröczky's construction lead to sets of odd numbers of points with $3\lfloor n/4\rfloor$ ordinary lines.
`proved that `$t_2(n)\ge\lceil 6n/13\rceil$` except when `$n$` is seven. Asymptotically, this formula is already `$12/13 \approx 92.3\%$` of the proven `$n/2$` upper bound. The `$n=7$` case is an exception because otherwise the Kelly–Moser construction would be a counterexample; their construction shows that `$t(7)\le 3$`. However, were the Csima–Sawyer bound valid for `$n=7$`, it would claim that `$t_2(7)\ge 4$`.`
A closely related result is Beck's theorem, stating a tradeoff between the number of lines with few points and the number of points on a single line.
Ben Green and Terence Tao showed that for all sufficiently large point sets (that is, $n > n_0$ for some suitable choice of $n_0$), the number of ordinary lines is indeed at least $n/2$. Furthermore, when $n$ is odd, the number of ordinary lines is at least $3n/4-C$, for some constant $C$. Thus, the constructions of Böröczky for even and odd (discussed above) are best possible. Minimizing the number of ordinary lines is closely related to the orchard-planting problem of maximizing the number of three-point lines, which Green and Tao also solved for all sufficiently large point sets.
## The number of connecting lines
As Paul Erdős observed, the Sylvester–Gallai theorem immediately implies that any set of $n$ points that are not collinear determines at least $n$ different lines. This result is known as the De Bruijn–Erdős theorem. As a base case, the result is clearly true for $n=3$. For any larger value of $n$, the result can be reduced from $n$ points to $n-1$ points, by deleting an ordinary line and one of the two points on it (taking care not to delete a point for which the remaining subset would lie on a single line). Thus, it follows by mathematical induction. The example of a near-pencil, a set of $n-1$ collinear points together with one additional point that is not on the same line as the other points, shows that this bound is tight.
## Generalizations
The Sylvester–Gallai theorem has been generalized to colored point sets in the Euclidean plane, and to systems of points and lines defined algebraically or by distances in a metric space. In general, these variations of the theorem consider only finite sets of points, to avoid examples like the set of all points in the Euclidean plane, which does not have an ordinary line.
### Colored points
A variation of Sylvester's problem, posed in the mid-1960s by Ronald Graham and popularized by Donald J. Newman, considers finite planar sets of points (not all in a line) that are given two colors, and asks whether every such set has a line through two or more points that are all the same color. In the language of sets and families of sets, an equivalent statement is that the family of the collinear subsets of a finite point set (not all on one line) cannot have Property B. A proof of this variation was announced by Theodore Motzkin but never published; the first published proof was by .
### Non-real coordinates
Just as the Euclidean plane or projective plane can be defined by using real numbers for the coordinates of their points (Cartesian coordinates for the Euclidean plane and homogeneous coordinates for the projective plane), analogous abstract systems of points and lines can be defined by using other number systems as coordinates. The Sylvester–Gallai theorem does not hold for geometries defined in this way over finite fields: for some finite geometries defined in this way, such as the Fano plane, the set of all points in the geometry has no ordinary lines.
The Sylvester–Gallai theorem also does not directly apply to geometries in which points have coordinates that are pairs of complex numbers or quaternions, but these geometries have more complicated analogues of the theorem. For instance, in the complex projective plane there exists a configuration of nine points, Hesse's configuration (the inflection points of a cubic curve), in which every line is non-ordinary, violating the Sylvester–Gallai theorem. Such a configuration is known as a Sylvester–Gallai configuration, and it cannot be realized by points and lines of the Euclidean plane. Another way of stating the Sylvester–Gallai theorem is that whenever the points of a Sylvester–Gallai configuration are embedded into a Euclidean space, preserving colinearities, the points must all lie on a single line, and the example of the Hesse configuration shows that this is false for the complex projective plane. However, proved a complex-number analogue of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem: whenever the points of a Sylvester–Gallai configuration are embedded into a complex projective space, the points must all lie in a two-dimensional subspace. Equivalently, a set of points in three-dimensional complex space whose affine hull is the whole space must have an ordinary line, and in fact must have a linear number of ordinary lines. Similarly, showed that whenever a Sylvester–Gallai configuration is embedded into a space defined over the quaternions, its points must lie in a three-dimensional subspace.
### Matroids
Every set of points in the Euclidean plane, and the lines connecting them, may be abstracted as the elements and flats of a rank-3 oriented matroid. The points and lines of geometries defined using other number systems than the real numbers also form matroids, but not necessarily oriented matroids. In this context, the result of lower-bounding the number of ordinary lines can be generalized to oriented matroids: every rank-3 oriented matroid with $n$ elements has at least $3n/7$ two-point lines, or equivalently every rank-3 matroid with fewer two-point lines must be non-orientable. A matroid without any two-point lines is called a Sylvester matroid. Relatedly, the Kelly–Moser configuration with seven points and only three ordinary lines forms one of the forbidden minors for GF(4)-representable matroids.
### Distance geometry
Another generalization of the Sylvester–Gallai theorem to arbitrary metric spaces was conjectured by and proved by . In this generalization, a triple of points in a metric space is defined to be collinear when the triangle inequality for these points is an equality, and a line is defined from any pair of points by repeatedly including additional points that are collinear with points already added to the line, until no more such points can be added. The generalization of Chvátal and Chen states that every finite metric space has a line that contains either all points or exactly two of the points. |
38,145,079 | Toil (album) | 1,146,545,490 | null | [
"2012 albums",
"Flatfoot 56 albums"
]
| Toil is a studio album by the Chicago Celtic punk band Flatfoot 56, released on August 14, 2012, by Paper + Plastick. The release is the fourth studio album released by the group since they were signed by a label. Johnny Rioux, a member of the Celtic punk band Street Dogs, returned as the producer.
The album was released to generally favorable reviews. Critics and fans enjoyed the album's diversity of sound and song writing. Reviewers described the album's songs as working-class anthems with Christian themes. The final track on the album, a Celtic punk cover of the hymn "I'll Fly Away", was well received by music critics. The album produced one single, "I Believe It", that was released as a music video. Both the album and the single failed to chart. The track "Winter in Chicago" was featured on the soundtrack for the video game Watch Dogs.
## Background and recording
While on tour in 2011, Flatfoot 56 played at Summerfest in Milwaukee with Less than Jake. Less than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello, owner of Paper + Plastick, saw the band play and was impressed by their energy and performance. When he discovered that the band was looking for a record label, he offered to sign them.
Johnny Rioux, who had produced Flatfoot 56's last album, Black Thorn, was chosen as the album's producer. The band felt that having the same producer improved communication and allowed the band to work more freely. According to frontman Tobin Bawinkel, this familiarity allowed Rioux to encourage the band to advance musically and think differently. During January 2012, the band recorded the entire album at the Atlas Studios in Chicago, Illinois.
## Writing and composition
The album's lyrics have been described as an anthematic examination of the struggles of the American working class and politically liberal. Along with highlighting the struggles of blue-collar America, the lyrics portray the idea that there is hope even when things appear to be bleak and that giving up is not an option. While there are Christian themes throughout the songs, neither Christian nor secular reviewers found them to be preachy.
"Brother, Brother", the first song on the album, is inspired by the band members' experience with the drug use of friends. Bawinkel stated in an interview that "a bunch of the tunes cover what we wanted to say to them during those times [when friends returned to using drugs]." Michael Weaver, writing for Jesus Freak Hideout, interpreted the song as an attempt to convince this individual to turn his or her life around and return to the Christian faith. The next track, named "The Rich, The Strong and The Poor", tells the story of three men looking for happiness. The first tries to find it in money, but he returns unfulfilled. The second tries looking for happiness in physical strength. He believes that if he proves himself, that he will find peace. Like the first man, he ends up unfulfilled. The final man looks for happiness in basic life needs and likewise ends up in the same position as the first two men. Bawinkel explains that, "all three are very much in the same position in that happiness hasn’t been found in chasing these various desires. There is something more which is hopeful for some and frustrating for others."
The third song on the album, "I Believe It", was the subject of the band's only music video from Toil. The video shows the band singing the song acoustically in the studio, much like the version that is featured on the album. Instrumentally, the song is guitar-driven and features the mandolin. The lyrics remind the listener to continue going forward even if it is painful. The song has been seen as symbol of the band's faith. The title track, "Toil", is an acoustic protest song that was compared by one reviewer to the Bruce Springsteen album Wrecking Ball. The lyrics tell the story of an unhappy, overworked, working-class man. The song ends with the lyrics, "I'm a slave to that whistle call. I’m a slave." The tenth song, "6'10"", is an alt-country ballad that was written in response to people making jokes about Bawinkle's height. The man depicted in the track is six feet one inch (1.85 meters) tall and has to deal with people questioning him about why he does not play basketball.
## Reception
Toil was received positively by reviewers, though the album and its single failed to chart. Absolute Punk's reviewer commented that the album was "fun" and a "rabble-rouser." Jesus Freak Hideout's reviewer thought Toil was Flatfoot 56's best work to date and that the album showed the band improving with age. Innocent Words' reviewer agreed with Jesus Freak Hideout's assessment, while David Von Bader, from Consequence of Sound, felt that the album was a step towards broader appeal.
The final song on the album was well received by reviewers. The song, a Celtic punk cover of "I'll Fly Away", is the band's take on a widely recorded traditional hymn. AMP's reviewer called the cover "perfectly-executed". Danny Exyle, writing for Punk News, called the song a "crowd favorite" for fans of the band's live show. Jesus Freak Hideout's reviewer viewed the release of another hymn on one of Flatfoot 56's albums very favorably; the band had covered "Amazing Grace" on an earlier album. He concluded stating "anyone who thought hymns were boring [has] not heard a Flatfoot 56 rendition."
## Track listing
1. Brother, Brother - 2:32
2. The Rich, The Strong and The Poor - 3:09
3. I Believe It - 2:44
4. Take Hold Again - 3:28
5. Toil - 3:37
6. Live or Die Trying - 3:24
7. Work For Them - 2:15
8. Terrorizing Truth - 2:45
9. Strongman - 2:56
10. 6'10 - 2:32
11. This Time - 3:15
12. Winter In Chicago - 3:10
13. I'll Fly Away - 2:44
## Personnel
Personnel as listed on Allmusic:
Flatfoot 56
- Tobin Bawinkel — guitar, vocals
- Justin Bawinkel — drums, vocals
- Kyle Bawinkel — bass, vocals
- Brandon Good — guitar, harmonica, mandolin, vocals
- Eric McMahon — bagpipes, guitar, vocals
Production and recording
- Johnny Rioux — producer
- Tim Rusin — mixing
- Justin Yates — engineer
- Stephen Egerton — mastering
- Albert E. Brumley — composer
Artwork and photography
- Ryan Besch — artwork
- Anthony Barlich — photography
- Chad Sengstock — photography
Guest musicians
- Jane Bawinkel — vocals
- Cuddy — vocals
- David Daniher — bagpipes
- Rebecca Faber — violin
- Maron Gaffron — vocals
- Dan Hanson — banjo
- Joby — cello
- Josh Robieson (ex-Flatfoot 56) — bagpipes
- Kevin Phlanz — vocals
- Robert Powell — tambourine, vocals
- Jon Pratt — vocals
- Johnny Rioux (Street Dogs) — vocals
- Ginger Rob — vocals
- Spider — upright bass
- Turbovamps — vocals
- Jimmy Wasion — piano
- Kyle Wilnewie — vocals
## References and bibliography |
40,429,310 | Aura (song) | 1,170,497,152 | null | [
"2013 songs",
"Electronic dance music songs",
"Lady Gaga songs",
"Song recordings produced by Lady Gaga",
"Songs written by Lady Gaga",
"Songs written by Zedd"
]
| "Aura" is a song recorded by American singer Lady Gaga for her third studio album, Artpop (2013). She co-wrote and co-produced the track with Zedd and the psychedelic trance duo Infected Mushroom. Initially entitled "Burqa", an Infected Mushroom demo is the song's backbone. "Aura", which explores different facets of the singer, is a mariachi and EDM song with Western guitar and Middle Eastern musical influences and a dance production. Lyrically, it equates the life of a celebrity and stardom with religious oppression and subjugation.
Music critics were divided about the song. Reviewers praised its production and innovative composition but criticized its lyrics, which used the word "burqa" in a sexual manner. "Aura" was first performed live during Gaga's headlining iTunes Festival, and it was used in the trailer for Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (in which the singer co-stars). It was also part of the setlist of ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour, and Gaga's Las Vegas residency, Enigma. The song entered the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart based on streaming activity.
## Background and development
Development of Gaga's third studio album, Artpop, began shortly after the release of Born This Way (2011); by the following year, its concepts were "beginning to flourish" as Gaga collaborated with producers Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow. As the singer embarked on her Born This Way Ball tour, she began collaborating with disc jockey Zedd. In October 2012, when asked by DJ Calvin Harris about her work with Zedd, Gaga sent a cryptic Twitter message: "Were all good [Zedd] miss you buddy been listening to \*\*rq\* all day". The abbreviated word was assumed to refer to a song title. About a year later, a demo from Gaga's Artpop sessions leaked with the song, entitled "Burqa"; however, it was presumed to have a two-part title.
The song's real name was revealed as "Aura", originating from a demo by the Israeli psychedelic musical duo Infected Mushroom. In an interview with the Israeli weekly newspaper B'Sheva, the duo detailed the song's conception. Gaga had reportedly visited Zedd's studio while he was working on music with Infected Mushroom. She liked the first demo she heard, which was for "Aura". Zedd later called the duo, saying that Gaga wanted the song for Artpop. They deliberated for some time, torn between maintaining their artistic integrity by not collaborating with mainstream artists and the possibility of a "lifelong pension" from the track's royalties. Infected Mushroom decided to give it to Gaga, but wanted to be credited under an alias. The singer was opposed, and wanted the group's real name in the credits. According to Gaga, she wrote the song as an accompaniment to an app being developed for Artpop and it was inspired by her different facets:
> So this song is about me basically saying that just because all of those things are there [it] doesn't mean that there is not sort of the same person underneath. And then, also that these veils, they are really just protecting me from the thing that I held the most sacred, which is my creativity ... My Aura is the way that I deal with my insanity and I feel quite insane, so this song sounds very insane ... Everyone thinks that everything I do is a statement but some times I'm just moved by something passionate and I want to express it.
To promote the 2013 American action-comedy film Machete Kills (in which Gaga appeared as La Chameleón), its producers used the song in a commercial and created a lyric video which was uploaded on Vevo and YouTube on October 9, 2013. The video contains images and clips from the film.
## Recording and composition
After recording began, Zedd was not pleased with the initial songs and suggested that Gaga redo the whole process. Gaga, not content with creating a staple radio hit, wanted to record creatively. Zedd explained to Rolling Stone that they did not "try to make an EDM album—but, at the same time, we didn't try not to make an EDM album. I've done a lot of stuff that's really outside of what I usually do". "Aura" distributes songwriting and production credit among Gaga, Zedd and Infected Mushroom. The song was recorded at Record Plant Studios in Hollywood by Dave Russell, with assistance from Benjamin Rice. Zedd mixed the track at Zeddl, and Ryan Shanahan and Jesse Taub assisted the process. Rick Pearl did additional programming and Gene Grimaldi the audio mastering at Oasis Mastering Studios in Burbank, California. According to Zedd, "Aura" was the most interesting track on Artpop because its combination of oriental music, guitars and an electronic beat enabled it to "cross over" musical genres.
A mariachi and EDM song, "Aura" begins with Gaga's filtered vocal against a Western-style guitar: "I killed my former and left her in the trunk on highway ten", followed by dissonant laughter. Sam Lansky of Idolator called it a "terrible Nancy Sinatra affectation". A big-sounding EDM production follows the laughter, its beat reminiscent of Gaga's 2011 "Government Hooker" and its vocal "garbled". As the track reaches a crescendo, Gaga sings its hook: "Do you wanna see me naked, lover? Do you wanna peek underneath the cover? Do you wanna see the girl who lives behind the aura, behind the aura?" against a spare accompaniment. The song, written in common time in the key of F major, has a tempo of 120 beats per minute. Gaga's vocal ranges from F<sub>3</sub> to E<sub>5</sub>, and the track has a basic F–G–F–G–Em<sub>7</sub>–F chord progression. Described by Michael Cragg of the Guardian as a "slightly muddled insight into gender politics", "Aura" ends abruptly with Gaga uttering the words "Dance. Sex. Art. Pop. Tech".
According to James Montgomery of MTV News, "Aura"'s lyrics equate celebrity and stardom with religious oppression and subjugation. The beginning of the song, implying that the singer destroyed her old self to become Gaga the artist, examines the loss of a private life and constant media scrutiny (noting that they are by choice). The track's central metaphor is a burqa as a "veil of fame", sexualizing it with the line "Do you wanna see me naked, lover?" Montgomery said that criticism of Gaga's use of the word "burqa" is countered in the lyrics, when she sings "Enigma popstar is fun, she wears burqa for fashion". "Aura" expresses Gaga's solidarity with what she considers her sisterhood.
