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Alister Murdoch
| 1,170,868,189 |
Royal Australian Air Force air marshal
|
[
"1912 births",
"1984 deaths",
"Australian Companions of the Order of the Bath",
"Australian Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire",
"Australian aviators",
"Australian military personnel of the Vietnam War",
"Graduates of the Royal College of Defence Studies",
"Military personnel from Melbourne",
"People educated at Caulfield Grammar School",
"People from Elsternwick, Victoria",
"Royal Australian Air Force air marshals",
"Royal Australian Air Force personnel of World War II"
] |
Air Marshal Sir Alister Murray Murdoch, (9 December 1912 – 24 October 1984) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He served as Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) from 1965 to 1969. Joining the Air Force in 1930, Murdoch trained as a seaplane pilot and participated in an Antarctic rescue mission for lost explorers in 1935. During World War II, he commanded No. 221 Squadron RAF in Europe and the Middle East, and later occupied senior positions on the staff of RAAF formations in the South West Pacific. His post-war appointments included Commandant of RAAF College from 1952 to 1953, Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Training Command from 1953 to 1955, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff from 1958 to 1959, and AOC Operational Command from 1962 to 1965.
As AOC Training Command in 1954, Murdoch headed a program to determine aircraft purchases for the RAAF; his recommendations included the C-130 Hercules transport, considered one of the most important acquisitions in the Air Force's history. His term as CAS coincided with an increased commitment to the Vietnam War, and he came into conflict with Australian Army commanders over the employment of helicopters in battle. He was also involved in assessing the readiness of the General Dynamics F-111C for RAAF service. Appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1960 and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966, Murdoch was the fourth in a series of CASs who had been cadets at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He retired from the Air Force in December 1969 and died in 1984.
## Early career
Alister Murray Murdoch was born on 9 December 1912 in Elsternwick, Victoria, the son of engineer Thomas Murdoch and his wife Kathleen. A lieutenant in the Commonwealth Military Forces at the time of Alister's birth, Thomas was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in World War I, and rose to the rank of brigadier as Director-General of Engineer Services in World War II. Educated at Caulfield Grammar School, Alister entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1929, following his elder brother Ian (later a major general). Alister was one of four cadets sponsored that year by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), which did not at that stage have its own officer training college. Budgetary constraints imposed during the Great Depression necessitated the transfer of these cadets out of Duntroon midway through their four-year course. Although offered positions in the Australian Public Service or nominations for short-term commissions with the Royal Air Force, all were determined to serve with the RAAF and were more than pleased with the prospect of entering their chosen service early.
Murdoch enlisted in the Air Force on 10 December 1930, and completed his pilot training the following year. He was commissioned in 1932 and later qualified as a flying instructor and seaplane pilot, undertaking navy cooperation and maritime patrol operations. In December 1935, Flying Officer Murdoch was selected to join an RAAF rescue mission for explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and his pilot, Herbert Hollick-Kenyon, who were presumed lost while journeying across the Antarctic. Flying a de Havilland Gipsy Moth, Murdoch located Hollick-Kenyon near the Bay of Whales. Hollick-Kenyon led the search party to Ellsworth, who protested that he was not lost and did not need rescuing. Murdoch was posted to England in 1936–37 to undertake a course in long navigation at RAF Manston and serve on attachment with No. 114 Squadron. Returning to Australia, he married Florence Miller on 27 December 1937; the couple had a daughter. Murdoch spent the next two years on the staff of the Directorate of Operations and Intelligence at Air Force Headquarters, Melbourne. In June 1938, he helped inaugurate RAAF instruction in long navigation with a nine-month course in the discipline.
## World War II
Ranked squadron leader at the outbreak of World War II, Murdoch took charge of No. 1 Air Observer School at Cootamundra, New South Wales, from April 1940 until mid-1941. Following this posting he was promoted to wing commander and sent to the European Theatre. In August 1941, he became commanding officer of No. 221 Squadron RAF, a Coastal Command unit flying Vickers Wellingtons on reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrols out of Iceland during the Battle of the Atlantic. The next year, Murdoch accompanied the squadron to the Middle East, where it carried out anti-submarine and maritime strike operations. He also served as staff officer operations with No. 235 Wing RAF. Back in London in July 1942, Murdoch was assigned to Combined Operations Headquarters, where he assisted in planning the Dieppe Raid before returning to Australia in 1943.
Promoted to group captain, Murdoch was appointed senior air staff officer (SASO) at Eastern Area Command, Sydney, in July 1943. In January 1944, he became SASO at North-Western Area Command, which controlled thirteen Australian, British, Dutch, and American squadrons from its headquarters in Darwin, Northern Territory. Murdoch planned many of the command's bombing and mining operations in the South West Pacific Theatre, and was mentioned in despatches for his "distinguished service" in the role. He was posted as SASO to the Australian First Tactical Air Force (No. 1 TAF) in April 1945, replacing Group Captain William Gibson after the latter's dismissal in the wake of the "Morotai Mutiny", when the threatened resignations of eight of the RAAF's leading fighter aces caused a crisis in the formation's leadership. Delegated operational responsibility by No. 1 TAF's new commander, Air Commodore Frederick Scherger, Murdoch received much of the credit for the planning of the RAAF's role in Operation Oboe Six, the invasion of Labuan. He accompanied Scherger ashore on the afternoon of the landings on 10 June 1945. Murdoch was also praised for his staff work during Operation Oboe Two, the Battle of Balikpapan, in July.
## Post-war career
### Rise to Chief of the Air Staff
Murdoch was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 25 June 1946 for "conspicuous service in operations against the Japanese" during World War II. One of a small coterie of officers earmarked for top positions in the post-war Air Force, he was Director of Personnel Services in 1946–47 before attending the Imperial Defence College, London, in 1948. Returning to Australia, he served as Director of Air Staff Policy and Plans at Air Force Headquarters between 1949 and 1952. In February 1951, he led a team to the Middle East, where the possibility of Australia contributing a garrison force to the region was first raised. Two years later, No. 78 Wing was deployed to Malta to fulfil this role, operating leased RAF de Havilland Vampire jet fighters. Murdoch became Commandant of RAAF College in June 1952, gaining promotion to air commodore. In December 1953, he was raised to acting air vice marshal and appointed Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Training Command.