## Critical reception
Music critics were divided in their reviews of "Aura". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine gave the song a positive review, preferring it to the album's lead single ("Applause"); "Aura" is "everything we've come to expect from Gaga: messy, self-absorbed, overly ambitious, and downright weird—while still being undeniably infectious". According to Jason Lipshutz of Billboard, the track positioned the album as a whole "with ambitious ideas and breakneck electronic passages". Three years later, in another Billboard article ("Lady Gaga's Top 10 Most Daring Songs"), Dan Weiss called "Aura" the singer's "boldest moment particularly as an album opener ... [It's] a dizzying roller coaster ride of a tune and its presumed intent—to get inside the head of a woman from a completely different walk of life and find a kindred spirit in sexual repression—is not without merit". Helen Brown of the Daily Telegraph called "Aura" the most interesting track on Artpop, commending its Middle-Eastern production, Gaga's characteristically repeated syllables and the song's "clever sonic shapeshifting". In his detailed review of the song, Mike Diver of Clash magazine wrote:
> "Aura", this set's opener, manages to be a multitude of songs at once, jumping from nosebleed bass to (Middle) Eastern-coloured tones, a Spaghetti Western monologue to a stars-bound middle-eight, from quite-deliberately provocative talk of slavery and the meaning of the burqa to mindless cosmic love waffle. "Do you want to see the girl who lives behind the aura?" Lady Gaga asks us. Sure. A little of the real would go a long way after the smoke and mirrors defining her career to date.
Lansky was disappointed with the track, and wrote in his Idolator article that "Aura" consisted of all "the best and worst things about Lady Gaga amplified"; it was "weird and frustrating and great and terrible and brilliant and a failure all at once". Umema Aimem of The Washington Post criticized the song's lyrics: "The song actually started out well ... but then you lost me when you proceeded to turn such a sacred symbol of [Islam] into an exotic costume". Mark Hogan of Spin called it "a grasping EDM mess" and "all over the place"; he disliked the burqa lyrics, "along with plenty of moments that bring to mind all the 'blog house' producers following in the path of Crystal Castles or Simian Mobile Disco circa 2007". Max Kessler of Paper gave "Aura" a lukewarm review; the song had "all the classic Gaga attributes", including "controversial and mildly clever lyrics set to a throbbing, almost-grating dance beat that's at times great and at times horrible". Its lyrics were controversial, with some Muslims accusing Gaga of degrading the burqa by sexualizing it.
## Live performances
On September 1, 2013, Gaga opened the 2013 iTunes Festival at Roundhouse in London, performing several songs from Artpop. She opened the show with "Aura", wearing a black suit with a black scarf and a knife that read "HOLLYWOOD" (referring to the song's lyrics). During her performance, the singer was hoisted above the crowd in a metal cage described by the BBC as a "medieval torture device". Ashley Percival of the Huffington Post wrote about the show, "Arriving onstage a fashionable 26 minutes late, Gaga opened with previously leaked track 'Aura', which sounded more pulsating and crazed than the unfinished demo ... She belted out from a cage suspended above the audience, her lyrics setting the tone for the rest of her set." Gaga performed "Aura" next at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City, where she held a fête for V magazine editor Stephen Gan. She played a 45-minute set, wearing a seashell bra and thong. According to David Lipke of Women's Wear Daily, Gaga lip-synced the song.
On November 8, 2013, Gaga appeared in ArtRave at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to promote Artpop. She performed a number of songs from the album, opening with "Aura" in a clown-like white mask and white-and-black buoy-like attachments which were described by Andrew Hampp of Billboard as reminiscent of a Jack in the Box mascot. The singer's dress was compared to the Michelin Man by Marissa G. Muller of Rolling Stone, "complete with white water wings, a mask, and a pointed cap". Gaga began the performance across the room, weaving through the crowd towards a Jeff Koons sculpture of herself as she sang.
The singer sang "Aura" and other songs from her discography at the 2013 Jingle Bell Ball on December 8, 2013. At the 2014 South by Southwest (SXSW), Gaga wore knee-length blonde dreadlocks and opened her set with "Aura". She was rotating on a barbecue spit for the performance. The song was regularly performed as part of Gaga's 2014 ArtRave: The Artpop Ball concert tour (after "Judas"), with the singer in a green bob cut wig and leather hot pants.
"Aura" is performed on Gaga's 2018–2020 Las Vegas residency show, Enigma. Brittany Spanos from Rolling Stone wrote that the track "begins a darker, more dangerous chapter of journey" in the narrative of the show, although she thought that the song was "oddly included" on the setlist.
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Artpop.
### Management
- Recorded at Record Plant Studios, Hollywood, California
- Mastered at Oasis Mastering Studios, Burbank, California
- Stefani Germanotta P/K/A Lady Gaga (BMI) Sony ATV Songs LLC/House of Gaga Publishing, LLC/GloJoe Music Inc. (BMI)
- Zedd Music Empire (ASCAP), All rights administered by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing.
- Wixen Music Publishing, Inc. as agent for Infected Mushroom Publishing (ASCAP)
### Personnel
- Lady Gaga – songwriter, lead vocals, producer
- Zedd – songwriter, producer, mixing
- Infected Mushroom – songwriter, producer
- Dave Russell – recording
- Benjamin Rice – recording assistant
- Rick Pearl – additional programming
- Ryan Shanahan – assistant
- Jesse Taub – assistant
- Ivy Skoff – union contract administrator
- Gene Grimaldi – mastering
## Charts
Due to "Aura"'s streaming activity, the song debuted at number 28 on the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs for the week ending October 26, 2013. After the release of Artpop, "Aura" re-entered the chart at number 14 and remained on it for a total of six weeks. |
19,992,532 | Early history of video games | 1,167,468,019 | Games from the 1940s to the 1970s | [
"1950s video games",
"1960s video games",
"1970s video games",
"Earliest phenomena",
"Early history of video games"
]
| The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering many inventions and developments. Video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the period of time between the first interactive electronic game with an electronic display in 1947, the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s (Pong and the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles with the Magnavox Odyssey, both in 1972). During this time there was a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.
Following the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device—the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to use an electronic display—the first true video games were created in the early 1950s. Initially created as technology demonstrations, such as the Bertie the Brain and Nimrod computers in 1950 and 1951, video games also became the purview of academic research. A series of games, generally simulating real-world board games, were created at various research institutions to explore programming, human–computer interaction, and computer algorithms. These include OXO and Christopher Strachey's draughts program in 1952, the first software-based games to incorporate a CRT display, and several chess and checkers programs. Possibly the first video game created simply for entertainment was 1958's Tennis for Two, featuring moving graphics on an oscilloscope. As computing technology improved over time, computers became smaller and faster, and the ability to work on them was opened up to university employees and undergraduate students by the end of the 1950s. These new programmers began to create games for non-academic purposes, leading up to the 1962 release of Spacewar! as one of the earliest known digital computer games to be available outside a single research institute.
Throughout the rest of the 1960s increasing numbers of programmers wrote digital computer games, which were sometimes sold commercially in catalogs. As the audience for video games expanded to more than a few dozen research institutions with the falling cost of computers, and programming languages that would run on multiple types of computers were created, a wider variety of games began to be developed. Video games transitioned into a new era in the early 1970s with the launch of the commercial video game industry in 1971 with the display of the coin-operated arcade game Galaxy Game and the release of the first arcade video game Computer Space, and then in 1972 with the release of the immensely successful arcade game Pong and the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which launched the first generation of video-game consoles.
## Defining the video game
The term "video game" has evolved over the decades from a purely technical definition to a general concept defining a new class of interactive entertainment. Technically, for a product to be a video game under early definitions, it needed to transmit a video signal to a display. This can (but not always) include a cathode ray tube (CRT), oscilloscope, liquid crystal display, vector-scan monitor, etc. This definition would preclude early computer games that outputted results to a printer or teletype rather than a display, as well as games that used static LCD graphics, for example Nintendo's Game & Watch, or most Tiger Electronics handhelds. From a technical standpoint, these would more properly be called "electronic games" or "computer games".
Today the term "video game" has completely shed its purely hardware-dependent definition and encompasses a wider range of technology. While still rather ill-defined, the term "video game" now generally encompasses any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player's actions to a display. Going by this broader definition, the first video games appeared in the early 1950s; they were tied largely to research projects at universities and large corporations, though, and had little influence on each other due to their primary purpose as academic and promotional devices rather than entertainment games.
The ancestors to these games include the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to incorporate a cathode-ray tube screen. The player simulates an artillery shell trajectory on a CRT screen connected to an oscilloscope, with a set of knobs and switches. The device uses purely analog electronics and does not use any digital computer or memory device or execute a program. It was patented by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann in 1947. While the idea behind the game was potentially to use a television set as the display and thus sell the invention to consumers, as Goldsmith and Mann worked at television designer DuMont Laboratories, the patent, the first for an electronic game, was never used and the device never manufactured beyond the original handmade prototypes. This, along with the lack of electronic logic circuits, keeps the device from being considered the first video game. In 1948, shortly after the patenting of this device, Alan Turing and David Champernowne developed the earliest known written computer game - a chess simulation called Turochamp, though it was never actually implemented on a computer as the code was too complicated to run on the machines of the time. Turing tested the code in a game in 1952 where he mimicked the operation of the code in a real chess-game against an opponent, but was never able to run the program on a computer.
## Initial games
The first electronic digital computers, Colossus and ENIAC, were built during World War II to aid the Allied war effort. Shortly after the war, the promulgation of the first stored program architectures at the University of Manchester (Manchester Mark 1), University of Cambridge (EDSAC), the University of Pennsylvania (EDVAC), and Princeton University (IAS machine) allowed computers to be easily reprogrammed to undertake a variety of tasks, which facilitated commercializing computers in the early 1950s by companies like Remington Rand, Ferranti, and IBM. This in turn promoted the adoption of computers by universities, government organizations, and large corporations as the decade progressed. It was in this environment that the first video games were born.
The computer games of the 1950s can generally be divided into three categories: training and instructional programs, research programs in fields such as artificial intelligence, and demonstration programs intended to impress or entertain the public. Because these games were largely developed on unique hardware in a time when porting between systems was difficult and were often dismantled or discarded after serving their limited purposes, they did not generally influence further developments in the industry. For the same reason, it is impossible to be certain who developed the first computer game or who originally modeled many of the games or play mechanics introduced during the decade, as there are likely several games from this period that were never publicized and are thus unknown today.
The earliest known publicly demonstrated electronic game was created in 1950. Bertie the Brain was an arcade game of tic-tac-toe, built by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition. To showcase his new miniature vacuum tube, the additron tube, he designed a specialized computer to use it, which he built with the assistance of engineers from Rogers Majestic. The large metal computer, which was four meters tall, could only play tic-tac-toe on a lightbulb-backed display, and was installed in the Engineering Building at the Canadian National Exhibition from August 25 to September 9, 1950. The game was a success at the two-week exhibition, with attendees lining up to play it as Kates adjusted the difficulty up and down for players. After the exhibition, Bertie was dismantled, and "largely forgotten" as a novelty. Kates has said that he was working on so many projects at the same time that he had no energy to spare for preserving it, despite its significance.
Nearly a year later on May 5, 1951, the Nimrod computer—created by engineering firm and nascent computer developer Ferranti—was presented at the Festival of Britain, and then showcased for three weeks in October at the Berlin Industrial Show before being dismantled. Using a panel of lights for its display, it was designed exclusively to play the game of Nim; moves were made by players pressing buttons which corresponded with the lights. Nimrod could play either the traditional or "reverse" form of the game. The machine was twelve feet wide, nine feet deep, and five feet tall. It was based on an earlier Nim-playing machine, "Nimatron", designed by Edward Condon and built by Westinghouse Electric in 1940 for display at the New York World's Fair. "Nimatron" had been constructed from electromechanical relays and weighed over a ton. The Nimrod was primarily intended to showcase Ferranti's computer design and programming skills rather than entertain, and was not followed up by any future games. Despite this, most of the onlookers at the Festival of Britain were more interested in playing the game than in the programming and engineering logic behind it.
Around this time, non-visual games were being developed at various research computer laboratories; for example, Christopher Strachey developed a simulation of the game draughts, or checkers, for the Pilot ACE that he unsuccessfully attempted to run for the first time in July 1951 at the British National Physical Laboratory and completed in 1952; this is the first known computer game to be created for a general-purpose computer, rather than a machine specifically made for the game like Bertie. Strachey's program inspired Arthur Samuel to develop his own checkers game in 1952 for the IBM 701; successive iterations developed rudimentary artificial intelligence by 1955 and a version was shown on television in 1956. Also in 1951, Dietrich Prinz wrote the first limited program of chess for the University of Manchester's general-purpose Ferranti Mark 1 computer, one of the first commercially available computers. The program was only capable of computing "mate-in-two" problems as it was not powerful enough to play a full game, and it had no video output. Around the same time in the early 1950s, military research organizations like the RAND Corporation developed a series of combat simulation games of increasing complexity, such as Carmonette, where the player would enter orders to intercept enemy aircraft, or set up their forces to counter an enemy army invasion. These simulations were not yet true video games, as they required human intervention to interpret the player's orders and the final results; the computer only controlled the paths that the enemies would take, and the program was focused on simulating events and probabilities.
## Interactive visual games
In 1952, Alexander S. Douglas created OXO, a software program for the EDSAC computer, which simulates a game of tic-tac-toe. The EDSAC was one of the first stored-program computers, with memory that could be read from or written to, and filled an entire room; it included three 35×16 dot matrix cathode ray tubes to graphically display the state of the computer's memory. As a part of a thesis on human–computer interaction, Douglas used one of these screens to portray other information to the user; he chose to do so via displaying the current state of a game. The player entered input using a rotary telephone controller, selecting which of the nine squares on the board they wished to move next. Their move would appear on the screen, and then the computer's move would follow. The game was not available to the general public, and was only available to be played in the University of Cambridge's Mathematical Laboratory, by special permission, as the EDSAC could not be moved. Like other early video games, after serving Douglas's purpose, the game was discarded. Around the same time, Strachey expanded his draughts program for another mainframe computer, the Manchester Mark 1, culminating in a version for the Ferranti Mark 1 in 1952, which had a CRT display. Like OXO, the display was mostly static, updating only when a move was made. OXO and Strachey's draughts program are the earliest known games to display visuals on an electronic screen.
The first known game incorporating graphics that updated in real time, rather than only when the player made a move, was a simulation of a bouncing ball created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student Oliver Aberth for the Whirlwind I computer. He initially created the simulation in February 1951, which allowed users to adjust the frequency of the bounces with a knob, and sometime between late 1951 and 1953 made it into a game by adding a hole in the floor for players to aim for. The game was used in classes at MIT by Charles W. Adams, assistant professor of digital computers. It was followed by a pool game programmed by William Brown and Ted Lewis specifically for a demonstration of the University of Michigan-developed MIDSAC computer at the university in 1954. The game, developed over six months by the pair, featured a pool stick controlled by a joystick and a knob, and a full rack of 15 balls on a table seen in an overhead view. The computer calculated the movements of the balls as they collided and moved around the table, disappearing when they reached a pocket, and updated the graphics continuously, forty times a second, so as to show real-time motion. Like previous video games, the pool game was intended primarily to showcase the computing power of the MIDSAC computer.
While further games like checkers and chess were developed on research computers, the next milestone in video games came in 1958 with Tennis for Two. Perhaps the first game created solely for entertainment rather than as a technology demonstration or a research tool, the program simulated a game of tennis. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham for visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory to be more entertaining for visitors on their public day than the usual static exhibits about nuclear power, the game ran on a Donner Model 30 analog computer and displayed a side view of a tennis court on an oscilloscope. The players controlled the angle of their shots with attached controllers, and the game calculated and simulated the trajectory of the ball, including the possibility of hitting the net. The game was first shown on October 18, 1958. Hundreds of visitors lined up to play the new game during its debut. Due to the game's popularity, an upgraded version was shown the following year, with enhancements including a larger screen and different levels of simulated gravity. Afterwards, having served its purpose, the game was dismantled for its component parts. While the game had no innovations in game design or technological development, its status as an entertainment-focused game, rather than an academic project or technological showpiece, has led it to be considered one of the first "real" video games as they are generally thought of today.
Over the next few years, during 1957–61, various computer games continued to be created in the context of academic computer and programming research, particularly as computer technology improved to include smaller, transistor-based computers on which programs could be created and run in real time, rather than operations run in batches. A few programs, however, while used to showcase the power of the computer they ran on were also intended as entertainment products; these were generally created by undergraduate students, such as at MIT where they were allowed on occasion to develop programs for the TX-0 experimental computer. These interactive graphical games were created by a community of programmers, many of them students affiliated with the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) led by Alan Kotok, Peter Samson, and Bob Saunders. The games included Tic-Tac-Toe, which used a light pen to play a simple game of noughts and crosses against the computer, and Mouse in the Maze. Mouse in the Maze allowed users to use a light pen to set up a maze of walls on the monitor, and spots that represented bits of cheese or glasses of martini. A virtual mouse was then released and would traverse the maze to find the objects. Additionally, the wargame simulations from the early 1950s by the RAND Corporation had expanded into more complicated simulations which required little human intervention, and had also sparked the creation of business management simulation games such as The Management Game, which was used in business schools such as at Carnegie Mellon University by 1958. By 1961, there were over 89 different business simulation games in use, with various graphical capabilities. As the decade ended, despite several video games having been developed, there was no such thing as a commercial video game industry; almost all games had been developed on or as a single machine for specific purposes, and the few simulation games were neither commercial nor for entertainment.