In 1954, Murdoch led a mission to examine potential new fighter, bomber, transport, and training aircraft for the RAAF, following a shift in defence funding towards the Air Force. He advocated the F-104 Starfighter as a replacement for the CAC Sabre, two years before the Sabre entered squadron service with the RAAF, as well as nuclear-capable British V bomber strike aircraft to augment Australia's Canberra jet bombers, and C-130 Hercules transports to replace the C-47 Dakota. Although his proposals for V bombers and the F-104 were not taken up, the Australian government acquired the C-130 in 1958. Described in the official history of the post-war Air Force as second only to the General Dynamics F-111 as the "most significant" purchase by the RAAF, the Hercules gave Australia its first strategic airlift capability, which in years to come would provide a "lifeline" for forces deployed to Malaya, Vietnam, and other parts of South East Asia. Murdoch also recommended the locally built Vampire as a jet trainer for No. 1 Applied Flying Training School; sixty-nine were later delivered as T35s by the de Havilland factory in Bankstown, New South Wales.
Murdoch was seconded to the Department of Defence in January 1956 as Deputy Secretary (Military). By February 1958, he had been made a substantive air vice-marshal and appointed Deputy Chief of the Air Staff. In October 1959, Murdoch was posted to London as Head of the Australian Joint Services Staff, and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1960 New Year Honours. He returned to Australia in June 1962, when he became AOC Operational Command. His tenure in the position coincided with the deployment of the first RAAF aircraft to South Vietnam, seven DHC-4 Caribous, commencing in August 1964. Murdoch was promoted air marshal and appointed Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) on 1 June 1965, succeeding Air Marshal Sir Valston Hancock. He was the last of a quartet of army-trained CASs; from 1954 to 1969 inclusive, every RAAF chief—John McCauley, Scherger, Hancock, and Murdoch—had been a cadet at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, before serving with the Air Force. With this pedigree, Murdoch was described by Air Chief Marshal Scherger as "the last of the professionals". The new CAS was raised to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1966 Queen's Birthday Honours.
### Chief of the Air Staff and Vietnam
Air Marshal Murdoch led the RAAF through the build-up of Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War beginning in the mid-1960s. He clashed with the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Lieutenant General Sir John Wilton, over the latter's recommendation in mid-1965 to deploy two UH-1 Iroquois helicopters to Vietnam. Wilton believed that both services would benefit from gaining familiarisation with air/ground operations in the region before the large-scale commitment of Australian forces. Murdoch dismissed the idea on resourcing grounds, despite the fact that two thirds of the RAAF's UH-1 complement had been purchased for the express purpose of army cooperation. He further contended that helicopter operations in Malaysia had afforded the RAAF sufficient experience in the type of conditions they might face in Vietnam, though Australia's senior UH-1 pilot at the time considered that the former theatre offered "little if any hostile opposition, and there was none of the insertion and extraction of SAS patrols which was to become such an important part of the RAAF's Vietnam operations". Air Commodore Brian Eaton, as Director-General of Operational Requirements, advised Murdoch that if the Air Force did not more fully satisfy the ground support requirements of the Army, then the Army itself would seek to take control of this sphere of operations, undermining the RAAF's position as the main provider of Australia's air power. Murdoch's reluctance to deploy the helicopters was eventually overridden by the Australian government, and No. 9 Squadron's UH-1s were in action in Vietnam less than a year later. When Murdoch visited the combat zone himself in August 1966, he was informed by Brigadier David Jackson that the squadron was not performing the role the Army expected of it.
Wilton's successor as CGS, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Daly, urged Murdoch to procure specialised helicopter gunships such as the AH-1 HueyCobra for Vietnam, to support the more vulnerable troop-carrying "slicks". Murdoch largely ignored the suggestion, telling his staff to treat the Army's recommendation with a lesser priority than "anything we now have on our 'shopping list'". His preference was for V/STOL fixed-wing aircraft like the Harrier jump jet, which he thought would open a "new era in close support aircraft". In the event, the Federal government earmarked eleven AH-1G HueyCobras for purchase in 1971, though the deal never went ahead due to Australia's withdrawal from South East Asia. Murdoch's failure to appreciate the need for cooperation with land forces has been blamed for fostering long-running enmity between the services, which twenty years later would contribute to the government's decision to transfer the RAAF's battlefield helicopters to the Army. Air Force historian Alan Stephens contended that despite Murdoch's "competence" and "good mind", his "comprehension of air power in its fullest sense and handling of inter-service politics were respectively inadequate and disastrous ... A generation of lieutenant-colonels and majors had come to believe that the RAAF did not care about army support, and they were to carry that belief into the 1970s and beyond". Murdoch also opposed sending Canberra jet bombers to Vietnam on what were later described in the official post-war history of the RAAF as "misleading" grounds that the type was unsuitable for a low-level strike and close support; their deployment went ahead in April 1967.
In 1963, Australia had selected the F-111 swing-wing bomber as a replacement for the Canberra. Murdoch attended the much-anticipated official hand-over ceremony for the aircraft on 4 September 1968 at Fort Worth, Texas, with Defence Minister Sir Allen Fairhall, US dignitaries, and RAAF F-111 crews. Within eight days a US Navy F-111B crashed, followed by a USAF F-111A twelve days later, creating a "public relations disaster", and contributing to the type's entry into RAAF service being delayed until 1973. In late 1969, Murdoch accompanied Secretary of Defence Sir Henry Bland to the United States to gain assurance of an adequate "safe life" for the F-111's swing-wing mechanism, amid the Australian government giving serious consideration to abandoning the program.
## Later life
Murdoch retired from the military on 31 December 1969 after completing his term as CAS, which the government had extended for a further twelve months beyond its original three years. He was succeeded by Air Marshal Colin Hannah, whom Murdoch had earlier recommended for the position of Commander Australian Forces Vietnam (the role went to an Army officer, as had been previous practice). In 1971, Murdoch joined the board of directors of Meggitt Limited, an oilseed-crushing firm that was chaired by World War II fighter ace Nicky Barr. Murdoch continued to exercise his interest in Australia's defence after he left the Air Force, joining in 1975 a group of pundits, including retired Air Vice Marshal Ian McLachlan, who promoted augmenting the country's arsenal with nuclear weaponry. He also followed sport, including horse racing. Sir Alister Murdoch died in Mona Vale, New South Wales, on 24 October 1984, and was cremated.
## See also
- List of Caulfield Grammar School people
|
1,665,978 |
History of Poland (1945–1989)
| 1,164,362,199 |
Communist rule in Poland
|
[
"1940s in Poland",
"1950s in Poland",
"1960s in Poland",
"1970s in Poland",
"1980s in Poland",
"20th century in Poland",
"Communism in Poland",
"Contemporary history of Poland",
"History of Poland by period",
"Polish People's Republic",
"Political history of Poland"
] |
The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist–Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living, were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties. Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the Polish Armed Forces in the East, pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.