## The spread of games
By 1961, MIT had acquired the DEC PDP-1 minicomputer, the successor to the TX-0, which also used a vector display system. The system's comparatively small size and processing speed meant that, like with the TX-0, the university allowed its undergraduate students and employees to write programs for the computer which were not directly academically related whenever it was not in use. In 1961–62, Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen created the game Spacewar! on the PDP-1, inspired by science fiction books such as the Lensman series. The game was copied to several of the early minicomputer installations in American academic institutions, making it potentially the first video game to be available outside a single research institute.
The two-player game has the players engaged in a dogfight between two spaceships set against the backdrop of a randomly generated background starfield. The game was developed to meet three precepts: to use as much of the computer's resources as possible, to be consistently interesting and therefore have every run be different, and to be entertaining and therefore a game. The game was a multiplayer game because the computer had no resources left over to handle controlling the other ship. After the game's initial development, members of the TMRC worked to improve the game, adding an accurate starfield and a gravitational body, and spread it to the couple dozen other institutions with a PDP-1, a process which continued over the next few years. As the computer was uncomfortable to use for extended periods of time, Kotok and Saunders created a detached control device, essentially an early gamepad. Spacewar was reportedly used as a smoke test by DEC technicians on new PDP-1 systems before shipping, since it was the only available program that exercised every aspect of the hardware. Although the game was widespread for the era, it was still very limited in its direct reach: the PDP-1 was priced at US\$120,000 () and only 55 were ever sold, many without a monitor, which prohibited Spacewar or any game of the time from reaching beyond a narrow, academic audience. Russell has been quoted as saying that the aspect of the game that he was most pleased with was the number of other programmers it inspired to write their own games.
Although the market for commercial games—and software in general—was small, due to the cost of computers limiting their spread to research institutions and large corporations, several were still created by programmers and distributed by the computer manufacturers. A number of games could be found in an April 1962 IBM program catalog. These included board games, "BBC Vik The Baseball Demonstrator", and "Three Dimensional Tic-Tack-Toe". Following the spread of Spacewar, further computer games developed by programmers at universities were also developed and distributed over the next few years. These included the Socratic System, a question and answer game designed to teach medical students how to diagnose patients by Wallace Feurzeig in 1962, and a dice game by Edward Steinberger in 1965. Mainframe games were developed outside of the IBM and DEC communities as well, such as the 1962 Polish Marienbad for the Odra 1003. A joint research project between IBM and the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Westchester County, New York led to the creation of The Sumerian Game, one of the first strategy video games ever made, the first game with a narrative, and the first edutainment game; it was also the first known game to be designed by a woman, teacher Mabel Addis.
The creation of general programming languages like BASIC, which could be run on different hardware types, allowed for programs to be written for more than one specific computer, in turn letting games written in them to spread to more end players in the programming community than before. These games included a baseball simulation game written in BASIC by John Kemeny in 1965; a BASIC bingo game by Larry Bethurum in 1966; a basketball simulation game written in BASIC by Charles R. Bacheller in May 1967; another baseball game that simulates the 1967 World Series written in BASIC by Jacob Bergmann in August 1967; Space Travel, written by Ken Thompson for a Multics system in 1969 and which led in part to the development of the Unix operating system; and Hamurabi, a text-based FOCAL game written by Doug Dyment in 1968 based on a description of The Sumerian Game and converted to BASIC by David H. Ahl in 1969. Hamurabi and Space Travel were among several early mainframe games that were written during the time, and spread beyond their initial mainframe computers to general-purpose languages like BASIC.
## A new industry
At the beginning of the 1970s, video games existed almost entirely as novelties passed around by programmers and technicians with access to computers, primarily at research institutions and large companies. The history of video games transitioned into a new era early in the decade, however, with the rise of the commercial video game industry.
The arcade video game industry grew out of the pre-existing arcade game industry, which was previously dominated by electro-mechanical games (EM games). Following the arrival of Sega's EM game Periscope (1966), the arcade industry was experiencing a "technological renaissance" driven by "audio-visual" EM novelty games, establishing the arcades as a healthy environment for the introduction of commercial video games in the early 1970s. The first commercial arcade video game was Computer Space (1971), which was developed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney and was based on Spacewar. Bushnell, who had previously worked at an arcade, wanted to recreate Spacewar as an arcade game. They had found the Data General Nova, a US\$4,000 computer that they thought would be powerful enough to run four games of Spacewar at once; the computer turned out to not actually be powerful enough for the project. While investigating the concept of replacing some of the computer with purpose-built hardware, however, the pair discovered that making a system explicitly for running such a game, rather than general programs, would be much less expensive: as low as \$100. A prototype version had been successfully displayed for a short time in August 1971 in a local bar, the design was nearly finished, and the pair had founded a company around it called Syzygy. Bushnell had also found a manufacturer for the game, Nutting Associates, who would make the final game cabinets and sell them to distributors.
Another early coin-operated arcade video game was Galaxy Game (1971), developed by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck at Stanford University using a DEC PDP-11 computer with vector displays. The pair was also inspired to make the game by Spacewar; Tuck had remarked in 1966 while playing the game that a coin-operated version of the game would be very successful. Such a device was unfeasible in 1966 due to the cost of computers, but in 1969 DEC released the PDP-11 for US\$20,000 (); while this was still too high for a commercially viable product, as most games in arcades cost around US\$1,000 at the time, the pair felt it was low enough to build a prototype to determine interest and optimal per-game pricing. Only prototype units were ever built, though the second prototype was adapted to run up to eight games at once; a few months before the initial installation at Stanford in November 1971, the pair met with Nolan Bushnell, who informed them of his own game he was making for a much lower price.
Bushnell felt that Galaxy Game was not a real competitor to Computer Space, due to its high price. Pitts and Tuck believed, however, that despite the economic argument their game was superior, as they felt that Galaxy Game was a true expansion of Spacewar, while Computer Space just a pale imitation. Some players at the time, however, believed Galaxy Game to actually be just a version of Spacewar!. Galaxy Game's prototype installation was very popular, though at a low price-per-game, and the pair developed a second version to display at the same location; they were never able to enter production, though, as they eventually had to abandon the idea after spending US\$65,000 developing it due to the high cost and lack of business plan.
Around the same time as Galaxy Game's prototype installation, Computer Space was released. It was the first coin-operated video game to be commercially sold and the first widely available video game of any kind. While it did well in its initial locations near college campuses, it performed very poorly in bars and arcades where pinball and other arcade games were typically placed; while it was commercially successful and made over US\$1,000,000, it did not meet the high expectations of Nutting, who had expected to sell more than 1,500 units. Bushnell and Dabney immediately started work on another game, using the same television set design as Computer Space, as well as founding their own company Atari, Inc. to back their projects. Initially, this game was intended to be a driving video game that Bushnell planned to design, influenced by Chicago Coin's Speedway (1969). Instead, the project was given to Atari's first employee, Allan Alcorn, and as Bushnell believed the driving game would be too complicated as a first project he suggested a prototype ping-pong game. Alcorn expanded the idea, and designed a game the company immediately seized on. They were unable to find a manufacturer, but on the evidence of the success of their prototype installation, decided to produce the game cabinets themselves. Pong was released in 1972, a year after Computer Space. It was immensely commercially successful, selling over 8,000 units. It inspired copycat games to be sold in America, Europe, and Japan, and led to the popularization of the medium.
That same year saw the release of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console which could be connected to a television set. The inventor, Ralph H. Baer, had initially had the idea in 1951 to make an interactive game on a television set. Unable to do so with the technological constraints at the time, he began work on a device that would attach to a television set and display games in 1966, and the "Brown Box", the last prototype of seven, was licensed to Magnavox to adapt and produce. They announced the console in May 1972, and it went on sale that September. The console and its games featured numerous innovations beyond being the first video game device for home consumers: it was the first game to use a raster-scan video display, or television set, directly displayed via modification of a video signal; it was also the first video gaming device to be displayed in a television commercial. It sold for US\$100 and shipped with several games, including "Table tennis", which Bushnell had seen a demo of and which Pong had been based on. The Odyssey sold over 100,000 units in 1972, and more than 350,000 by the end of 1975, buoyed by the popularity of the table tennis game, in turn driven by the success of Pong. Pong and the Odyssey kicked off a new era of video gaming, with numerous other competitors starting up in the video game industry as it grew in popularity. |
908,132 | Afghanistan at the 2004 Summer Olympics | 1,171,538,252 | null | [
"2004 in Afghan sport",
"Afghanistan at the Summer Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 2004 Summer Olympics"
]
| Afghanistan sent a delegation to compete at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, which were held from 13 to 29 August 2004. This was the eleventh appearance of the nation in the Summer Olympics and their first since their reinstatement to the International Olympic Committee in 2003 following a four-year ban due to the Taliban government's discrimination against women and their opposition to them playing sports. The delegation consisted of five athletes: sprinters Masoud Azizi and Robina Muqimyar, boxer Basharmal Sultani, judoka Friba Rezayee and wrestler Bashir Ahmad Rahmati. Muqimayar and Rezayee's inclusion in the Afghan delegation marked the first time the country sent a woman athlete to a Summer Olympics. All five failed to progress any further than the preliminary round of their respective sports and Afghanistan's best performance at the Games was by Muqimayar who set a new national women's 100 metre record in her heat.
## Background
Afghanistan first sent a delegation to compete in the Summer Olympics in 1936 Berlin Games. They have competed in every Summer Olympics since, missing the Olympics only in five occasions between 1936 and 2004. These were in 1952, 1976, 1984, 1992 and 2000. Afghanistan was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in October 1999 and subsequently banned from the 2000 Sydney Olympics due to its discrimination against women under the rule of the Taliban and its prohibition of women's sports. Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the IOC helped local authorities to establish a new National Olympic Committee. These efforts led to the IOC re-instating the country in its 115th meeting in the Czech capital of Prague on 29 June 2003 and told them a prerequisite for future Olympic participation was the inclusion of women in their delegation.
The 2004 Athens Summer Games that took place from 13 to 29 August 2004 was Afghanistan's eleventh appearance at an Olympic Games. The nation sent five athletes to the Olympics: sprinters Masoud Azizi and Robina Muqimyar, boxer Basharmal Sultani, judoka Friba Rezayee and wrestler Bashir Ahmad Rahmati. Muqimayar and Rezayee's inclusion in the team was the first time Afghanistan sent women athletes to a Summer Olympics. All five athletes trained in Afghanistan and later with Iranian coaches in Tehran before travelling to Thessalonki in the run up to the Games. The team was on a limited budget due to a shortage of capital from the Afghan authorities and the general consensus in the media was they would not medal at the Games. Neema Surgatar, a coach for the Afghanistan team, was the flag bearer for the opening ceremony, while another coach, Kosia Akashi, carried it at the closing ceremony.
## Athletics
Competing at his first Olympic Games at the age of 18, Masoud Azizi was the only male athlete to compete for Afghanistan in athletics competition. He qualified for the Athens Games after being granted a wild card place because his best time of 11.16 seconds set during practice in the men's 100 metres was 0.88 seconds slower than the event's "B" Olympic qualifying standard. In an interview before the Games, Azizi said, "I am very proud to be with the other world champions. I will introduce myself to them.”, and, "I try my best to give something back home. Everybody wants to get a medal, but even if they don't get it, it's not a matter of win or lose. The main thing is to participate.'' He was drawn to compete in heat four alongside eight other sprinters on 21 August. Azizi finished eighth and last of all the finishing runners with a time of 11.66 seconds; only the top three from each heat and the next ten fastest overall among all ten heats were able to advance, and he was eliminated from the competition. Azizi would go on to represent Afghanistan twice more at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics.
18-year old Robina Muqimyar was the sole female athletics competitor to represent Afghanistan at the 2004 Summer Olympics. She qualified for the Olympics after the IOC gave her a wild card place as her best time of 13.76 seconds was 1.74 seconds slower than the "B" Olympic qualifying standard for the women's 100 metres. Her family consented to her competing in Athens. Judoka Stig Traavik scouted Muqimyar who began training on a deteriorating track at Ghazi Stadium twice a week, sometimes barefooted but always away from men for fear of harassment and assault. Before the Games, she told the BBC World Service of her desire to be a role model for Afghan women. On 20 August 2004, Muqimyar took part in the seventh heat, finishing seventh out of eight runners, with a national record time of 14.14 seconds. She was eliminated from competition as only the top three from each heat and the next ten fastest overall among all ten heats progressed to the next round. Afterwards, Muqimayr stated, "I felt a little scared because all the world was watching me. But during the warm-ups the other athletes told me they understood the difficulties I have faced to get here and they encouraged me. In the stadium, I heard a lot of cheering "Robina! Robina!" and that made me feel good." She represented Afghanistan again at the 2008 Beijing Games.
Men
Women
## Boxing
Basharmal Sultani was 19 years old at the time of the Athens Summer Games and was making his only appearance at an Olympic Games. He received a wild card invitation to participate in the Games from the IOC after failing to attain an automatic qualifying spot with his third-place finish in the Asian qualifying rounds for the welterweight category. Sultani was drawn to face Mohamed Hikal of Egypt in the Round of 32 on 15 August at the Peristeri Olympic Boxing Hall. He lost the match 12–40 on points and therefore that was the end of his competition. Although he was defeated, Sultani was applauded by the small crowd of spectators and said of his participation in the Olympic Games to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "This was a great moment in my life, and it will be the same for other athletes when they compete."
## Judo
Competing at her only Olympics, Friba Razayee was 18 years old at the time of the Athens Olympic Games, and was the first woman athlete to represent Afghanistan at an Olympic Games. She used a wild card from the IOC to qualify for the Games despite the International Judo Federation hesitant in allowing low-ranked fighters participating in the quadrennial event. In 1994, Razayee's family fled Afghanistan when she was nine and stayed in Pakistan for eight years where she became interested in martial arts. Eight years later, she returned to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and took up boxing before switching to Judo. Razayee said she wanted to use the Olympics as a means of changing the perception of sport in Afghanistan, "My fighting is not as important to me as is my participating. I want to show (everyone) that Afghan women have a place in sport and set the example for all of them." In her Round of 32 match against Cecilia Blanco of Spain on 18 August, she lost after 42 seconds without earning one point. Although she was tearful, Razayee spoke of her pride over competing in the Olympics and recognised her weaknesses, "I tried my best but I couldn't do any thing. Next time I'll win the competition."
## Wrestling
At the age of 20, Bashir Ahmad Rahmati was the only athlete to compete in wrestling competition for Afghanistan. This was his only time partaking in the Summer Olympic Games. Under the Olympic Solidarity programme, which aids underdeveloped NOCs in establishing their national and regional sporting structures, Rahamati qualified to compete at Athens in the men's featherweight class (55 kg) of wrestling through a tripartite invitation from the International Federation of Associated Wrestling. He lost two straight matches in the elimination pool to Uzbekistan's Dilshod Mansurov and Russia's Mavlet Batirov, who went on to win the Olympic gold medal at the end of the tournament, with a greater superiority effort, finishing last in the preliminary pool and twenty-second overall in the final standings.
Key:
- VT – Victory by Fall.
- PP – Decision by Points – the loser with technical points.
- PO – Decision by Points – the loser without technical points.
Men's freestyle
## See also
- Afghanistan at the 2004 Summer Paralympics |
26,397,936 | Siege of Port Royal (1710) | 1,159,765,569 | Part of Queen Anne's War | [
"1710 in New France",
"1710 in Nova Scotia",
"1710s in Canada",
"Battles of the War of the Spanish Succession",
"Conflicts in 1710",
"Conflicts in Nova Scotia",
"Military history of Acadia",
"Military history of New England",
"Military history of Nova Scotia",
"New France",
"Pre-statehood history of Massachusetts",
"Queen Anne's War",
"Sieges involving France",
"Sieges involving Great Britain",
"Sieges of the War of the Spanish Succession"
]
| The siege of Port Royal (5–13 October 1710), also known as the Conquest of Acadia, was a military siege conducted by British regular and provincial forces under the command of Francis Nicholson against a French Acadian garrison and the Wabanaki Confederacy under the command of Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, at the Acadian capital, Port Royal. The successful British siege marked the beginning of permanent British control over the peninsular portion of Acadia, which they renamed Nova Scotia, and it was the first time the British took and held a French colonial possession. After the French surrender, the British occupied the fort in the capital with all the pomp and ceremony of having captured one of the great fortresses of Europe, and renamed it Annapolis Royal.