During the subsequent Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, the three major Allies ratified a massive westerly shift of Poland's borders and approved its new territory between the Oder–Neisse line and the Curzon Line. The area of Poland was reduced in comparison to its pre-World War II extent and geographically resembled that of the medieval early Piast dynasty era. Following the destruction of the Polish-Jewish population in the Holocaust, the flight and expulsion of Germans in the west, resettlement of Ukrainians in the east, and the expulsion and resettlement of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands (Kresy), Poland became for the first time in its history an ethnically homogeneous nation-state without prominent minorities. The new government solidified its political power, while the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) under Bolesław Bierut gained firm control over the country, which would remain an independent state within the Soviet sphere of influence. The July Constitution was promulgated on 22 July 1952 and the country officially became the Polish People's Republic (PRL).
Following Stalin's death in 1953, a political "thaw" allowed a more liberal faction of the Polish communists, led by Władysław Gomułka, to gain power. By the mid-1960s, Poland began experiencing increasing economic as well as political difficulties. They culminated in the 1968 Polish political crisis and the 1970 Polish protests when a consumer price hike led to a wave of strikes. The government introduced a new economic program based on large-scale loans from western creditors, which resulted in a rise in living standards and expectations, but the program meant growing integration of Poland's economy with the world economy and it faltered after the 1973 oil crisis. In 1976, the government of Edward Gierek was forced to raise prices again which led to the June 1976 protests.
This cycle of repression and reform and the economic-political struggle acquired new characteristics with the 1978 election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. Wojtyła's unexpected elevation strengthened the opposition to the authoritarian and ineffective system of nomenklatura-run state socialism, especially with the pope's first visit to Poland in 1979. In early August 1980, a new wave of strikes resulted in the founding of the independent trade union "Solidarity" (Solidarność) led by Lech Wałęsa. The growing strength and activity of the opposition caused the government of Wojciech Jaruzelski to declare martial law in December 1981. However, with the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, increasing pressure from the West, and dysfunctional economy, the regime was forced to negotiate with its opponents. The 1989 Round Table Talks led to Solidarity's participation in the 1989 election. Its candidates' striking victory gave rise to the first of the succession of transitions from communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned from the presidency following the presidential election and was succeeded by Wałęsa.
## Establishment of communist-ruled Poland (1944–1948)
### Border and population shifts
Before World War II, a third of Poland's population was composed of ethnic minorities. Poland had about 35 million inhabitants in 1939, but fewer than 24 million in 1946, within the respective borders. Of the remaining population over three million were ethnic minorities, such as Germans, Ukrainians and Jews, most of whom would soon leave Poland. Poland suffered the heaviest proportionate human losses during World War II, amounting to 16–17 percent of its population. It is estimated that up to 6 million Polish citizens died from war-related causes between 1939 and 1945. The approximate figure includes 3 million Jewish-Polish victims as part of the above total. The number of ethnically Polish victims was perhaps 2 million.
The historical minorities in Poland were most significantly affected, whereas Poland's multiethnic diversity reflected in prior national censuses was all but gone within several years after the war. The Polish educated class suffered greatly. A large proportion of the country's pre-war social and political elite perished or were dispersed.
The implementation of the immense task of reconstructing the country was accompanied by the struggle of the new government to acquire centralized authority, further complicated by the mistrust a considerable part of society held for the new regime and by disputes over Poland's postwar borders, which were not firmly established until mid-1945. The Soviet forces present at that time engaged in plunder of the former eastern territories of Germany which were being transferred to Poland, stripping them of valuable industrial equipment, infrastructure and factories and sending them to the Soviet Union.
After the Soviet annexation of the Kresy territories east of the Curzon Line, about 2 million Poles were moved, transferred or expelled from these areas into the new western and northern territories east of the Oder–Neisse line, which were transferred from Germany to Poland under the Potsdam Agreement. Others stayed in what had become the Soviet Union and more went to Poland after 1956. Additional settlement with people from central parts of Poland brought the number of Poles in what the government called the Recovered Territories up to 5 million by 1950. Most of the former German population of 10 million had fled or was expelled to post-war Germany by 1950: about 4.4 million fled in the final stages of the war and 3.5 million were removed by the Polish authorities in 1945–1949. The expulsion of the Germans was the result of the Allied decisions finalized in Potsdam.
With the expulsion of Ukrainians and Belarusians from Poland to the Soviet Union and the 1947 Operation Vistula dispersing the remaining Ukrainians in Poland, and with most of the Polish Jews exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and many of the survivors emigrating to the West and to newly created Israel, Poland for the first time became an ethnically homogeneous nation state. The government-imposed and spontaneous movements of people amounted to one of the greatest demographic upheavals in European history.
Unlike other European countries, Poland continued the extensive prosecution of both Nazi perpetrators and their collaborators into the 1950s. According to Alexander Prusin, Poland was the most consistent in investigating and prosecuting war crimes among the post-war communist nations; between 1944 and 1985 Polish courts tried over 20,000 defendants including 5,450 German nationals.
### Rebuilding of infrastructure and economy
Poland suffered catastrophic damage to its infrastructure during the war, which caused it to lag even further behind the West in its industrial output. The losses in national resources and infrastructure amounted to over 30% of the pre-war potential. Poland's capital of Warsaw was among the most devastated cities – over 80 percent destroyed in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The Polish state acquired more highly developed western territories and lost the more economically backward eastern regions. Already in 1948 the prewar level of industrial production was exceeded in global and per capita terms during the Three-Year Plan (Plan Trzyletni), implemented first and fueled by the collective desire to rebuild shattered lives. The Three-Year Plan was the work of the Central Planning Office led by Czesław Bobrowski and PPR economist Hilary Minc, who declared the need to preserve elements of market capitalism. Standard of living of the population of Poland markedly improved. Soviet pressure caused the Polish government to reject the American-sponsored Marshall Plan in 1947 and to join the Soviet Union-dominated Comecon in 1949.
Warsaw and other ruined cities were cleared of rubble — mainly by hand — and rebuilt with great speed (one of the successes of the Three-Year Plan) at the expense of former German cities like Wrocław, which often provided the needed construction material. Wrocław, Gdańsk, Szczecin and other formerly German cities were also completely rebuilt.
Historian Norman Davies wrote that the new Polish frontiers, from the Polish interests point of view, entirely advantageous, but realized at the cost of enormous suffering and specious justifications. The radically new Eastern European borders constituted a "colossal feat of political engineering", but could not be derived from immemorial historical determinations, as claimed by the communist propaganda.
### Consolidation of communist power
Already before the Red Army entered Poland, the Soviet Union was pursuing a strategy of eliminating pro-Western resistance as an organized force to ensure that Poland would fall under its sphere of influence. In 1943, following the revelation of the Katyn massacre, Stalin suspended relations with the Polish government-in-exile in London. At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union agreed to allow the formation of a coalition government composed of the communists, including the Polish Workers' Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR), as well as Polish pro-Western elements in exile and in Poland, and subsequently to arrange for free elections to be held.
After the prewar Communist Party of Poland was eliminated in Stalin's purges in 1938 (some five thousand Polish communists were brought to Russia and killed), a group of survivors led by Marceli Nowotko, Bolesław Mołojec and Paweł Finder convinced in 1941 the Soviets in Moscow of the need to reestablish a Polish party. The conspiratorial core of the new Polish Workers' Party was assembled in Warsaw in January 1942, and after the deaths or arrests of the above leaders there, Władysław Gomułka emerged as the PPR's first secretary by the end of 1943. Gomułka was a dedicated communist in the national tradition of the Polish leftist movement. He loathed the Soviet practices he experienced while being trained in Russia and Ukraine in the 1930s, but was convinced of the historic necessity of alliance with the Soviet Union. He may have survived the purges because of being imprisoned in Poland for illegal labor-organizing activities in 1938–39. Throughout the German occupation, Gomułka remained in Poland and was not a part of the circle organized in the Soviet Union around the Union of Polish Patriots by Stalin and Wanda Wasilewska. In Polish society of 1945, Gomułka's party was marginally small in comparison to other political groups.
With the liberation of Polish territories and the failure of the Home Army's Operation Tempest in 1944, control over what was to become post-war Poland passed from the occupying forces of Nazi Germany to the Red Army, and from the Red Army to Polish communists, who formed the Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego, PKWN), an early government, in existence from late July 1944 in Lublin. The Polish communists became the most influential Polish factor in the politics of emerging Poland, despite having initially minuscule popular support. The PKWN recognized the legal continuity of the March Constitution of Poland, as opposed to the April Constitution. On 6 September 1944, the PKWN issued its momentous land reform decree, the consequences of which would fundamentally alter the antiquated social and economic structure of the country. Over one million peasant families benefited from parcellation of the larger estates.
The communists, favored by the Yalta decisions, enjoyed the advantages of Soviet support within the Soviet plan of bringing Eastern Europe firmly under the influence of the Soviet Union; they exercised control over crucial government departments, such as the security services (security was in the hands of the Soviet NKVD until its Polish counterparts were developed). Beginning in the later part of 1944, following the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising and the promotion of the populist program of the PKWN, the London exiled government's delegation was increasingly seen by the majority of Poles as a failed enterprise, its political-military organizations became isolated, and the resistance against the new communist political and administrative forces decisively weakened. The population was tired of the years of oppression and conflict and the ideas expressed in the PKWN Manifesto and their progressive implementation attracted widening social support. Beyond the land reform, the PKWN Manifesto foresaw no further radical ownership changes and nationalization of industry was not mentioned. On the contrary, business property was supposed to return to its owners as the economic relations become properly regulated. From 1944 in liberated areas, responding to promulgated slogans, workers spontaneously took over existing factory installations, established workers' councils, undertook reconstruction, activation and production. A considerable labor struggle and compulsion were necessary for the PPR to claim the factories and enforce its own rules.
The PKWN was reshaped into the Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland (Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, RTRP), which functioned from January 1945. This government was headed by Edward Osóbka-Morawski, a socialist, but the communists, mostly non-PPR Soviet employees such as Michał Rola-Żymierski, held a majority of key posts. In April 1945, a Polish-Soviet treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed; it severely limited the possibilities of future Western or émigré impact or internal cooperation with non-communist political forces in Poland. The consecutive early Soviet-influenced governments were subordinate to the unelected, communist-controlled parliament, the State National Council (Krajowa Rada Narodowa, KRN), formed by Gomułka and his PPR in occupied Warsaw in January 1944. The communist governmental structures were not recognized by the increasingly isolated Polish government-in-exile, which had formed its own quasi-parliament, the Council of National Unity (Rada Jedności Narodowej, RJN).
The Yalta agreement stipulated a governmental union in Poland of "all democratic and anti-Nazi elements". Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk of the Polish government-in-exile resigned his post in November 1944 and having accepted the Yalta terms went to Moscow, where he negotiated with Bolesław Bierut the shape of a "national unity" government". Mikołajczyk, along with several other exiled Polish leaders, returned to Poland in July 1945.
The new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej, TRJN) — as the Polish government was called until the elections of 1947 — was established on 28 June 1945. Osóbka-Morawski was kept as prime minister, Gomułka became first deputy prime minister and Mikołajczyk second deputy and minister of agriculture. The government was "provisional" and the Potsdam Conference soon declared that before a regular government is created, free elections must be held and a permanent constitutional system established.
The communists' principal rivals were veteran activists of the Polish Underground State, Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL), and veterans of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Of particular practical importance was Mikołajczyk's People's Party (originally a peasant formation), because it was legally recognized by the communists and thus able to function within the political arena. The People's Party wanted to prevent the communists from monopolizing power and eventually establish a parliamentary polity with a market economy by winning the promised elections. Mikołajczyk hoped that an independent Polish state, friendly with the Soviet Union, would be allowed to act as a bridge between the East and the West.
Soviet-oriented parties, backed by the Soviet Red Army and in control of the security forces, held most of the power, concentrated especially in the Polish Workers' Party under Gomułka and Bierut. Bierut represented the influx of appointees to the Polish party coming (during and after the war) from the Soviet Union and imposed by the Soviets, a process accelerated at the time of the PPR Congress of December 1945. The party's membership dramatically increased from perhaps a few thousand in early 1945 to over one million in 1948.
As a show of Soviet domination, sixteen prominent leaders of the Polish anti-Nazi underground were brought to trial in Moscow in June 1945. Their removal from the political scene precluded the possibility of a democratic transition called for by the Yalta agreements. The trial of the defendants, falsely and absurdly accused of collaboration with the Nazis, was watched by British and American diplomats without protest. The absence of the expected death sentences was their relief. The exiled government in London, after Mikołajczyk's resignation led by Tomasz Arciszewski, ceased to be officially recognized by Great Britain and the United States on 5 July 1945.
In the years 1945–47, about 500,000 Soviet soldiers were stationed in Poland. Between 1945 and 1948, some 150,000 Poles were imprisoned by the Soviet authorities. Many former Home Army members were apprehended and executed. During the PPR Central Committee Plenum of May 1945, Gomułka complained that the Polish masses regard the Polish communists as the "NKVD's worst agency" and Edward Ochab declared the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Poland a high priority. But in the meantime tens of thousands of Poles died in the postwar struggle and persecution and tens of thousands were sentenced by courts on fabricated and arbitrary charges or deported to the Soviet Union. The status of Soviet troops in Poland was not legalized until late 1956, when the Polish-Soviet declaration "On the legal status of Soviet forces temporarily stationed in Poland" was signed. The Soviet Northern Group of Forces would be permanently stationed in Poland.