The siege was the third British attempt during Queen Anne's War to capture the Acadian capital, and it had profound consequences over the next 50 years. The conquest was a key element in the framing of the North American issues in French-British treaty negotiations of 1711–1713. It resulted in the creation of a new colony—Nova Scotia—and introduced significant questions concerning the fate of both the Acadians and the Mi'kmaq who continued to occupy Acadia.
The Conquest of Acadia was a foundational moment in the history of the Canadian state—it was a precursor to the British conquests of Louisbourg and Quebec in the middle of the century.
## Background
Port Royal was the capital of the French colony of Acadia almost since the French first began settling the area in 1604. It consequently became a focal point for conflict between English and French colonists in the next century. It was destroyed in 1613 by English raiders led by Samuel Argall, but eventually rebuilt. In 1690 it was captured by forces from the Province of Massachusetts Bay, although it was restored to France by the Treaty of Ryswick.
### Early expeditions
With the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702, colonists on both sides again prepared for conflict. Acadia's governor, Jacques-François de Monbeton de Brouillan, had, in anticipation of war, already begun construction of a stone and earth fort in 1701, which was largely completed by 1704. Following a French raid on Deerfield on the Massachusetts frontier in February 1704, the English in Boston organized a raid against Acadia the following May. Led by Benjamin Church, they raided Grand Pré and other Acadian communities. English and French accounts differ on whether Church's expedition mounted an attack on Port Royal. Church's account indicates that they anchored in the harbour and considered making an attack, but ultimately decided against the idea; French accounts claim that a minor attack was made.
When Daniel d'Auger de Subercase became governor of Acadia in 1706, he went on the offensive, encouraging aboriginal raids against English targets in New England. He also encouraged privateering from Port Royal against English colonial shipping. The privateers were highly effective; the English fishing fleet on the Grand Banks was reduced by 80 percent between 1702 and 1707, and some English coastal communities were raided.
English merchants in Boston had long traded with Port Royal, and some of this activity had continued illegally after the war began. However, the business was being hurt by the war, and some merchants began making vocal calls for action, and public outrage rose over the failure of the Massachusetts defenses to stop the French and aboriginal raids. Massachusetts Bay Governor Joseph Dudley had made repeated requests to London for support without any success, and finally decided to act independently to fend off accusations of complicity in the illegal trade. In spring of 1707, he authorized an expedition against Port Royal. This expedition made two separate attempts to take Port Royal; for a variety of reasons, both attempts failed despite the expedition's significant numerical superiority.
### British expedition organized
In the following years, France failed to send any significant support, while the British mobilized larger and better-organized forces for the conflict in North America. Samuel Vetch, a Scots businessman with colonial ties, went to London in 1708 and lobbied Queen Anne for military support to conquer all of New France. She authorized a "great enterprise" to conquer all of Acadia and Canada in 1709 that was aborted when the promised military support failed to materialize. Vetch and Francis Nicholson, an Englishman who had previously served as colonial governor of Maryland and Virginia, returned to England in its aftermath, and again appealed to the queen for support. They were accompanied by four aboriginal chiefs, who caused a sensation in London. Nicholson and Vetch successfully argued on behalf of colonial interests for British military support against Port Royal.
Nicholson arrived in Boston on 15 July 1710, bearing a commission from the queen as "General and Commander-in-Chief of all and sundry the Forces, to be employed in the expedition design'd for the reducing of Port Royal in Nova Scotia". In addition to 400 marines brought over from England, four New England provinces raised militia regiments: Massachusetts Bay provided 900, Rhode Island 180, Connecticut 300, and New Hampshire 100. Some of the provincial troops were drilled in the arts of siege warfare by Paul Mascarene, a Huguenot officer in the British Army. A band of Iroquois was also recruited to serve as scouts on the expedition. When the fleet sailed on 29 September, it consisted of 36 transports, two bomb galleys, and five warships. Two ships, HMS Falmouth and HMS Dragon, were sent from England, while HMS Feversham and HMS Lowestoft were sent from New York to join with HMS Chester, which was already stationed at Boston. Nicholson sent HMS Chester ahead of the fleet to blockade the Digby Gut, which controlled naval access to Port Royal.
### Port Royal defences
Port Royal was defended by about 300 troops, many of whom were poorly trained recruits from France. Subercase had taken steps to improve the local defences since the 1707 sieges, building a new bomb-proof powder magazine and barracks in 1708, and clearing woods from the river banks to deny attackers cover. He completed the construction of another vessel to assist in naval defence, and engaged privateers with great success against New England fishing and shipping. From prisoners taken by the privateers he learned that plans were continually being made in 1708 and 1709 for new attempts on Port Royal.
## Siege
As the fleet sailed north, it was met by a dispatch vessel sent by Thomas Matthews, captain of the Chester. She carried deserters from the French garrison, who reported that morale was extremely low. Nicholson sent the ship ahead with one of the transports; when they entered Digby Gut they received some fire from parties of Mi'kmaq on the shore. The ships returned fire with their cannons, without either side taking casualties. On 5 October, the main British fleet arrived at Goat Island, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) below Port Royal. That afternoon, the transport Caesar ran aground while attempting to enter the Annapolis River, and was eventually swept onto the rocks. Its captain, some of its crew, and 23 soldiers died, while a company commander and some 25 others struggled ashore.
The following day, 6 October, British marines began landing both north and south of the fortress and the town. The northern force was joined by four New England regiments under Colonel Vetch, while Nicholson led the remaining New England troops as part of the southern force. The landings took place without incident, with fire from the fort answered by one of the fleet's bomb ships at long range. Although later accounts of the siege claimed Vetch's detachment was part of a strategic plan to surround the fort, contemporary accounts report that Vetch wanted to have a command that was somewhat independent of Nicholson. These same accounts claim Vetch never got to within range of the fort's guns until after the siege ended; his attempts to erect a battery of mortars in a muddy area across Allain's Creek from the fort was repulsed by cannon fire. The southern force met with guerrilla-style resistance outside the fort, with Acadian and aboriginal defenders firing small arms from houses and wooded areas, in addition to taking fire from the fort. This fire resulted in three British killed, but the defenders were unable to keep the British on the south side from establishing a camp about 400 yards (370 m) from the fort.
Over the next four days the British landed their cannons and brought them up to the camp. Fire from the fort and supporters outside it persisted, and the British bomb ships wrought havoc within the fort with their fire each night. With the opening of new British batteries imminent, Subercase sent out an officer with a parley flag on 10 October. The negotiations got off to a bad start because the officer was not properly announced by a drummer, and deteriorated from there. Each side ended up holding an officer of the other, principally over matters of military etiquette, and the British continued their siege work.
By 12 October, the siege trenches had advanced, and cannons that were within 300 feet (91 m) of the fort opened fire. Nicholson sent Subercase a demand that he surrender, and negotiations began once more. By the end of the day, the parties reached an agreement on the terms of surrender, which was formally signed the next day. The garrison was allowed to leave the fort with all the honours of war, "their Arms and Baggage, Drums beating, and Colours flying." The British were to transport the garrison to France, and there were specific protections in the capitulation to protect the local residents. These terms called for the "Inhabitants within Cannon shot of the Fort" to be allowed to remain on their properties for up to two years if they so chose, provided they were willing to take an oath to the British Crown.
## Aftermath
The British took formal possession of Port Royal following a ceremony on 16 October, in which they renamed the place Annapolis Royal in honour of their queen. Samuel Vetch was inaugurated as the new governor of Nova Scotia. Massachusetts and New Hampshire proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving.
The first French attempt to retake Annapolis Royal happened the next year. After a skirmish in which a party of British soldiers was ambushed, Bernard-Anselme d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin lead a force of 200 Acadians and native warriors in a siege of the fort, without success.
The capture of Port Royal marked the end of French rule in peninsular Acadia, and inaugurated a struggle for control of the territory that lasted until the British conquests of the Seven Years' War. The status of Acadia was one of the more contentious issues in the negotiations leading to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, and very nearly led to renewed war. French negotiators were unable to recover Acadia, although they were able to retain Isle Saint-Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island) and Île Royale, (present day Cape Breton Island), which provided access to the important Atlantic fisheries.
Acadia's people were placed in a difficult position by the conquest. The British on numerous occasions demanded they take oaths to the British Crown, but many refused to take oaths requiring them to take arms against the French, preferring to proclaim their neutrality. For this and other reasons, hundreds of Acadians left peninsular Nova Scotia over the next decade. Most of them avoided the principal French colonial settlements and went to French-occupied Isle Saint-Jean.
Acadia's border was not formally demarcated by the Treaty of Utrecht, which became a cause of ongoing friction between the British and French, especially on the Isthmus of Chignecto, which both sides eventually fortified. The French interpreted the phrase ancient boundaries to imply only the peninsula of present-day Nova Scotia, thereby excluding the mainland between New England and the St. Lawrence, ÎLe St. Jean, and Cape Breton. This helped the aboriginal groups of Abenaquis, Malecites, and Mi'kmaq to retain their sovereignty over their old hunting grounds.
In 1746, the grand expedition was organized in France under the command of the Duc d'Anville. The expedition was composed of 20 warships, 21 frigates, and 32 transport ships, containing 800 cannons, 3,000 soldiers, and 10,000 marines. The expedition was to retake Louisbourg and then Annapolis Royal. However, after a three months crossing, and the dispersal of the fleet between Sable Island and the mainland, the expedition turned out to be a disaster for the French, and they would not try to recapture Port Royal again.
The territorial dispute would not be fully resolved until the British conquest of New France in 1760, and the informal boundary between the British and French in the dispute (the Missaguash River) now forms the border between the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
## Order of battle
### British forces
- Colonel Francis Nicholson
Fleet
- HMS Dragon, 50 guns, Captain George Martin
- HMS Falmouth, 50 guns, Captain Walter Riddell
- HMS Chester, 50 guns, Captain Thomas Mathews
- HMS Lowestoffe, 32 guns, Captain George Gordon
- HMS Feversham, 35 guns, Captain Robert Paston
- HMS Starr, Commander Thomas Rochfort
- Province Galley, Captain Cyprian Southack
Land forces
- Colonel Samuel Vetch, Adjutant General
- Captain Walter Elliot, Brigade Major
- Battalion of Marines, Colonel Robert Reading
- Hobby's Regiment (Massachusetts Bay), Colonel Sir Charles Hobby.
- Tailer's Regiment (Massachusetts Bay), Colonel William Tailer.
- Whiting's Regiment (Connecticut), Colonel William Whiting.
- Walton's Regiment (New Hampshire), Colonel Shadrach Walton.
- Company of Gunner and Matrosses, Colonel Samuel Vetch, Captain.
- Company of Indian Scouts (Iroquois Indians), Major of Scouts John Livingston, Captain.
Sources:
### French forces
- Captain Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, Governor of Acadia
- 150 soldiers of the Compagnies Franches de la Marine
- 100 men of the Acadian Militia
- Some Canadians
- Some privateers
Source:
## See also
- Military history of the Mi’kmaq People
- Military history of the Acadians
- Military history of Nova Scotia |
1,751,742 | Succession to Muhammad | 1,173,681,107 | Overview and history of the succession to Muhammad, the original split between Shias and Sunnis | [
"632",
"7th-century elections",
"Abu Bakr",
"Ali",
"History of Islam",
"Muhammad",
"Schisms in Islam",
"Shia–Sunni relations"
]
| The succession to Muhammad is the central issue that split the Muslim community into several divisions in the first century of Islamic history, with the most prominent among these sects being the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam. Sunni Islam maintains that Abu Bakr was the legitimate successor to Muhammad on the basis of election. Shia Islam holds that Ali ibn Abi Talib was the designated successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
The contrasting opinions regarding the succession are primarily based on different interpretations of the events in early Islamic history as well as of hadiths (sayings of Muhammad). The Sunni believe that Muhammad had not appointed a successor and had instead intended for the Muslim community to choose a leader from among themselves. They accept the rule of Abu Bakr, who was elected at Saqifah, and that of his successors, who are together referred to as the Rashidun Caliphs. On the other hand, the Twelver Shia believe that Ali had previously been nominated by Muhammad as his heir, most notably during the Event of Ghadir Khumm, following the revelation of verse 5:67 of the central religious text of Islam, the Quran. They view the rulers who followed Muhammad as illegitimate. Instead, the rightful successors of Muhammad are believed to be Ali and eleven divinely-appointed Imams of his lineage. In Twelver Shia belief, the last of these Imams, Mahdi, went into occultation in 260 AH (874 CE), compelled by the hostility of his enemies. The advent of Mahdi is awaited by most Muslims, though different sects hold different views about him.
## Historiography
Most of the Islamic history was transmitted orally until after the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate. Historical works of later Muslim writers include the traditional biographies of Muhammad and quotations attributed to him—the sira and hadith literature—which provide further information on Muhammad's life. The earliest surviving written sira (biography of Muhammad) is Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of God's Messenger) by Ibn Ishaq (d. 761 or 767 CE). Although the original work is lost, portions of it survive in the recensions of Ibn Hisham (d. 833) and Al-Tabari (d. 923). Many scholars accept these biographies although their accuracy is uncertain. Studies by Schacht and Goldziher have led the scholars to distinguish between legal and historical traditions. According to Watt, although legal traditions could have been invented, historical material may have been primarily subject to "tendential shaping" rather than being invented. Modern Western scholars approach the classic Islamic histories with circumspection and are less likely than Sunni Islamic scholars to trust the work of the Abbasid historians.
Hadith compilations are records of the traditions or sayings of Muhammad. The development of hadith is a crucial element of the first three centuries of Islamic history. Early Western scholars mistrusted the later narrations and reports, regarding them as fabrications. Caetani considered the attribution of historical reports to Ibn Abbas and Aisha as mostly fictitious, preferring accounts reported without isnad by early historians such as Ibn Ishaq. Madelung has rejected the indiscriminate dismissal of everything not included in "early sources", instead judging later narratives in the context of history and compatibility with events and figures.
The only contemporaneous source is The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays (Kitab al-Saqifah) by Sulaym ibn Qays (died 75-95 AH or 694-714 CE). This collection of hadith and historical reports from the first century of the Islamic calendar narrates in detail events relating to the succession. However, there have been doubts regarding the reliability of the collection, with some believing that it was a later creation given that the earliest mention of the text only appears in the eleventh century.
## Historical overview
### Saqifa
#### Ansar's meeting
In the immediate aftermath of Muhammad's death in 11/632, a gathering of the Ansar (Medinan Muslims) took place at the Saqifa (lit. 'courtyard') of the Banu Sa'ida clan, while Muhammad's close relatives were preparing for his burial. The conventional wisdom is that the Ansar met there to decide on a new leader for the Muslim community among themselves, with the intentional exclusion of the Muhajirun. The leading candidate was possibly Sa'd ibn Ubada, a companion of Muhammad and a chief of the Banu Khazraj, the majority tribe of the Ansar. Their motive has been questioned by Madelung and Jafri, who contend that the Ansar only wanted to re-establish their control over their city, Medina.
#### Abu Bakr at the Saqifa
When they found out about the meeting via an informant, Abu Bakr and Umar rushed to the Saqifa, accompanied by Abu Ubaida. These three companions were the only members of the Muhajirun in the Saqifa meeting, possibly accompanied by some relatives and servants.
#### Abu Bakr's remarks
Once there, Abu Bakr warned the Ansar that Arabs will not recognize the rule of anyone outside of Muhammad's tribe, the Quraysh. The Muhajirun, Abu Bakr argued, were the best of Arabs in lineage and location, had accepted Islam earlier, and were closer to Muhammad in kinship. Abu Bakr then reportedly invited the Ansar to choose Umar or Abu Ubaida as Muhammad's successor. Since his two candidates lacked any realistic chance of success, this manoeuvre presented Abu Bakr as an acceptable alternative to Umar and Abu Ubaida for the Ansar.
#### Violence at the Saqifa
Someone countered Abu Bakr with the suggestion that the Quraysh and the Ansar should choose their separate rulers among themselves. A heated argument ensued until Umar asked Abu Bakr to stretch his hand and pledged allegiance to the latter, followed by others. In the process, Sa'd was beaten into submission by Umar, which indicates that a substantial number of the Ansar must have initially refused to follow Umar's lead. Otherwise, there would have been no need to beat up their chief Sa'd, according to Madelung.
#### Consolidation
Muhammad had been buried by the time the Saqifa meeting ended, with the exclusion of Abu Bakr from the funeral rites. The authority of Abu Bakr was precarious at first, until Umar secured the pledges of allegiance from the Medinans with help from the Banu Aslam and Banu Aws tribes. In chronological order, Abu Bakr obtained the backing of Uthman and of the Banu Umayyad, of Sa'd and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, of the Banu Zuhra, of Zubayr, and finally of Ali.