### Rigged elections, defeat of Mikołajczyk
Stalin had promised at the Yalta Conference that free elections would be held in Poland. However, the Polish communists, led by Gomułka and Bierut, while having no intention of giving up power, were also aware of the limited support they enjoyed among the general population. To circumvent this difficulty, in 1946 a national plebiscite, known as the "Three Times Yes" referendum (Trzy razy tak), was held first, before the parliamentary elections. The referendum comprised three fairly general, but politically charged questions about the Senate, national industries and western borders. It was meant to check and promote the popularity of communist initiatives in Poland. Since most of the important parties at the time were leftist or centrist – and could have easily approved all three options – Mikołajczyk's Polish People's Party (PSL) decided, not to be seen as merging into the government bloc, to ask its supporters to oppose the first one: the abolition of the Senate. The communists voted "Three Times Yes". The partial results, reconstructed by the PSL, showed that the communist side was met with little support on the first question. However, after a campaign marked by electoral fraud and intimidation the communists claimed large majorities on all three questions, which led to the nationalization of industry and state control of economic activity in general, and a unicameral national parliament (Sejm).
The communists consolidated power by gradually whittling away the rights of their non-communist foes, particularly by suppressing the leading opposition party – Mikołajczyk's PSL. In some widely publicized cases, the perceived enemies were sentenced to death on trumped up charges — among them Witold Pilecki, the organizer of the Auschwitz resistance. Leaders of the Home Army and of the Council of National Unity were persecuted. Many resistance fighters were murdered extrajudicially or forced to exile. The opposition members were also harassed by administrative means. Although the ongoing persecution of the former anti-Nazi and right-wing organizations by state security kept some partisans in the forests, the actions of the Ministry of Public Security (known as the UB, Department of Security), NKVD and the Red Army steadily diminished their numbers. The right-wing insurgency radically decreased after the amnesty of July 1945 and faded after the amnesty of February 1947.
By 1946, all rightist parties had been outlawed, and a new pro-government Democratic Bloc was formed in 1947 which included only the Polish Workers' Party and its leftist allies. On 19 January 1947, the first parliamentary elections took place featuring primarily the PPR and allied candidates and a potentially politically potent opposition from the Polish People's Party. However, the PSL's strength and role had already been seriously compromised due to government control and persecution. Election results were adjusted by Stalin to suit the communists, whose bloc claimed 80% of the votes. The British and American governments protested the poll for its blatant violations of the Yalta and Potsdam accords. The rigged elections effectively ended the multiparty system in Poland's politics. After the referendum dress rehearsal, this time the vote fraud was much better concealed and spread into various forms and stages and its actual scale is not known. With all the pressure and manipulations, an NKVD colonel charged with election supervision reported to Stalin that about 50% of the vote was cast for the regime's Democratic Bloc nationwide. In the new Sejm, out of 444 seats, 27 were given to the Polish People's Party of Stanisław Mikołajczyk. He, having declared the results to be falsified, was threatened with arrest or worse and fled the country in October 1947, helped by the US Embassy; other opposition leaders also left. In February, the new Sejm created the Small Constitution of 1947. Over the next two years, the communists monopolized political power in Poland.
### Polish United Workers' Party and its rule
Additional force in Polish politics, the long-established Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, PPS), suffered a fatal split at this time, as the ruling Stalinists applied the salami tactics to dismember the opposition. Communist politicians cooperated with the left-wing PPS faction led by Józef Cyrankiewicz, prime minister under new president Bierut from February 1947. The socialists' originally tactical decision to collaborate with the communists resulted in their institutional demise. Cyrankiewicz visited Stalin in Moscow in March 1948 to discuss the idea of a party merger. The Kremlin, increasingly uncomfortable with Gomułka's communist party leadership, concurred, and Cyrankiewicz secured his own political place for the future (until 1972). In December 1948, after the removal of Gomułka and imposition of Bierut as the communist Polish Workers' Party chief, the PPR and Cyrankiewicz's rump PPS joined ranks to form the Polish United Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR), in power for the next four decades. Poland became a de facto one-party state and a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Only two other parties were allowed to exist legally: the United People's Party (ZSL) that had split from Mikołajczyk's PSL and was meant to represent rural communities, and the Alliance of Democrats (SD), a token intelligentsia party (see also: List of political parties in Poland).
As the period of Sovietization and Stalinism began, the PZPR was anything but united. The most important split among the communists occurred before the union with the PPS, when the Stalinists forced Gomułka out of the PPR's top office and suppressed his native communist faction. The PZPR became divided into several factions, which espoused different views and methods and sought different degrees of the Polish state's distinction and independence from the Soviet Union. While Marxism–Leninism, the official ideology, was new to Poland, the communist regime continued, in many psychologically and practically important ways, the precepts, methods and manners of past Polish ruling circles, including those of the Sanation, the National Democracy, and 19th century traditions of cooperation with the partitioning powers.
With Poland being a member of the Soviet Bloc, the party's pursuits of power and reform were permanently hindered by the restrictions and limits imposed by the rulers of the Soviet Union, by the resentful attitude of Polish society, conscious of its lack of national independence and freedoms, and by the understanding of the party managers that their positions would terminate once they stop conforming to the requirements of the Soviet alliance (because of both the lack of public support and Soviet reaction). Poland's political history was governed by the mutual dependence of the Soviets and the Polish communists.
The nomenklatura political elite developed. It comprised leaders, administrators and managers within the ruling party structure, in all branches of central and local government and in institutions of all kinds. Nomenklatura members were appointed by the party and exercised political control in all spheres of public life, for example economic development, industry management, or education. For the party, the privileged nomenklatura layer was maintained to assure the proper placement of people who were ideologically reliable and otherwise qualified, but the revisionist dissidents Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski later described this system as a class dictatorship of central political bureaucracy for its own sake. The Polish public widely approved the many social undertakings of the communist government, including family apartment construction, child care, worker vacation and resorts, health care and full employment policies, but the special privileges granted nomenklatura and the security services were resented.
## Stalinist era (1948–1956)
### Removal of Gomułka, Stalinist repressions
As in other Eastern Bloc countries, there was a Soviet-style political purge of communist officials in Poland after 1948, accused of "nationalist" or other "deviationist" tendencies. The half-hearted in Poland campaign included the arrests and imprisonments of Marian Spychalski from May 1950, and Michał Rola-Żymierski five months after Stalin's death. In September 1948 Władysław Gomułka, who opposed Stalin's direct control of the Polish PPR party, was charged, together with a group of communist leaders who like Gomułka spent the war in Poland, with ideological departure from Leninism, and dismissed from the post of the party's first secretary. Gomułka, accused of "right-wing nationalist deviations", had indeed emphasized the Polish socialist traditions and severely criticized Rosa Luxemburg's Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) party for belittling Polish national aspirations. More insidiously, the Soviets claimed Gomułka's participation in an anti-Soviet international conspiracy. Following Bolesław Bierut's order, he was arrested by the Ministry of Public Security (MBP) in early August 1951 and interrogated by Roman Romkowski and Anatol Fejgin, as demanded by the Soviets. Gomułka was not subjected to physical torture unlike other communists persecuted under the regime of Bierut, Jakub Berman, and other Stalin's associates. Under interrogation he defiantly conducted his defense, threatened to reveal "the whole truth" if put on a trial and remained unbroken. Gomułka was thus placed in prison without a typical show trial (he was released in December 1954). Bierut replaced Gomułka as the PPR (and then the PZPR) leader. Gomułka remained protected by his Polish comrades to the best of their ability and the record of his sometime defiance came in handy when in 1956 there was an opportunity for the Polish party to reassert itself.
The Stalinist government was controlled by Polish communists originating from wartime factions and organizations operating in the Soviet Union under Stalin, such as the Union of Polish Patriots. Their leaders at that time included Wanda Wasilewska and Zygmunt Berling. Now in Poland, those who remained politically active and in favor ruled the country, aided by the MBP and Soviet "advisers", who were placed in every arm of the government and state security as a guarantee of pro-Soviet policy of the state. The most important of them was Konstantin Rokossovsky (Konstanty Rokossowski in Polish), defense minister of Poland from 1949 to 1956, Marshal of the Soviet Union and war hero. Military conscription was introduced following a postwar hiatus and the army soon reached its permanent size of 400,000 men.
The Soviet-style secret police including the Department of Security (UB) grew to around 32,000 agents as of 1953. At its Stalinist peak, there was one UB agent for every 800 Polish citizens. The MBP was also in charge of the Internal Security Corps, the Civil Militia (MO), border guard, prison staff and paramilitary police ORMO used for special actions (with over 100,000 members). The ORMO originated from popular self-defense efforts, which were a spontaneous reaction to the explosion of crime in the power vacuum of 1944–45. In February 1946, the PPR channeled and formalized this citizen militia movement, creating its ostensibly crime control voluntary ORMO structure.
Primarily in Stalin's lifetime, public prosecutors and judges as well as functionaries of the Ministry of Public Security and the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army engaged in acts recognized by international law as crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. One example was the 1951 Mokotów Prison execution in Warsaw of members of the Freedom and Independence (WiN) organization, former participants in anti-Nazi resistance, after the official amnesty and their voluntary disclosure. The postwar Polish Army, intelligence and police were staffed with Soviet NKVD officers who stationed in Poland with the Northern Group of Forces until 1956.
Mass arrests continued during the early 1950s. In October 1950, 5,000 people were arrested in one night in the so-called "Operation K". In 1952, over 21,000 people were arrested. By the second half of 1952, according to official data, 49,500 political prisoners were being held. Former Home Army commander Emil August Fieldorf was subjected to several years of brutal persecution in the Soviet Union and Poland before being executed in February 1953, just before Stalin's death.
Resistance to the Soviet and native Stalinists was widespread among not only the general population but also the PZPR ranks, which limited the oppressive system's damage in Poland to well below that of other European communist-ruled countries. According to Norman Davies, political violence after 1947 was not widespread. The Church, subjected to partial property confiscations, remained largely intact, the marginalized to a considerable degree intelligentsia retained its potential to affect future reforms, the peasantry avoided wholesale collectivization and remnants of private enterprise survived. Gradual liberalizing changes took place between Stalin's death in 1953 and the Polish October of 1956.
### Nationalization and centrally planned economy
In February 1948, Minister of Industry Hilary Minc, a Marxist economist, attacked the Central Planning Office of Poland as a "bourgeois" remnant, the office was abolished and the Polish Stalinist economy was born. The government, headed by President Bierut, Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz and Minc, embarked on a sweeping program of economic reform and national reconstruction. Poland was brought into line with the Soviet model of a "people's republic" and centrally planned command economy, in place of the façade of democracy and partial market economy which the regime had maintained until 1948.
The relationships of ownership of the industry, the banking sector and rural property after the nationalization and the land reform were fundamentally altered. The changes, implemented in the name of egalitarianism, enjoyed broad societal approval and support.
The structure of Polish economy was established in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. Soviet-style planning begun in 1950 with the Six-Year Plan. The plan focused on rapid development of heavy industry ("accelerated industrialization", after the outbreak of the Korean War driven by Soviet military demands at the expense of many cancelled consumer-oriented investments) and the (eventually futile) collectivization of agriculture. Among the main projects was the Lenin Steelworks and its supporting "socialist city" of Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill), both built from the scratch in the early 1950s near Kraków, of which Nowa Huta soon became a part. The land seized from prewar large landowners was redistributed to the poorer peasants, but subsequent attempts at taking the land from farmers for collectivization met wide resentment. In what became known as the battle for trade, the private trade and industry were nationalized. Within few years most private shops disappeared. The regime embarked on the campaign of collectivization (State Agricultural Farms were created), although the paceA of this change was slower than in other Soviet satellites. Poland remained the only Eastern Bloc country where individual peasants would continue to dominate agriculture. A Soviet-Polish trade treaty, initiated in January 1948, dictated the dominant direction of Poland's future foreign trade and economic cooperation.
In 1948, the United States announced the Marshall Plan initiative to help rebuild postwar Europe and thus gain more political power there. After initially welcoming the idea of Poland's participation in the plan, the Polish government declined the American offer under pressure from Moscow. Also, following the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, Poland was forced by the Soviet Union to give up its claims to compensation from Germany, which as a result paid no significant compensation for war damages, either to the Polish state or to Polish citizens. Poland received compensation in the form of land and property left behind by the German population of the annexed western territories.