##### Ali's opposition
The Banu Hashim and some companions of Muhammad gathered at Ali's house in protest after learning about the appointment of Abu Bakr. Among them were Muhammad's uncle Abbas and Zubayr. These held Ali to be the rightful successor to Muhammad, possibly referring to the announcement by the latter at the Ghadir Khumm. Ordered by Abu Bakr, Umar then led an armed mob to Ali's residence and threatened to set the house on fire if Ali and his supporters would not pledge their allegiance to Abu Bakr.' The scene soon grew violent, but the mob retreated without Ali's pledge after his wife Fatima pleaded with them. During this time period Madelung says that Ali could see nothing but hypocrisy in Abu Bakr's tears and his claims to love Muhammad's family.
Abu Bakr soon placed a boycott on Ali and also on Muhammad's clan, the Banu Hashim, to abandon their support for Ali. The boycott was successful, and those who initially supported Ali gradually turned away and pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr. Most likely, Ali did not pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr until his wife Fatima died within six months of her father Muhammad. In Shia sources, the death (and miscarriage) of the young Fatima are attributed to an attack on her house to subdue Ali at the order of Abu Bakr. Sunnis categorically reject these allegations. After Fatima's death and in the absence of popular support, Ali is said to have relinquished his claims to the caliphate for the sake of the unity of a nascent Islam, In contrast with Muhammad's lifetime, Ali is believed to have retired from public life during the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, which has been interpreted as a silent censure of the first three caliphs.
#### Criticism
Umar later criticized the Saqifa affair, "The oath of allegiance for Abu Bakr was a falta [i.e., a precipitate and ill-considered deal], but God averted the evil of it." This was a reference to the exclusion of the majority of the Muhajirun and particularly Muhammad's kin, whose participation was vital for a legitimate outcome at the Saqifa. Possibly because of its questionable legal authority, Umar also warned Muslims against ever following the example of Saqifa. Similar concerns about the legitimacy of the Saqifa are raised by contemporary authors. Some have further criticized the Saqifa affair as a "backroom deal" and a "coup" which was heavily influenced by the pre-Islamic tribal politics. The evil of the falta which, Umar thought, had been averted by God would erupt later in the form of the First Fitna, suggests Madelung.
### Rashidun caliphs
Abu Bakr adopted the title of khalifat rasul Allah, commonly translated as the successor to the messenger of God. This was shortened to khalifa, from which the word caliph arose. Abu Bakr's tenure as the caliph lasted just over two years. Though he was appointed caliph by those at Saqifah, Abu Bakr designated Umar as his successor, reportedly against the advice of the Quraysh elders. Umar was instrumental in the ascension of Abu Bakr to the caliphate.
In 644, on his deathbed, Umar tasked a committee of six with choosing the next caliph among themselves. The committee included Ali, Uthman ibn Affan, and his brother-in-law, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf. The tie breaker vote belonged to Abd al-Rahman, Othman's brother-in-law, and it has been suggested that the makeup and configuration of this committee left a small possibility for the nomination of Ali.
In the final showdown, Abd al-Rahman offered the caliphate to Ali on two conditions: first, he should follow the way of the Quran and the Sunnah of Muhammad, and second, he should follow the example of Abu Bakr and Umar. Ali is said to have accepted the first condition but declined the second one, adding that he would rely only on his own judgment in the absence of any precedent from the Quran or the Sunnah. Abd al-Rahman then presented the same conditions to Uthman who readily accepted them. It has been suggested that Abd al-Rahman was well aware of Ali's disagreements with the past two caliphs and that Ali, known for his sincerity, would have inevitably rejected the second condition.
Uthman's reign was marked with widespread accusations of nepotism. Under Uthman's rule, his tribe, the Banu Umayya, is said to have regained its pre-Islamic influence and power. Uthman installed his relatives, including his cousin, Muawiya, to rule the Islamic territories. According to Glassé, Uthman was assassinated by rebels in 656, in a climate of growing dissension against the despotism of the Banu Umayya.
Shortly after the assassination of Uthman, the caliphate was offered to Ali, who declined the position at first. Aslan attributes Ali's initial refusal to the polarizing impact of Uthman's murder on the community, while Durant writes that, "[Ali] shrank from drama in which religion had been displaced by politics, and devotion by intrigue." In the absence of any serious opposition and urged particularly by the Ansar and the Iraqi delegations, Ali eventually accepted the first pledges of allegiance in the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. It appears that Ali personally did not force anyone for a pledge though the strong pro-Ali atmosphere of Medina might have exerted some pressure on his opponents. In particular, Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqas, Abdullah ibn Umar and Usama ibn Zayd refused to acknowledge the authority of Ali. Talha and Zubayr, both companions of Muhammad with ambitions for the high office, likely gave their pledges though they later broke their oaths, claiming that they had pledged their allegiance to Ali under public pressure. There is, however, less evidence for violence here than in Abu Bakr's election, according to Madelung.
Ali inherited the internal problems of Uthman's reign. Immediately after his election, Ali quelled an armed insurrection led by Aisha, a widow of Muhammad, and Talhah and Zubayr. Afterwards, Uthman's governor of Syria, Muawiya, declared war on Ali and a long and indecisive civil war ensued. The first four caliphs are referred to by the Sunni as the Rashidun (rightly-guided) caliphs, though only Ali is recognized by the Twelver Shia.
### Later successions
Abu Bakr's view that the caliphate should remain within the Quraysh tribe persisted in later generations. According to Cooperson, however, this definition of the caliphate had its costs. First, it facilitated the rise of the Umayyads who, despite being of the Quraysh, were among the most powerful enemies of Muhammad before their late conversion to Islam. Their rise to power marginalized both the Muhajirun and the Ansar, and reduced the caliphate, as an institution, to no more than a worldly kingship. Second, according to Cooperson, was the exclusion of Ali, who, insofar as the kinship of the Quraysh with Muhammad was concerned, had an arguably better claim to the caliphate. Ali eventually became caliph, but not in time to stop the rise of the Umayyads.
After the assassination of Ali in 661, his eldest son, Hasan, was elected caliph in Kufa. Muawiya then marched on Kufa with his army, whereas Hasan's military response to Muawiya suffered defections in large numbers, largely facilitated by military commanders and tribal chiefs who had been swayed to Muawiya's side by promises and offers of money. Under attack from Muawiya and after a failed assassination attempt on his life, a wounded Hasan ceded the caliphate to Muawiya in 661. Notably, under their agreement, it is said that Muawiya appointed Hasan as his successor. However, Hasan died in 669 at the age of forty six, before Muawiya. It is believed that he was poisoned at the instigation of Muawiya.
Before his death in 680, Muawiya arranged for the succession of his son, Yazid, who is often remembered as a debaucher who openly violated the Islamic norms. In particular, Muawiya summoned a council (shura) of the Muslim elite in 676 and won their support through flattery, bribes, and threats. Notably, Muawiya was unsuccessful in securing the oath of allegiance from Hasan's younger brother, Husayn, who, after Muawiya's death, publicly denounced Yazid's legitimacy. In 680, after surrounding them in Karbala and cutting off their access to water for multiple days, Yazid's forces slaughtered Husayn, alongside his family and his small group of supporters. The women and children were taken prisoner and marched to Kufa and then Damascus, some of whom are said to have perished from mistreatment. The tragic death of Husayn and his supporters marked the Second Fitna, which finalized the schism between the Sunni and the Shia. The latter consider Husayn as their third Imam.
The succession subsequently transformed under the Umayyads from an elective/appointed position to being effectively hereditary within the family.
## In the Quran
### Past prophets
The Quran, as the central religious text of Islam, does not explicitly identify a successor to Muhammad, though it grants key privileges to the families of the past prophets. After the past prophets, their descendants become the spiritual and material heirs to them in the Quran. The scripture describes how the past prophets prayed for (and were granted) the divine favor to be succeeded by their close kin in kingship, in rule, in wisdom, in imamate, etc. From Noah to Jesus, Madelung notes that the prophets of the Israelites were all descendants of one family. In particular, Solomon inherited from David both his kingship and his prophetic wisdom in verses 27:16 and 21:78, and John the Baptist inherited from Zechariah in verses 19:5-6.
#### Abraham
Verse 2:124 includes the exchange, "[God] said [to Abraham], 'I shall make you an imam for the people.' He said: 'And also of my off-spring?' [God] said: 'My compact will not comprise the evil-doers.'" God's pledge in this verse thus extends to just descendants of Abraham. Elsewhere in verse 29:27, God praises Abraham, "And We gave him Isaac and Jacob and placed among his progeny prophethood and the Book."
#### Moses
In verses 20:29-32, Moses asks God to include his brother Aaron in his prophetic mission. His prayer is answered by God, as evidenced by verses 20:36-42, 25:35, and 28:35. Aaron thus becomes the chosen associate of Moses in his prophetic mission and in revelation, as described in verses 21:48-9 and 2:248.
### Muhammad
Similar to the past prophets, Muhammad's family has an eminent position in the Quran. Elevating them above common Muslims, a state of purity is bestowed upon Muhammad's kin in verses 8:41, 59:7, the verse of purification 33:33, and the verse of mawadda 42:23 by some accounts. The praise in the verse of purification and the privileges in the verse of mubahala are specific to Muhammad's daughter Fatima, her husband Ali, and their two sons Hasan and Husayn, by Shia and some Sunni accounts. These five are known as the Ahl al-Bayt (lit. 'people of the household') in Shia, though various Sunni interpretations are broader and often include Muhammad's wives as well.
Insofar as the Quran reflects the views of Muhammad, Madelung concludes, he could have not seen his succession differently from the earlier prophets or considered Abu Bakr as his natural successor. This is because, he argues, the succession of prophets is a matter that is settled by divine selection in the Quran. In particular, God selects their successors from their own families, whether or not those successors become prophets themselves. Jafri and Abbas develop similar arguments.
### Verse of wilaya
Also known as the verse of wilaya, verse 5:55 of the Quran is translated by The Study Quran as, "Your protector [wali] is only [innama] God, and His Messenger, and those who believe, who perform the prayer and give alms [zakat] while bowing down." Some Sunni exegeses link this verse to the hostility of the Jewish tribes in Medina, while Shia and some Sunni sources consider this verse a specific reference to the occasion where Ali gave away his ring to a beggar while he was bowing in worship. In particular, Nasr et al. suggest that the frequent association of this verse with Ali in early Sunni sources strongly support its authenticity.
For the Shia, wilaya in this verse is interpreted as spiritual authority. The verse of wilaya thus describes Ali as the rightful authority over the believers, after God and Muhammad, and underlines his right to succeed Muhammad as the spiritual and political leader of the Muslim community. Alternatively, those Sunni authors who acknowledge a link between this verse and Ali reject any Shia implications. For instance, the Sunni al-Razi () holds that wilaya in this verse is nothing more than friendship or mutual support. In response, Shia authors note that the particle innama (lit. 'only') confines the wilaya in this verse to God, Muhammad, and those believers who gave alms while praying. As such, wilaya in this verse has a different significance than mere friendship, similar to that in verse 33:6.
## In the hadith literature
### Hadith of warning
Verse 26:214 of the Quran tasked Muhammad with presenting Islam to his relatives, some three years after his first divine revelation (c. 617 CE). One of the two versions of how Muhammad attempted to do this is that he invited his relatives to a meal. After the meal, Muhammad introduced his relatives to Islam and asked for their support, "And which of you will assist me in this cause and become my brother, my trustee and my successor among you." Muhammad's cousin Ali, the youngest among them, was the only relative who offered his assistance to Muhammad, who then declared, "This [Ali] is my brother, my executor, and my successor among you, so listen to him and obey." This was the account of the Sunni al-Tabari (d. 923) and the proto-Shia Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), among others, though some Sunni reports do not include Muhammad's response to Ali or replace it with his rejection of Ali's offer. Muhammad's announcement was met with ridicule from Abu Lahab, Muhammad's uncle and his foe, and the guests dispersed.
#### Views
Rubin writes that Ali's response to Muhammad's call contrasts the remainder of his tribe, the Quraysh. He adds that the early appointment of Ali as Muhammad's heir in this version supports Ali's right to succeed Muhammad, a central tenet of Shia Islam. Momen is of the same opinion. According to the Shia exegete Tabatabai (), Muhammad made it clear that the first relative to accept his invitation would become his successor and inheritor. Lastly, Rubin notes that the association of this account with verse 26:214 implies divine authorization. Burton comments that this banquet "won for [Muhammad] a proselyte worth a thousand sabers in the person of Ali, son of Abu Talib."
### Hadith of position
Hadith of position is a biblical analogy in favor of Ali that appears in canonical Sunni and Shia sources, including Sahih al-Bukhari and Kitab al-kafi. Muhammad might have repeated this analogy on multiple occasions, though the Hadith of Position is most frequently linked to the Expedition of Tabuk in 9-10/630-631 against the Byzantine Empire. Muhammad is said to have left Ali in charge at Medina before leaving on his longest expedition. But when rumors spread that Ali was left behind because he was a burden to Muhammad, he left Medina and caught up with Muhammad, who reassured him, "Are you not content, Ali, to stand to me as Aaron stood to Moses, except that there will be no prophet after me?"
#### Status of Aaron
By divine designation, Aaron was the associate of Moses in his prophetic mission and in revelation. In Hebrew Bible, Aaron also performs miracles and is entrusted with the esoteric knowledge of the scripture. Of similar importance therein is the divine prerogatives bestowed upon Aaron's descendants.
##### Shia views
Shia authors have used the Hadith of Position to argue for the special status of Ali and his designation as the successor of Muhammad. For instance, the Shia al-Mufid () writes that this hadith invested in Ali all the privileges which Aaron had received from Moses except prophethood. In particular, Ali was the deputy of Muhammad just as Aaron was the deputy of Moses, which implies that Ali was the rightful successor to Muhammad.
##### Sunni views
Despite its Shia coloring, the Hadith of Position nevertheless remains prominent in Sunni sources as one of the most important pieces of evidence supporting the finality of Muhammad in the chain of prophets.' In response to the Shia claims, Sunni scholars argue that the Hadith of Position is irrelevant to Muhammad's succession because Aaron died before Moses. The Shia Sharif al-Murtaza () counters that had Aaron survived Moses, the former would have surely succeeded the latter. The Shia al-Kulayni () adds that Moses' successor Joshua later designated the progeny of Aaron to succeed him instead of his own or Moses'. Al-Kulayni suggests that Joshua did so because it was the divine choice.
### Ghadir Khumm
Shortly before his death in 632, Muhammad performed the Hajj rituals in Mecca. In his sermon in Mecca and again later at the Ghadir Khumm by some accounts, he alerted Muslims about his impending death. After the Hajj, Muhammad set off on the return journey from Mecca to Medina, accompanied by a large number of pilgrims. On the way, Muhammad called the Muslim caravan to a halt at the Ghadir Khumm before the pilgrims parted to go their separate ways.
After the noon prayer, Muhammad delivered a sermon in which he famously said, "He whose mawla I am, Ali is his mawla." Muhammad repeated this three or four more times, as reported in Musnad Ibn Hanbal, a canonical Sunni source. By some Shia and Sunni accounts, he then continued, "O God, befriend the friend of Ali and be the enemy of his enemy," which might have been the standard formula for pledging allegiance at the time, used later both by Ali and his son Hasan during their caliphates. As reported in Musnad Ibn Hanbal, Muhammad's companion Umar congratulated Ali after the sermon and told him, "You have now become mawla of every faithful man and woman."
#### Historicity
The historicity of the Ghadir Khumm is rarely disputed within the Muslim community, as its recorded tradition is "among the most extensively acknowledged and substantiated" in classical Islamic sources, even as the statements made at the event remain open to interpretation. In Shia and some Sunni sources, two verses of the Quran are also associated with the Ghadir Khumm: the Verse of Ikmal (5:3), which announces the perfection of Islam, and the verse of Tabligh (5:67), which urges Muhammad to fulfill his divine instructions.
#### Mawla
In the context of the Ghadir Khumm, the polysemous Arabic word mawla is interpreted along sectarian lines. Shia sources interpret this word as meaning 'leader' or 'ruler', while Sunni accounts of this sermon tend to offer little explanation or substitute the word wali (of God, lit. 'friend of God') in place of mawla.
#### Shia views
Shia Muslims view the Ghadir Khumm as Muhammad's most public announcement of Ali's succession. Supporting the Shia interpretation, the Shia Amini has compiled multiple volumes of Sunni and Shia historical documents about the Ghadir Khumm.
#### Sunni views
Among Sunni Muslims, the Ghadir Khumm is not associated with the succession to Muhammad. Instead, the event is often connected with Ali's earlier campaign in Yemen, where he is said to have strictly imposed the Islamic guidelines for a fair distribution of booty. The Sunni Ibn Kathir () suggests that the Ghadir Khumm sermon was simply intended as a public declaration of Muhammad's love and esteem for Ali in response to criticism of some soldiers. Accepting this explanation as such, that Muhammad equated Ali with himself in an extraordinary announcement at the Ghadir Khumm still provides a strong basis for the Shia claims, suggests Jafri.
For the Sunni, it is also unimaginable that most companions would act wrongly and ignore a clear appointment of Ali at the Ghadir Khumm. The Shia response is that numerical strength cannot be a factor in a tribal community, adding that majority does not imply legitimacy in the Qur'an.