Despite the lack of American aid, the East European "command economies", including Poland, made some progress in bridging the historically existing wealth gap with the market economy driven Western Europe. Because of the capital accumulation, the Polish national income grew in real terms by over 76% and the agricultural and industrial production more than doubled between 1947 and 1950. The economic transition and industrialization were accompanied and made possible by massive social transformations, as peasants migrated and were converted into city dwelling working class (1.8 million between 1946 and 1955) and the country went through a period of rapid urbanization (total population of the cities increased by 3.1 million). The influx of cheap labor and the availability of the Soviet market facilitated an accumulation of resources, despite low productivity and insufficient investment in new technologies. The centrally planned socialist economies of Eastern Europe in terms of growth during the postwar years did relatively better than the West, only to sustain economic damage later, especially after the 1973 oil crisis. However, the rise in living standards caused by the earlier industrial dynamics was not comparable to that in the West.
### Reforms, resistance and beginning of de-Stalinization
The last Polish–Soviet territorial exchange took place in 1951. Some 480 km<sup>2</sup> (185 sq mi) of land along the border were swapped between Poland and the Soviet Union.
The Constitution of the Polish People's Republic was promulgated in July 1952 and the state officially became the Polish People's Republic (PRL). Among the rights it guaranteed was universal free health care. The large state-owned enterprises provided to employees an extensive range of welfare and leisure activities, including housing, sports facilities and hospitals, which started to diminish in the 1970s. In the early 1950s, the Stalinist regime also carried out major changes to the education system. The program of free and compulsory school education for all and the establishment of free institutions of higher learning received much support. The communists screened out what facts and interpretations were to be taught; history and other sciences had to follow Marxist views approved by ideological censorship. During 1951–53, a large number of prewar professors who were perceived by the regime as reactionary was dismissed from universities. Government control over art and artists deepened. The Soviet-style socialist realism became the only formula accepted by the authorities after 1949. Most works of art and literature represented propaganda of the party or had to be in line with its views. (See also: Socialist realism in Poland)
The reforms often brought relief for a significant part of the population. After World War II many people were willing to accept communist rule in exchange for the restoration of relatively normal life; hundreds of thousands joined the communist party and actively supported the regime. Nonetheless, latent popular discontent remained present and many Poles adopted the attitude of "resigned cooperation". Others, like the Freedom and Independence organization that originated from elements of the Home Army and especially the National Armed Forces actively opposed the communists, hoping for a World War III that would liberate Poland. Most people who took up arms against the communist regime had surrendered during the amnesties of 1945 and 1947, but brutal repressions by the secret police continued and some fought well into the 1950s.
The communists further alienated many Poles by persecuting the Catholic Church. The PAX Association created in 1947 and led by the former prewar far-right activist Bolesław Piasecki, attempted to divide the Catholic movement and promote a communist rule-friendly, collaborationist church. The PAX did not get very far in molding the Catholic public opinion, but published numerous books and officially approved daily Catholic press. In 1953 Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, the Primate of Poland, was placed under house arrest, even though he had been willing to make compromises with the government. In the early 1950s, the war against religion by the secret police led to arrests and persecution of hundreds of religious personalities, culminating in the Stalinist show trial of the Kraków Curia. (See also: Polish anti-religious campaign)
The constitution of 1952 guaranteed on paper all sorts of democratic rights and freedoms. In reality, the country was controlled extra-constitutionally by the Polish United Workers' Party, which used its own rules and practices to supervise all governmental institutions specified in the constitution.
Stalin died in 1953, which was followed by a partial thaw in Poland. Nikita Khrushchev became first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The PZPR's Second Congress deliberated in March 1954. Cyrankiewicz, previously replaced as prime minister by Bierut, was returned to that post (to remain prime minister until December 1970). The Six-Year Plan was adjusted to increase production of items for popular consumption. Khrushchev, present at the Congress, asked Bierut for the reasons of the continuing detention of Gomułka, "a good communist"; Bierut denied having specific knowledge of Gomułka's imprisonment.
Following the defection to the West and revelations of its official Józef Światło, the Ministry of Public Security was abolished in December 1954. Gomułka and his associates were freed from confinement and censorship was slightly relaxed. The two notable periodicals braving the prohibitions were Po prostu ('Simply') and Nowa Kultura ('The New Culture') (Po prostu was closed down and its defenders brutally pacified in October 1957, just one year after Gomułka's rise to power). From early 1955, the Polish press engaged in criticizing the Stalinist recent past and praising the older Polish socialist traditions (social democratic Marxism and national independence). Political discussion clubs were on the rise throughout the country. The party itself appeared to be moving in the social democratic direction. Leftist intellectuals, who had joined the party because of their commitment to social justice, were heading in the social democratic direction more decisively and they soon gave rise to the Polish revisionism movement.
In February 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's cult of personality at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and embarked on a reform course. The de-Stalinization of official Soviet ideology left Poland's Stalinist hardliners in a difficult position. While unrest and desire for reform and change among both intellectuals and workers were beginning to surface throughout the Eastern Bloc, the death of Stalin's ally Bierut in March 1956 in Moscow (he was attending the Soviet party's congress) exacerbated an existing split in the Polish party. In March Bierut was succeeded by Edward Ochab as first secretary. As the 20th Congress inspired also partial democratisation of Polish political and economic life, Ochab engaged in reforms intended to promote industrial decentralization and improve living standards.
The number of security agents was cut by 22%. By a widespread amnesty, 35,000 detainees across the entire country were released. 9,000 imprisoned for political reasons were freed in all. Hardline Stalinists, such as Jakub Berman, Roman Romkowski and Anatol Fejgin were removed from power, some arrested. Berman, dismissed in May, by Gomułka's decision was never prosecuted. A few perpetrators of Stalinist crimes were prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms. A much broader plan to charge the responsible and verify all of the security apparatus was formally presented by the prosecutors, but the action was not approved by Gomułka, who counted among the Stalinist persecution victims, as did his wife. Gomułka conducted some purges and reforms but did not want to destabilize the security system, now under his control, by wide-ranging formal prosecutions.
## Gomułka's road to socialism (1956–1970)
### Polish October
Beginning on 28 June 1956, workers in the industrial city of Poznań, who had repeatedly but in vain petitioned the authorities to intervene and improve their deteriorating situation, went on strike and rioted in response to a cut in wages and changed working conditions. Demonstrations by factory workers turned into a huge citywide protest. 16 tanks, 2 armoured personnel carriers and 30 vehicles were brought to bear by a local military commander. Some of them were seized by the protesters, who also broke into the local government buildings. 57 people were killed and several hundred injured in two days of fighting. Several major military formations entered the scene, but the army's role was mainly that of support of the police and security forces action. At the Poznań radio station, Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz warned and threatened the rioters in his widely publicized speech: he "...who will dare raise his hand against the people's rule may be sure that... the authorities will chop off his hand". Of the 746 people officially detained during and in the aftermath of the disturbances, almost 80% were workers. The authorities launched an investigation, attempting to uncover a claimed premeditated instigation and involvement by Western or anticommunist underground centers. Such efforts were unsuccessful and the events were found to have been spontaneous and locally supported. The Poznań revolt's lasting impact was that it caused a deeper and more liberal realignment within the Polish communist party and in its relationship to Moscow.