### Congregational prayer
The most notable event that supports Abu Bakr's right to succession reportedly occurred towards the end of Muhammad's life. According to Walker, too ill to lead the prayers himself, Muhammad instructed Abu Bakr to take his place, ignoring concerns that he was too emotionally delicate for the role. In particular, when Muhammad entered the prayer hall one morning during the fajr prayer, Abu Bakr attempted to step back to let Muhammad lead the prayer but the prophet allowed Abu Bakr to continue.
#### Authenticity
Jafri finds the related traditions often contradictory, many of which are attributed by Ibn Sa'd () to Abu Bakr's daughter Aisha, whose rivalry and dislike for Ali and Fatima are well-documented. Mentioning three different versions of the story, Madelung defers to Caetani, who considers it fabricated. Shia authors similarly dispute the authenticity of these reports, adding that Muhammad had earlier instructed his companions, including Abu Bakr and Umar, to leave Medina on a military campaign against the Byzantines under Usama ibn Zayd.
#### Significance
Sunni authors often refer to this event as evidence of Abu Bakr's right to succeed Muhammad, though their accounts of the event might be colored by later Shia-Sunni polemics. Ayoub adds that the prayer argument was likely not a consideration in the early caliphal debate. Lecomte writes that Muhammad respected Abu Bakr but considers the prayer story inconclusive because it does not formally relate to the political leadership of the community. Walker notes that this and similar traditions suggest friendship and trust but are hardly related to succession because Muhammad regularly delegated this task and other positions of authority to others. For the same reason, Shaban goes further and assigns no significance to the prayer story.
### Hadith of pen and paper
Shortly before his death, Muhammad asked for writing materials, so that he would "write something, after which you will not be led into error," as reported in the canonical Sunni collection Sahih al-Bukhari. Of those present at Muhammad's bedside, this report continues that his companion Umar protested, "The illness has overwhelmed the prophet. We have the book of God [Quran] and that is enough for us." In some reports by the Sunni Ibn Sa'd (), Umar instead says that Muhammad is raving. A quarrel then broke out at Muhammad's bedside, with some suggesting that his orders should be followed and some siding with Umar to disregard the prophet's request. The argument is said to have saddened Muhammad, who asked them to leave and did not write anything. Some sources write that Muhammad instead gave oral recommendations, which have been recorded differently by various authors.
#### Views
The disobedience to Muhammad in this incident has been downplayed by some Sunni scholars, whereas others view this incident as a missed opportunity to formally designate Abu Bakr as the successor. Ibn Kathir () goes further, claiming that Muhammad had publicly appointed Abu Bakr before his final illness. In contrast, the incident is viewed as a calamity and a missed opportunity to designate Ali in Shia sources.
In relation to this episode, Madelung quotes an exchange between Ibn Abbas and Umar in which the latter claimed that Muhammad intended to name Ali as his successor and that he prevented this out of the conviction that Arabs would revolt against Ali. A tradition to this effect is also cited by the Shia Tababatai (). This view has been echoed by Hazleton.
## Views
### Sunni
The general Sunni belief is that Muhammad had not chosen anyone to succeed him, instead reasoning that he had intended for the community to decide on a leader amongst themselves. However, some specific hadiths are used to justify that Muhammad intended Abu Bakr to succeed, but that he had shown this decision through his actions rather than doing so verbally.
In Sunni Islam, the election of a caliph is ideally a democratic choice made by the Muslim community. As this is difficult to enforce, Sunni Islam recognizes as caliph anyone who seizes power, as long as he is from the Quraysh, the tribe of Muhammad. Even the latter is not a strict requirement, given that Ottoman Caliphs had no familial relation to the Quraysh tribe. In Sunni Islam, caliphs are not viewed as infallible and can be removed from the office if their actions are deemed sinful. At the same time, obedience to a caliph is often regarded as a religious obligation even if the caliph is unjust. Conversely, a judge would be considered competent solely on the basis of his appointment by the government.
Historically, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali are regarded by the Sunni as the most righteous of their generation, with their merit being reflected in their caliphate. The subsequent caliphates of the Umayyads and the Abbasids, while not ideal, are seen as legitimate because they complied with the requirements of the law, kept the borders safe and the community united. While the Umayyads and the Abbasids are viewed as kingships, the Sunni was more willing than others to accommodate these rulers, regardless of their legitimacy and mode of government, and in so doing the Sunni made most of Islamic history their own.
### Shia
#### Twelver
Twelver Shia is the largest branch of the Shia Islam, representing about 85% of the Shia population.
In the Twelver Shia view, after a prophet's death, it is deemed as essential that a divinely-appointed successor would guide the faithful towards the righteous path. Without a divinely-appointed successor, according to the Twelver Shia, the prophetic mission and God's favor to the faithful would both remain incomplete. At the same time, in Shia theology, this designated successor would not rule by force if the faithful withhold their support.
The Twelver Shia view is that, similar to the past prophets in the Quran, the succession to Muhammad was settled by divine appointment, rather than by consensus. Moreover, as with the past prophets in the Quran, God chose Muhammad's successor from his family. A number of verses in the Quran and some hadiths might be linked to the prominent position of Muhammad's family in Islam, including the verse of purification, verse of mubahala, and verse of mawadda in the Quran, and the well-attested Hadith of the Thaqalayn and the Hadith of the Ark.
##### Appointment of Ali
The view advanced by the Shia is that Muhammad announced his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as his rightful successor shortly before his death at the Event of Ghadir Khumm and also earlier in his prophetic mission at the Event of Dhul Asheera. After the announcement at Ghadir Khumm, there is evidence that the Verse of Ikmal was revealed to Muhammad, declaring the completion of God's favor to the faithful. Though it is believed that Ali considered himself as the rightful successor of Muhammad, he is said to have turned down proposals to forcefully pursue his claims to the caliphate after the appointment of Abu Bakr, for the sake of preserving the unity of Islam in a critical time.
##### Ali's merits
Ali's distinctions are amply attested to in Islamic sources. In Mecca, a young Ali is said to have been the first male to embrace Islam and the only person who offered his support when Muhammad first introduced Islam to his relatives. Later, he facilitated Muhammad's safe escape to Medina by risking his life as the decoy. In Medina, Ali sworn a pact a brotherhood with Muhammad and later took the hand of Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah, in marriage. Ali commonly acted as Muhammad's secretary in Medina and served as his deputy during the Expedition of Tabuk. Saluted as Asadullah (literally, "the lion of God"), Ali has been viewed as the most able warrior in Muhammad's army and the two were the only Muslim men who represented Islam against a Christian delegation from Najran. Ali's role in the collection of the Quran, the central text of Islam, is deemed as one of his key contributions. When, following the revelation of the surah at-Tawbah, Abu Bakr was sent to Mecca to give an ultimatum to disbelievers, there is strong evidence that Muhammad might have sent out Ali to take over this responsibility.
##### Ali's role
In Shia theology, while direct revelation ended with Muhammad's death, Ali remained the righteous guide towards God, similar to the successors of the past prophets in the Quran. After Muhammad's death, Ali inherited his divine knowledge and his authority to correctly interpret the Quran, especially its allegorical and metaphorical verses (mutashabihat). Often cited here is a well-attested hadith, attributed to Muhammad, which reads as, "I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate."
##### Ali's infallibility
In Shia Islam, where he is regarded as the righteous guide after Muhammad, Ali is believed to be infallible. Ali is one of the Ahl al-Kisa, who are addressed by the sahih Hadith of Kisa and the related verse of purification in the Quran, which includes the passage, "Indeed God desires to repel all impurity from you, O Ahl al-Bayt, and purify you with a thorough purification."
##### Imamate
According to the Shia, Ali succeeded Muhammad as the first Imam after Muhammad, that is, the righteous guide towards God and His vicar on the earth. This divine authority, known as imamate, is central to the Shia belief and appears in multiple verses of the Quran. In particular, verse 21:73 reads as
> We made them Imams, guiding by Our command, and We revealed to them the performance of good deeds, the maintenance of prayers, and the giving of zakat, and they used to worship Us.
In the Twelver Shia belief, since the time of the first prophet, Adam, the earth has never remained without an Imam, in the form of prophets and their divinely-appointed successors. After Ali, imamate was passed down to his son, Hasan, through divinely-inspired designation (nass). In Shia theology, at any time, there is only one Imam and his successor, if alive, is called the silent Imam. After Hasan's death, his brother, Husayn, and nine of his descendants are regarded as Imams, the last of whom, Mahdi, went into occultation in 260 AH (874 CE), compelled by the hostility of his enemies. His advent is awaited by all Muslims, though different sects hold different views about Mahdi. In his absence, the vacuum in the Shia leadership is partly filled by marjaiyya and, more recently, wilayat al-faqqih, i.e., guardianship of the Islamic jurist.
#### Zaydi
According to Jafri, it is widely reported that the fourth Shia Imam, Zayn al-Abidin, designated his son, Muhammad al-Baqir, as the next Imam before his death. Zayd, a half-brother of Muhammad al-Baqir, also asserted a claim to imamate on the basis that the title can belong to any descendant of Hasan or Husayn who is learned, pious, and revolts against the tyrants of his time. On this basis, his followers, known as Zaydis, consider Zayd as the rightful successor of the fourth Shia Imam, though the fourth Imam himself did not revolt against the Umayyads and instead adopted a policy of quiescence.
Initially, Zayd's activist approach gained him a large following. However, as he increasingly compromised with the traditionalists, some of Zayd's supporters are said to have returned to Muhammad al-Baqir. According to Jafri, a related incident is when two Kufan Shias asked Zayd if the first Shia Imam, Ali, was an Imam before he resorted to the sword. When Zayd refused to answer this question, the two broke their allegiance with him and went back to Muhammad al-Baqir. Eventually, Zayd took up arms against the Umayyads in 122 AH and was killed in Kufa by the forces of Caliph Hisham.
One faction of the Zaidiyyah, called the Batriyya, attempted a compromise between Sunni and Shia by accepting the legitimacy of the Sunni caliphs while maintaining that they were inferior to Ali. Imamat al-Mafdul (literally, "imamate'' of the inferior") is the belief that, while Ali was better suited to succeed Muhammad, the reigns of Abu Bakr and Umar must be acknowledged since Ali did not revolt against them.
### Ibadi
The Ibadi, an Islamic school distinct from Sunni and Shia, believe that leadership of the Muslim community is not something which should be decided by lineage, tribal affiliations or divine selection, but rather through election by leading Muslims. They do not view their leaders as infallible. In particular, if a leader fails to maintain a legitimate government in accordance with the Islamic law, it is the duty of the population to remove him from power. The Rashidun Caliphs are seen as rulers who were elected in a legitimate fashion and, in particular, Abu Bakr and Umar are viewed as righteous leaders. However, Uthman is viewed as having committed grave sins during the latter half of his rule and was deserving of death. Ali is also similarly understood to have lost his mandate.
The Ibadi have been labeled by some scholars as the "moderate Kharijites." Their first Imam was Abd Allah ibn Wahb al-Rasibi, who led the Kharijites after their withdrawal from Ali's camp. Other Imams include Abu Ubaidah Muslim, Abdallah ibn Yahya al-Kindi, and Umar ibn Abdul Aziz. |
16,722,557 | Washington State Route 174 | 1,060,729,484 | Highway in Washington | [
"State highways in Washington (state)",
"Transportation in Douglas County, Washington",
"Transportation in Grant County, Washington",
"Transportation in Lincoln County, Washington"
]
| State Route 174 (SR 174) is a 40.66-mile (65.44 km) long state highway that traverses Douglas, Grant and Lincoln counties in Washington. SR 174 begins at a junction with SR 17 in Leahy and travels eastward to Grand Coulee, near the Grand Coulee Dam, to intersect SR 155. From Grand Coulee, the roadway travels southeast to end at SR 21 northwest of Wilbur.
Prior to the establishment of SR 174 in a 1964 renumbering, it had been county roads and two highways, Secondary State Highway 10B (SSH 10B) and Secondary State Highway 4C (SSH 4C) from 1937 until 1964. The two highways merged to form SR 174 in 1964 and a branch of SSH 10B became the Crown Point spur of SR 174. A second spur route, located in Leahy, was added in 2009.
## Route description
SR 174 begins at an intersection with SR 17 in Leahy, a small community in Douglas County. The western terminus is only accessible from SR 17 southbound, access from SR 17 northbound is provided by the Leahy spur of SR 174. From Leahy, the highway travels northeastward through grasslands with few farms before turning southeast to intersect its Crown Point spur near the Grand Coulee Dam. The roadway then enters Grant County and the city of Grand Coulee and becomes the Bridgeport Highway. SR 174 continues to the Grand Coulee Dam federal reservation and state maintenance ends through the area. After the gap in maintenance in Grand Coulee, SR 174 travels over the Columbia Basin Canal and intersects with SR 155, which is named Midway Avenue through Grand Coulee. After the intersection, the highway is named Grand Coulee Avenue and passes Grand Coulee Middle School and Skilskin High School before leaving the city and the county. The roadway enters Lincoln County and continues southeast to its eastern terminus, an intersection with SR 21, northwest of Wilbur; SR 21 continues south to intersect with U.S. Route 2 (US 2).
## History
SR 174 had previously been parts of various county roads until 1937, when Washington established a system of primary and secondary highways throughout the state. One of the secondary highways, Secondary State Highway 10B (SSH 10B) ran from Primary State Highway 10 (PSH 10) in Bridgeport to Coulee Dam, near the Grand Coulee Dam that was built in 1942. It was planned in conjunction with the dam project in the late 1930s and began construction in 1939. Another secondary highway, Secondary State Highway 4C (SSH 4C) ran from Grand Coulee to PSH 4 near Wilbur. In 1951, the western terminus SSH 10B was moved from Bridgeport to PSH 10 in Leahy and a western portion from PSH 2 in Farmer to PSH 10 in Mansfield. A branch of SSH 10B from its main route to the Crown Point viewing area of the Grand Coulee Dam was added in 1955. SR 174 was formed after a 1964 renumbering of Washington state highways, eliminating the previous Primary and secondary highway system. SSH 10B and SSH 4C were connected to become the new highway and the renumbering went into effect in 1970. In 2009, a second spur in Leahy was established and added to the state highway system.
## Major intersections
## Spur routes
State Route 174 (SR 174) has two spur routes, a type of special route.
### Leahy spur
The Leahy spur of SR 174 is a 0.09-mile (0.14 km) long two-lane spur route that was added to the state highway system in 2009. The roadway is named Leahy Road and serves as a connector from northbound SR 17 to SR 174.
### Crown Point spur
The older spur route is located near the Grand Coulee Dam and connects SR 174 to Crown Point State Park, part of the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, within the community of Coulee Dam. The highway, named Crown Point Road, is 1.37 miles (2.20 km) long and was added in 1964. The Crown Point Spur was a spur route of SSH 10B, established in 1955, prior to 1964. The roadway itself is within federal property and is not numbered or maintained by the state. |
4,221,679 | Bank Street (football ground) | 1,149,707,459 | Stadium in Clayton, Manchester, England | [
"Buildings and structures demolished in 1912",
"Defunct football venues in England",
"Defunct football venues in Manchester",
"Defunct sports venues in Manchester",
"Demolished buildings and structures in Manchester",
"English Football League venues",
"Manchester United F.C.",
"Multi-purpose stadiums in the United Kingdom"
]
| Bank Street, also known as Bank Lane, was a multi-purpose stadium in Clayton, Manchester, England. It was mostly used for football matches and was the second home ground of Manchester United Football Club (then known as Newton Heath Football Club), after North Road, which they left in 1893. The stadium had a capacity of around 50,000, but the club moved to Old Trafford in 1910 because club owner John Henry Davies believed he could not sufficiently expand the ground.
The stadium was in poor repair towards the end of its life and, shortly after the club moved out to Old Trafford, the main stand at Bank Street blew down in a storm. The site is now occupied by the BMX indoor arena of the National Cycling Centre, with a plaque on a house wall on Bank Street indicating the presence of the former ground. The site is close to the City of Manchester Stadium, the home of Manchester City Football Club.
## History
### Early years
Also known as Bank Lane, the ground was located on Bank Street in the Manchester suburb of Clayton, opposite the junction with Ravensbury Street and between the railway line and the Albion Chemical works. Known locally as the Bradford and Clayton athletic ground, it was owned by the Bradford and Clayton Athletic Company. After Newton Heath F.C. (who became Manchester United in 1902) were evicted from their old ground at North Road by the Manchester Deans and Canons, who believed it to be inappropriate for the club to charge an entry fee to the ground, secretary A. H. Albut procured the use of the Bank Street ground in June 1893. The site was let to the club for eight months of the year, with pre-season training permitted on occasional nights in the summer. The ground was without stands, but, by the start of the 1893–94 season, two stands had been built; one spanning the full length of the pitch on one side and the other behind the goal at the "Bradford end". At the opposite end, the "Clayton end", the ground had been "built up, thousands thus being provided for".
Newton Heath's first Football League match at Bank Street was played against Burnley on 1 September 1893, when 10,000 people saw Alf Farman score a hat-trick, Newton Heath's only goals in a 3–2 win. The remaining stands were completed for the following league game against Nottingham Forest three weeks later. However, Newton Heath did not fare well in their first season at the new ground and were unable to retain their First Division status at the end of the season, finishing bottom of the 16-team division. At the time, the condition of the Bank Street pitch was well documented. On one occasion during the 1894–95 season, Walsall Town Swifts turned up at the ground and were greeted by what they regarded as a "toxic waste dump". After lodging an official complaint about the pitch to the referee, they were finally persuaded to take to the field, only to be beaten 14–0 (unofficially, the biggest win in the history of Manchester United). However, the Football League ruled in favour of Walsall and the match was ordered to be replayed, though the result was not much better for the visitors the second time round, this time losing 9–0.
### Expansion
In October 1895, before the visit of Manchester City to Bank Street, the club purchased a 2,000-capacity stand from Broughton Rangers Rugby League Club, and put up another stand on the "reserved side" (as distinct from the "popular side"). However, weather restricted the attendance for the Manchester City match to just 12,000. Improvements to the ground were restricted by the running track that encompassed the pitch, which, by the request of the Bradford and Clayton Athletic Company, could not be removed. However, the ground came into the possession of the club's former president, Mr W. Crompton, in 1898, allowing them to make whatever improvements to it they desired. One report in the Manchester Courier predicted the addition of a 25-foot (7.6 m) tall stand on the side adjacent to Bank Street itself, with a refreshment stand underneath, while the opposite stand would be moved back 6 yards (5.5 m) and raised up on brickwork by around 16 feet (4.9 m), with the space underneath to be used as changing rooms for the players and referee and various rooms for the club committee.
These improvements would cost a lot of money, however, and this, in combination with the players' ever-increasing wages, sent the club into a period of financial turmoil. The club was presented with a winding up order in January 1902, and Bank Street was on the brink of being repossessed until they were saved at the eleventh hour by a wealthy local brewer, John Henry Davies. He and four other men, among them club captain Harry Stafford, invested a total of £2,000 in the club, now renamed Manchester United F.C., and Davies himself paid £500 for the erection of a new 1,000-seat stand at Bank Street. Within four years, the stadium had cover on all four sides, as well as the ability to hold approximately 50,000 spectators, some of whom could watch from the viewing gallery atop the Main Stand. The stadium was even deemed worthy enough to host a match between Football League and Scottish Football League representative sides in April 1904, hosting 25,000 spectators as the Football League side won 2–1.
Around the turn of the 20th century, Newton Heath pulled off a significant coup by persuading the Manchester Evening News to set up an office at Bank Street. In response to Manchester City's relationship with the Manchester Evening Chronicle, the Heathens' believed that their partnership with the Evening News would cultivate interest in the club, while the newspaper would benefit from increased coverage of football.
### Departure and destruction
Following Manchester United's first league title in 1908 and the FA Cup a year later, it was decided that Bank Street was too restrictive for Davies' ambition and the club would have to move to a new stadium five miles away in Old Trafford. Bank Street was sold to the Manchester Corporation for £5,500 and leased back to the club on a monthly basis until the new stadium was complete. Bank Street played host to just 5,000 spectators for its final game on 22 January 1910; a 5–0 home win over Tottenham Hotspur. Manchester United's move away from Bank Street seemed to have come at the perfect time, as, only a few days after the Tottenham match, one of the stands was blown down in a storm. The roof of the grandstand was blown across the road, landing on the houses opposite, and the stand was left in tatters. The Tottenham match was meant to have been played at Old Trafford, but building problems at the new ground had caused the fixture to revert to Bank Street. Despite the destruction of the Bank Street End stand, the club's reserve team continued to use the ground for matches until the expiry of the lease on 1 January 1912. The remaining timber at the site was then sold to Keyley Bros. for £275. The site had various industrial uses for the next 80 years, until it was cleared in the early 1990s for inclusion in the new Manchester Velodrome (now the National Cycling Centre). It is occupied by a BMX indoor arena, opened in 2011, having previously served as a car park for the velodrome. A red plaque attached to a house opposite on Bank Street marks the site as part of United's history. |
44,762,069 | Vinicius and Tom | 1,153,939,076 | Official mascots of the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro | [
"2016 Summer Olympics",
"2016 Summer Paralympics",
"Animal mascots",
"Bird mascots",
"Brazilian mascots",
"Felid mascots",
"Fictional Brazilian people",
"Fictional characters who can stretch themselves",
"Fictional hybrid life forms",
"Fictional mammals",
"Fictional trees",
"Mascots introduced in 2014",
"Olympic mascots",
"Paralympic mascots",
"Primate mascots"
]
| Vinicius (; sometimes Vinícius) is the official mascot of the 2016 Summer Olympics, and Tom is the official mascot of the 2016 Summer Paralympics. Both events were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The mascots were created by São Paulo-based animation company Birdo, which was selected by a national tender process that began in November 2012. Vinicius' design represents Brazilian fauna, combining aspects of cats, monkeys, and birds, while Tom's design represents Brazilian flora.
Tenders to create the mascots were only accepted from Brazilian companies. The final designs were unanimously selected in August 2013 by a panel of judges comprising media professionals and representatives from various Olympic organizations. They were revealed to the public without names on 23 November 2014. Following a three-week online vote which ended on 14 December 2014, the public named the two mascots after Vinicius de Moraes and Antônio Carlos "Tom" Jobim, the co-writers of the 1962 bossa nova song "The Girl from Ipanema".
Media involving the mascots includes various merchandise and a series of two-minute animated shorts that were broadcast on Cartoon Network Brazil. Plush dolls of Vinicius were provided to coaches during the Olympic wrestling events to throw into the ring when they wished to challenge a referee's call, a practice many observers found humorous. All Paralympic medalists received a plush doll of Tom, with the leaves on Tom's head the same color as their respective medals. Multiple observers have praised the appearance of the mascots.
## History
### Creation and development
Tenders to create the mascots of the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were requested in November 2012. The tender process involved design, illustration, animation, and advertising firms exclusively from Brazil, in order to ensure a "Brazilian-flavoured design". Directors from the Brazilian film festival Anima Mundi served as consultants in the process. The Rio 2016 organizers sent the agencies involved a list of 17 guidelines, among which were:
> ... the mascots need to reflect the local culture, but must also be universally understood; they should be aligned with the brand direction of the Rio 2016 logos and with the values of the Olympic and Paralympic movements; they must represent universal values, such as friendship, respect and fair play; they must speak to children in particular, but also resonate with adults.
The organizers selected three proposed mascot designs and subjected them to a perception survey with children aged six to twelve in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The organizers presented each of the three potential mascots to the children, who were unaware that the designs were candidates for the Rio 2016 mascots and were told only about their fictional backgrounds and personality traits. The children responded with comments such as "'This is my friend', 'This one seems stuck-up', 'This one has cool hair'; and 'That one looks silly'". The organizers used the children's comments to improve the mascot designs.
In August 2013, a panel of judges was formed to select the final mascots, comprising representatives of the organizers of Rio 2016, the International Olympic Committee, the Brazilian Olympic Committee, and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee, along with professionals in the fields of animation, illustration, advertising and market research. The judges unanimously chose a set of two mascots, one for the Olympic Games and the other for the Paralympic Games, created by Birdo, a São Paulo-based animation company. After a search of existing intellectual property confirmed that the mascot designs were original, Birdo and the organizers began to create content featuring the mascots, working in secrecy.
### Naming and unveiling
On 22 November 2014, in preparation for the unveiling, the Rio 2016 organizers held a press event in which costumes of the mascots of past Olympic and Paralympic Games visited Rio de Janeiro to meet the new mascots of the Rio 2016 Games. The mascots were revealed to the public on 23 November 2014, the names to be determined by an online public vote. There were three candidates in the vote:
- "Oba and Eba" – Brazilian Portuguese expressions of joy
- "Tiba Tuque and Esquindim" – "tiba" means "a lot" in Tupi–Guarani languages, "tuque" comes from batuque, and "esquindim" is a Brazilian Portuguese word for natural sway
- "Vinicius and Tom" – the names of musicians Vinicius de Moraes and Antônio Carlos "Tom" Jobim, the co-writers of the song "The Girl from Ipanema"
On 24 November 2014, the mascots appeared publicly in costumes for the first time at the Ginásio Experimental Olímpico Juan Antonio Samaranch, a school in Rio motivated by the 2016 Summer Olympics and established for talented young athletes. After a three-week voting period, the names "Vinicius and Tom" won over "Oba and Eba" and "Tiba Tuque and Esquindim" on 14 December 2014, tallying 44 percent of 323,327 votes.
### Use of Vinicius in Olympic wrestling events
In wrestling, coaches may challenge a referee's call by throwing a predetermined "soft object" into the ring. Although this is normally a foam brick, wrestling rules do not specify what the soft object must be. During the 2016 Olympic wrestling events, the organizers provided coaches with soft plush dolls of Vinicius to throw into the ring when they wished to challenge a call. One wrestler's coach received a Vinicius doll with a red shirt, while the opponent's coach received one with a blue shirt.
Many observers found the practice humorous. Luke Meredith, a writer for the Associated Press, wrote that it "has already led to a few amusing moments where a coach, enraged with a call gone against his wrestler, had to reach for a tiny stuffed animal and fling it across the mat to get the referee's attention." NBC Sports commentators for their Olympic coverage began referring to Vinicius as "the challenge mascot." Dustin Nelson, a news writer for the website Thrillist, wrote that the mascot took "a little of the anger out of a challenge." Jason Bryant, the in-house commentator for wrestling at the 2016 Olympics, was slightly surprised to see the practice at the Olympics, given the emphasis there on "protocol", but he eventually commented that it does not matter what the challenge object is, particularly if it has cultural significance to the location of the competition. Coach Mike Malinconico argued that the practice does not belong at the Olympic Games, stating, "The fate of one of my athletes who has been training for this specific moment for four years hangs in the balance of a referee's error. And I have a stuffed animal in my hands."
## Characteristics
Vinicius, named after Brazilian lyricist Vinicius de Moraes, is the Olympic mascot. Vinicius's design represents Brazilian wildlife, combining "the agility of cats, sway of monkeys and grace of birds." The character's arms and legs can stretch unlimited distances. Vinicius's mission is "to spread joy throughout the world and celebrate the friendship that flourishes between people from all over the world" at the Olympic Games.
Tom, named after Brazilian musician Tom Jobim, is the Paralympic mascot. Tom's design represents the plants of Brazilian forests. Any object can be pulled out of the leaves on Tom's head. His mission is "to inspire everybody to use creativity and determination to always reach further and have fun."
According to their fictional backstories, Vinicius and Tom "were both born from the joy of Brazilians" after the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Brand director Beth Lula stated that the mascots are intended to reflect the diversity of Brazil's culture and people. The mascots' namesakes, Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim, co-wrote the 1962 bossa nova song "The Girl from Ipanema".
## Media
### Animated shorts
A series of animated adventure shorts called Vinicius e Tom – Divertidos por Natureza ("Vinicius and Tom – Fun by Nature" or "Vinicius and Tom – Natural Entertainers") began broadcasting on Cartoon Network Brazil on 5 August 2015. The shorts are also available to view on the official website as well as on YouTube, as uploaded by the Organizing Committee's YouTube channel. The series consists of 32 two-minute episodes and is the third television cartoon series based on Olympic mascots and the first such cartoon created in the Americas. The show follows Vinicius and Tom as they live in Brazilian forests and cities. In the series, the mascots are occasionally joined by the "Carioca Sisters" (Portuguese: Irmãs Cariocas): Bela, Sol, and Vida.
The series is designed to promote the mascots. Turner Broadcasting System, the owner of Cartoon Network, invested US\$750,000 in the series. Cartoon Network helped to coproduce the series, having won an open competition held by the Rio 2016 organizers to select a collaborator for the series. Brand director Beth Lula stated that the mascots "are one of the principal methods of engaging the public with the Games. The cartoon will give them life, reinforcing the emotional link of the public with the event." Although the series is targeted towards children, Sylmara Multini, Director of Licensing and Retail for the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, stated that it will attract adults too.
### Merchandise
The mascots were included among the merchandise of the Rio 2016 Games, ranging from a Lego kit to life-size dolls. During the Paralympic events, medalists received stuffed toys of Tom, with the leaves on the dolls' heads colored in gold, silver, or bronze to correspond with their medals. The Lego kit featuring Vinicius and Tom is the first time Lego made a commercial version of the official mascots of the Games. An employee at a Rio 2016 merchandise store commented that the mascots were "the most popular thing by far. ... Kids and adults all love them, especially Vinicius, he is the favourite."
The Rio 2016 Organizing Committee originally estimated that the mascots could make up 25 percent of licensed merchandise sales in Rio. Overall, merchandise sales were 11 percent higher than the original targets, according to Rio 2016 spokesperson Mario Andrada. Two products, a hat in the shape of Vinicius's head and a pair of Havaianas bearing Vinicius, were, respectively, the best-selling and second-best-selling merchandise items during the 2016 Summer Olympics. Reporting for state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), Lucrécia Franco at what was CCTV America back then commented that merchandise of the mascots, among other Olympic merchandise, has contributed to strengthened trade relations between China and Brazil.
## Reception
Julia Glum, in an article in the International Business Times, wrote that the "mascot for the Olympic Games is almost always strange-looking, and Rio de Janeiro is no exception. ... though they're by far not the craziest Olympic animals to ever exist ..." In an article published by Mic, Brianna Provenzano referred to the mascots as "lovable", describing their appearance as "sweet and simple" and highlighting their symbolisms for the animals and plants of Brazil. However, Charlotte Wilder, a writer on USA Today's sports column For The Win, was unimpressed by Vinicius's design, stating, "Whoever was in charge of coming up with this creature of the huge hands and feet did exactly what it looks like, which is mash up a bunch of animals, video game characters, and cartoons, stuff it with some synthetic filling, and call it day." Robert John Young, Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Salford, criticized Rio 2016 for failing to capitalize on environmental protection by "inventing" mascots, rather than using actual animal species. Young also criticized the organizers for not offering a female name in the public vote.
On the other hand, Carlos Merigo wrote on Brazilian website B9 that the mascots bring back "the colorful, loving and fun atmosphere that marked the Olympic mascots over the decades", calling them a "return to origins" following the "shapelessness" of Wenlock and Mandeville, the mascots of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Neha Prakash, writing on digital media website Mashable, wrote that, compared to the "terror" of the mascots of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Vinicius and Tom "are more nostalgia-inducing than nightmarish". Multiple observers compared the art style of the mascots to that of the Pokémon franchise, while Stephen Wood, in an article on the history of Olympic mascots published by Paste, likened them to the style of Adventure Time, an American animated television series. In an entry about 2000 Summer Olympics' unofficial mascot Fatso the Wombat on Slate*'s culture blog Brow Beat, Matthew Dessem wrote that there were no glaring issues with the mascots when compared to previous Olympic mascots: "Like the best Olympic mascots of yore, Vinicius and Tom are well-suited to plush toys and licensing deals and will be completely forgotten within a year." Leila Cobo, in an article published by Billboard*, praised the organizers of Rio 2016 for "celebrating music in a most joyful and profound way" by naming the Olympic mascot after Vinicius de Moraes.
## See also
- Soohorang and Bandabi – mascots of the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics
- 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots
- Wenlock and Mandeville – mascots of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics
- Miga, Quatchi, Sumi and Mukmuk – mascots of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics
- Fuwa – mascots of the 2008 Summer Olympics |
58,274,871 | Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks | 1,165,568,601 | 1944 ethnic cleansing of the Meskhetian Turks in the Soviet Union | [
"1940s in Georgia (country)",
"1944 in the Soviet Union",
"Crimes against humanity",
"Ethnic cleansing in Europe",
"Forced migration in the Soviet Union",
"Persecution of Turkish people",
"Political repression in the Soviet Union",
"Russian special forces operations",
"Soviet World War II crimes"
]
| The deportation of the Meskhetian Turks (Russian: Депортация турок-месхетинцев) was the forced transfer by the Soviet government of the entire Meskhetian Turk population from the Meskheti region of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Georgia) to Central Asia on 14 November 1944. During the deportation, between 92,307 and 94,955 Meskhetian Turks were forcibly removed from 212 villages. They were packed into cattle wagons and mostly sent to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Members of other ethnic groups were also deported during the operation, including Kurds and Hemshins, bringing the total to approximately 115,000 evicted people. They were placed in special settlements where they were assigned to forced labor. The deportation and harsh conditions in exile caused between 12,589 to 50,000 deaths.
The expulsion was executed by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria on the orders of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and involved 4,000 NKVD personnel. 34 million roubles were allocated to carry out the operation. It was a part of the Soviet forced settlement program and population transfers that affected several million members of Soviet ethnic minorities between the 1930s and the 1950s. Around 32,000 people, mostly Armenians, were settled by the Soviet government in the areas cleared of Meskhetia.
After Stalin's death, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a secret speech in 1956 in which he condemned and reversed Stalin's deportations of various ethnic groups, many of which were allowed to their places of origin. However, even though they were released from the special settlements, the Meskhetian Turks, along with the Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans, were forbidden from returning to their native lands, making their exile permanent. Due to the secrecy of their expulsion and the politics of the Soviet Union, the deportation of the Meskhetian Turks remained relatively unknown and was subject to very little scholarly research until they were targeted by violent riots in Uzbekistan in 1989. Modern historians categorized the crime as ethnic cleansing and a crime against humanity. In 1991, the newly independent Georgia refused to give Meskhetian Turks the right to return to the Meskheti region. The Meskhetian Turks numbered between 260,000 and 335,000 people in 2006, and are today scattered across seven countries of the former Soviet Union, where many are stateless.
## Background
The Meskhetian Turks, also known as Akhiska Turks, originally lived in the Meskheti region in the south of present-day Georgia. There is no consensus among historians regarding their origin. Either they are ethnic Turks or Turkicized Georgians who converted to Islam during the Ottoman rule of the region.
The Ottoman army conquered the Meskheti region, then part of the Principality of Samtskhe, during the Turkish military expedition of 1578. Turkish historians are of the view that the Turkic tribes had settled in the region as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries when Georgian king David IV invited the Kipchaks Turkic tribes to defend his border regions from the Seljuk Turks. The area became part of the Russian Empire in 1829 following the Russo-Turkish War.
In 1918, near the end of World War I and at the beginning of the Russian Civil War, Georgia proclaimed independence, while some Muslim communities in Meskheti proclaimed a semi-autonomous confederation and prepared for a unification with the dissolving Ottoman Empire. Ottoman troops moved into this area and numerous clashes broke out between the Christian and Muslim populations of the region. In 1921 Soviet forces took control of Georgia and signed the Treaty of Kars which divided Meskheti between Turkey and the newly Soviet Georgia. In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin emerged as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Ben Kiernan, an American academic and historian, described Stalin's era as "by far the bloodiest of Soviet or even Russian history".
Between 1928 and 1937, the Meskhetian Turks were pressured by the Soviet authorities to adopt Georgian names. The 1926 Soviet census listed 137,921 Turks in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, but this figure included Azerbaijanis. In the 1939 Soviet census, most Meskhetian Turks were classified as Azerbaijanis.
## Deportation
On 31 July 1944, the Soviet State Defense Committee decree N 6277ss stated: "... in order to defend Georgia's state border and the state border of the USSR we are preparing to relocate Turks, Kurds and Hemshils from the border strip". On 23 September 1944, the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic informed the NKVD that it was ready to accept new settlers: Turks, Kurds, Hemshils; 5,350 families to kolkhozes and 750 families to sovkhozes. The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic said that it was ready to accept 50,000 people (instead of the planned 30,000). 239 railcars were prepared to transport the deportees and people were mobilized.
The Meskhetian Turks were one of the six ethnic groups from the Caucasus who were deported in 1943 and 1944 in their entirety by the Soviet secret police—the other five were the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays and the Kalmyks. Their deportation was relatively poorly documented. Historians date the expulsion of the Meskhetian Turks to Soviet Central Asia either to 14 or 15 November 1944. The operation was completed by 26 November. At the start of the operation, the Soviet soldiers arrived as early as 4:00 a.m. at the homes of the Meskhetian Turks and did not tell them where they were being taken to. The population was not given advance notice; the NKVD notification stated: "You are to be deported. Get ready. Take foodstuffs for three days. Two hours for preparation." Studebaker trucks were used to drive the Meskhetian Turks to the nearby railway stations. In the deportation, between 92,307 and 94,955 Meskhetian Turks, distributed in 16,700 families, were forcibly resettled from 212 villages. They were packed into cattle wagons and deported eastwards to Central Asia. By 4:00 p.m. on 17 November, 81,234 people had been dispatched.
Official Soviet records indicate that 92,307 persons were deported, of whom 18,923 were men, 27,309 were women and 45,989 were children under the age of 16. 52,163 were resettled in the Uzbek SSR, 25,598 in the Kazakh SSR and 10,546 in the Kyrgiz SSR. 84,556 people were employed in kolkhozes, 6,316 in sovkhozes and 1,395 in industrial enterprises. The last of the deported people arrived at Tashkent by 31 January 1945.
Deported Meskhetian Turks were allowed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) of personal belongings with them per family, twice the amount as Crimean Tatars during their previous deportation. Members of other minority ethnic groups were also deported with the Meskhetian Turks, including Kurds and Hemshils (Armenian Muslims), giving a total of approximately 115,000 evicted persons. One source indicates that 8,694 Kurds and 1,385 Hemshils were deported as part of the operation. Only women married to men of other, non-deported ethnic groups were spared. Each family was given two hours to collect their belongings for the trip. Seven families were loaded into each boxcar, 20-25 families into each carriage. Like the other groups from the Caucasus, they were transported several thousand miles, to Central Asia. They were sealed off in these cattle wagons for a month.
4,000 NKVD agents were appointed to carry out the operation. Like the previous deportations, this one was also supervised by the NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria. It was ordered by the Premier of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin. Stalin allocated 34 million roubles to the NKVD in order to carry it out. It was part of the Soviet forced settlement program and population transfer that affected several million members of non-Russian Soviet ethnic minorities between the 1930s and the 1950s. During World War II alone, 3,332,589 persons were deported in the Soviet Union. Throughout the Caucasus, about 650,000 people were deported in 1943 and 1944.
This was the last Soviet deportation during World War II. Until 1956, the Soviet authorities denied the Meskhetian Turks any civic or political rights. Around 32,000 people, mostly Armenians, were settled by the Soviet authorities in the cleared areas.
## Possible reasons
Unlike the other five ethnic groups of the Caucasus who were accused of Axis collaboration during World War II, the Meskhetian Turks were never officially charged by the Soviet government with any crime; they were not close to any combat. In spite of this, they were deported as well. The German army never came within a range of 100 miles of the Meskheti region. Professor Brian Glyn Williams concluded that the deportations of Meskhetian Turks, which coincided with the deportation of other ethnic groups from Caucasus and Crimea, lends the strongest evidence that all the deportations were a part of a larger concealed Soviet foreign policy rather than a response to any "universal mass treason" of these people. Svante Cornell pointed out that the eviction was a part of a larger Russian policy that had been in effect since 1864: to remove as many Muslim minorities from the Caucasus as possible.
Beria sent a memorandum to Stalin on 28 November 1944, in which he accused the Meskhetian Turks of "smuggling" and of being "used by Turkish intelligence for espionage". Beria's secret decree painted the Meskhetian Turks, the Kurds and the Hemshils as "untrustworthy population" that must be removed from the border region. Some historians interpret this eviction by Stalin's plan to remove the pro-Turkish group from the border area in order to obtain parts of northeastern Turkey. In June 1945, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, demanded of Turkey that it cedes three Anatolian provinces to the Soviet Union: Kars, Ardahan and Artvin. Scholars Alexandre Bennigsen and Marie Broxup concluded that the deportation of the Meskhetian Turks was thus undertaken as a precaution in case of a Soviet–Turkish war for eastern parts of Turkey. These claims, and the Turkish Straits crisis, escalated, until the plans failed when Turkey joined NATO in 1951.
The Soviet authorities tried to forge a state out of 108 different nationalities. Initially they tried to use this multiethnic state to exploit cross-border ethnic groups to project influence into the countries neighboring the Soviet Union. Terry Martin, a professor of Russian studies, assessed that this had the opposite effect; the Soviet fear of "capitalist influence" eventually led to ethnic cleansing of its borderlands, which encompassed the Meskhetian Turks.
## Death toll
The Meskhetian Turks were placed under the administration of the special settlements. The purpose of these settlements was to be a system of cheap labor for the economic progress of faraway parts of the Soviet Union. Many of those deported performed forced labor. Special settlers routinely worked eleven to twelve hours a day, seven days a week. They suffered from exhaustion and frostbite, and were denied their food rations if they did not meet their work quota. The lack of food was apparently so severe that the Soviet Council of People's Commissars adopted the decree N 942 rs which provided 857,000 kilograms (1,889,000 lb) of flour and 213,000 kilograms (470,000 lb) of cereals to the settlers from the Georgian SSR. The exiled peoples had to report to their surveillance organs on a weekly basis and were not allowed to travel anywhere outside their settlements. However, Meskhetian Turks were treated somewhat better than other ethnic groups in the special settlements because they had not been accused of a specific crime.
During their first 12 years in the special settlements, the exiled Meskhetian Turks coped with extreme deprivation and isolation from the outside world. They suffered a considerable hardship during the first years in exile. These included poor quality of food and medicine; the process of adaptation to the new climate, epidemics, which included spotted fever, and forced labor.
Estimates of the mortality rate of the Meskhetian Turks differ. The Karachay demographer D. M. Ediev estimated that 12,589 Meskhetian Turks died due to the deportation, amounting to a 13 percent mortality rate of their entire ethnic group. Professor Michael Rywkin gave a higher figure of 15,000 fatalities among this ethnic group. Official, but incomplete, Soviet archives recorded 14,895 deaths or a 14 percent to 15.7 percent mortality rate among the people deported from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. This list included all the groups from the region, but the Meskhetian Turks formed a large majority of them. Soviet archives also record that an additional 457 people died during the transit to Central Asia. High assessments give a figure of 30,000 and up to 50,000 dead. By 1948, the mortality rate had fallen to 2.8%.
On 26 November 1948 the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree which sentenced the deported groups to permanent exile in those distant regions. This decree applied to Chechens and Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Balkars, Kalmyks and the Meskhetian Turks.
## Aftermath
Stalin's successor, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, delivered a secret speech at the Communist Party Congress on 24 February 1956 condemning the Stalinist deportations, but did not mention the Meskhetian Turks among the deported peoples. The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, dated 28 April 1956 and titled "On the removal of special deportation restrictions from the Crimean Tatars, Balkars, Soviet Turks, Kurds, Hemshils and members of their families deported during the Great Patriotic War" ordered the release of these ethnic groups from the administrative control of the MVD bodies, but did not envisage their return to their native lands. Unlike other deported peoples, the Meskhetian Turks were not rehabilitated. They were one of three ethnic groups who were not allowed to return to their native lands, the other two being the Volga Germans and the Crimean Tatars.
Official Soviet publications made no mention of either the Meskhetian Turks nor their region of origin between 1945 and 1968. On 30 May 1968 a decree of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet acknowledged their deportation, but its text claimed that the Meskhetian Turks "had taken roots" in their new homes of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and called upon them to stay there. The Meskhetian Turks signed 144 petitions in 45 years, demanding a right to return. In 1964 they formed the Turkish Association for the National Rights of the Turkish People in Exile and tried to contact the U.N. and Amnesty International to help them return. Between 1961 and 1969, there were six attempts to return to Georgia, but these groups were all deported once again. In the 1960s, the Soviet government resorted to repression in order to suppress the Meskhetian Turk movement that demanded a right to return to the Meshekti region. The methods included arrests, intimidation and imprisonment of Meskhetian Turk activists. Moreover, on 26 July 1968, Vasil Mzhavanadze, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR, announced that there was no room for the return of that ethnic group in the area and that only 100 families might return per year. 1,211 Meskhetian Turks returned to Georgia, but were dispersed away from the Meskheti region, to the western part of the country. In June 1988, some 200 representatives of the ethnic group protested in the Borjomi District, demanding a right to return. By 1989, only 35 families remained in Georgia, while the only Meskhetian Turks who returned to the Meskheti region were eventually forced to leave it.
The situation changed, at least on paper, in the late 1980s when the new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, decided to break all ties with the Stalinist past. On 14 November 1989, the Supreme Soviet declared that the forced displacement of ethnic groups during Stalin's era, including the Meskhetian Turks, was "illegal and criminal". On 26 April 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, under its chairman Boris Yeltsin, passed the law On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples with Article 2 denouncing all mass deportations as "Stalin's policy of defamation and genocide". Even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Georgia refused to give Meskhetian Turks the right to return to the Meskheti region. One of the rare exceptions in Georgia was Guram Mamulia, a politician, historian and human rights activist who advocated for the Meskhetian Turk right to move back to Meskheti. Unlike the other ethnic groups resettled during Soviet deportations, the Meskhetian Turks were sparsely mentioned in the books covering the subject by historians Alexander Nekrich and Robert Conquest. Russian historian Pavel Polian considered all of the deportations of entire ethnic groups during Stalin's era, including those from the Caucasus, as a crime against humanity. He also noted that the charges of treason were "both unfair and hypocritical" considering that almost 40,000 Meskhetian Turks fought on the Soviet side during World War II.
In June 1989, the Meskhetian Turks were victims of Uzbek nationalist violence in the Fergana valley. Until these events, only few people were aware of the existence of the Meskhetian Turks and very little scholarly research had been conducted about them. After the ethnic clashes in the Fergana valley, 70,000 Meskhetian Turks fled and were scattered across seven countries of the former Soviet Union. The Meskhetian Turks numbered between 260,000 and 335,000 people in 2006. Since Russian officials refused to grant the Meskhetian Turks the status of Russian citizens, the Council of Europe has described their position in Krasnodar as one of a "legal limbo". A majority of them remain de facto stateless people.
## See also
- Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
- Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
- Deportation of the Karachays
- Deportation of the Kalmyks
- Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union
- Human rights in the Soviet Union
- Political repression in the Soviet Union
- Population transfer in the Soviet Union |
50,240,910 | Straight Outta Cold Beer | 1,122,063,455 | null | [
"2016 songs",
"Blake Shelton songs",
"Song recordings produced by Scott Hendricks",
"Songs written by Ben Hayslip",
"Songs written by Marv Green"
]
| "Straight Outta Cold Beer" is a song recorded by American singer Blake Shelton for his tenth studio album, If I'm Honest (2016). It was released as its third promotional single for digital download on May 13, 2016. The track was written by Marv Green, Ben Hayslip, and Justin Wilson, while production was solely handled by Shelton's longtime producer Scott Hendricks. A country song, Shelton sings about his youth, where everyone partied until the beer was gone.
"Straight Outta Cold Beer" was generally well received by music critics, with the majority enjoying the "party" nature of the recording. One reviewer appreciated Shelton staying true to his "country roots". Within its first two weeks of availability, the track sold a total of 17,000 copies. In the United States, it debuted and peaked at number 23 on Billboard's Country Digital Songs component chart, while also managing to reach the top 40 of the same publication's Hot Country Songs chart.
## Background and composition
In 2015, Shelton began working on If I'm Honest, his tenth studio album, which details his personal and romantic life following his divorce from musician Miranda Lambert; despite the majority of the tracks on the album being recent events in his life, he wanted to write a song about partying, even though he admitted to not being able to do it as often as he used to. He further discussed his inspiration behind the track to Rolling Stone's Beville Dunkerley:
> Basically it’s just about having a throwdown out in the woods — that’s what we used to do in high school. I can’t honestly sit here and say that I do it much anymore, I’m getting too old, but it’s fun for me to sing about those times and the crazy stuff that I used to do, and the crazy stuff that I know somewhere, as we speak right now, kids are doing somewhere in somebody's field. I know you're tearing it up out there.
Warner Bros. Nashville issued "Straight Outta Cold Beer" as the album's third promotional single on May 13, 2016, following "Friends" on April 8 and "Go Ahead and Break My Heart" on May 9. "Straight Outta Cold Beer" also serves as the opener to the record. "Straight Outta Cold Beer" was written and composed by Marv Green, Ben Hayslip, and Justin Wilson, while production was solely handled by Shelton's longtime producer Scott Hendricks. Shelton sings "about lacking suds" from partying in the lyrics, which Entertainment Weekly's Jim Farber described as "an ode to getting soused". The singer boasts that there is nothing fake about him in the lyrics.
## Reception
"Straight Outta Cold Beer" was positively received by music critics, with many of them describing it as a "party" song. Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times singled it out for being a "sly party tune" among the other tracks on If I'm Honest. Similarly, Keith Harris from Rolling Stone called it a "rowdy party-starter" and appreciated its word play reference to the 1988 N.W.A album Straight Outta Compton in the title. Entertainment Tonight's Sophie Schillaci declared it a "fun track" that stayed true to the singer's "classic country roots". A staff member from WUSN enjoyed the recording, and claimed it would make anyone more excited for If I'm Honest, which was then unreleased. Regarding the subject matter of "Straight Outta Cold Beer", Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic found Shelton to be "rais[ing] a little hell". Robyn Collins from Radio.com created a list of the "5 Best Songs on Blake Shelton's If I'm Honest" and included "Straight Outta Cold Beer". She wrote, "this party anthem is another perfect country-boy song that says some of the same things in brand new ways with music that’ll make you have to tap a boot."
For the week ending April 30, 2016, "Straight Outta Cold Beer" debuted at number 36 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Additionally, the single was the week's 23rd best selling digital country song, selling approximately 14,000 copies in its first week of availability. In its second week available as a digital download, an additional 3,000 copies were purchased, increasing its total sales to over 17,000.
## Track listing
## Charts |
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