Deeply shaken by the protests and violence, the 7th Plenum of the Central Committee, held in July 1956, split into two groups, the "hardliners" Natolin and the "reformist" Puławy factions, named after the locations where they held their meetings. The Natolin faction consisted largely of communist officials from the army and state security, including Franciszek Jóźwiak, Mieczysław Moczar, Zenon Kliszko and Zenon Nowak, who advocated the removal of "Stalin's Jewish protégés", but were themselves of Stalinist sympathies. Many in the Puławy faction were former Stalinist fanatics and past enemies of Gomułka's. Now become liberal reformers and supporters of Gomułka's return to power. In response to the recent disturbances, the regime turned to conciliation: wage rises and other reforms for the Poznań workers were announced. In the party and among the intellectuals, demands for wider reforms of the Stalinist system were becoming more widespread and intense.
Realizing the need for new leadership, in what became known as the Polish October, the Politburo chose Gomułka, who had been released from prison and reinstated in the party, and the Central Committee's 8th Plenum elected him without a Soviet approval the new first secretary of the PZPR. Subsequently, Gomułka convinced the Soviet leaders that he would preserve the Soviet influence in Poland. Gomułka's elevation was preceded by ominous Soviet military moves and an arrival of Soviet high-level delegation led by Khrushchev, which flew into Warsaw to witness and influence the upheaval in the Polish party. After the sometimes confrontational encounters and negotiations, they soon returned to Moscow, where the Soviet leader announced on 21 October that the idea of an armed intervention in Poland should be abandoned. This position was reinforced by pressure from communist China, which demanded that the Soviets leave the new Polish leadership alone. On 21 October in Warsaw Gomułka's return to power was accomplished, giving rise to the era of national communism in Poland. Gomułka pledged to dismantle Stalinism and in his acceptance speech raised numerous social democratic-sounding reformist ideas, giving hope to the left-wing revisionists and others in Polish society that the communist state was, after all, reformable. The revisionists aspired to represent the worker movement, recently defeated in Poznań. Their main goals were political freedom and self-management in state enterprises. However, the end of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe was nowhere in sight. On 14 May 1955, the Warsaw Pact was signed in the Polish capital, to counteract the earlier establishment of NATO.
Many Soviet officers serving in the Polish Armed Forces were dismissed, but very few Stalinist officials were put on trial for the repressions of the Bierut period. The Puławy faction argued that mass trials of Stalinist officials, many of them Jewish, would incite animosity toward the Jews. Konstantin Rokossovsky and other Soviet advisers were sent home, and the Polish communist establishment and system took on a more independent orientation. Gomułka, conscious of geopolitical realities, agreed that Soviet troops would remain in Poland and no overt anti-Soviet outbursts would be allowed. However, he formalized the Polish-Soviet relations and the unprecedented for a Soviet-allied state military cooperation treaty, signed in December 1956, stated that the stationing of the Soviet forces in Poland "can in no way violate the sovereignty of the Polish state and cannot lead to their interference in internal matters of the Polish People's Republic". Poland thus avoided the risk of Soviet armed intervention of the kind that crushed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. On his part, Gomułka rewarded the Soviets for his internal leeway with loyal support for the duration of his career. In one act of defiance, the Polish delegation at the United Nations abstained in November 1956 from the vote condemning the Soviet intervention in Hungary.
There were repeated attempts by some Polish academics and philosophers, many related to the prewar Lwów–Warsaw school – such as Leszek Kołakowski, Stanisław Ossowski and Adam Schaff – to create a bridge between Poland's history and Marxist ideology and develop a specific form of Polish Marxism. Such efforts were stifled due to the regime's unwillingness to risk the wrath of the Soviet Union for deviating too far from the Soviet party line. Kołakowski, a leading revisionist, was verbally attacked by Gomułka in 1957, expelled from the party in 1966 and had to emigrate in 1968. Among other noted revisionists were Włodzimierz Brus, Bronisław Baczko, Zygmunt Bauman, and Krzysztof Pomian. The PZPR establishment saw them as true supporters of capitalist social democracy, pretending to be socialists.
### Scaling back of campaign promises
Poland welcomed Gomułka's rise to power with relief. Gomułka promised an end to police terror, greater intellectual and religious freedom, higher wages, and the reversal of collectivization; and to some degree he fulfilled these promises. Production of consumer goods was somewhat increased. The party elite as well as academic and literary intelligentsia experienced greater freedom and significant gains, felt as "a certain diversity and revitalization of elite public life". The dissident discussion group survived until 1962. Other forms of collective community expression and a legally guaranteed academic autonomy (based on the 1958 statute of higher learning) lasted until the 1968 Polish political crisis. The permitted academic discourse was in marked contrast to the treatment afforded workers, whose self-management councils that had spontaneously formed in 1956 were neutralized and brought under control of the party by 1958. In the communist era, because of their class role in the official ideology and leadership's sensibilities, workers enjoyed some clout and a degree of protection of their economic interests, on the condition that they refrained from engaging in independent politics or publicly exerting pressure.
Economic reform was attempted when the Sejm created the Economic Council in 1957. The council included the prominent economists Oskar R. Lange, Czesław Bobrowski, Michał Kalecki, and Edward Lipiński. They proposed a market reform, beginning with the granting of greater self-rule and more independent decision-making capability to enterprises, to facilitate their "realization of plan goals". But the recommended economic improvements, despite the self-restraint of the authors, were not compatible with the obligatory at that time heavy-handed centralized economic command system, and the reform effort fizzled out.
In October 1957, Poland's Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki proposed a European nuclear-free zone that would include the territories of Poland, West Germany, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. In August 1961, the new Berlin Wall cemented the division of Europe.
During 1948–71, the Polish government signed indemnification agreements with a number of West European countries (excluding those considered allies of Nazi Germany), Canada and the United States. The agreements dealt with compensation for the losses incurred by citizens and firms of the countries involved as a result of war events and the subsequent nationalization. The agreement with the U.S. followed the visit to Poland of Vice President Richard Nixon in August 1959 and his talks with Gomułka. It was signed in 1960 and the agreed amount had been paid by the Polish government in twenty installments. The U.S. government thereby assumed responsibility for indemnities resulting from claims filed by U.S. citizens.
After the first wave of reform, Gomułka's regime started to move back on their promises. Control over mass media and universities was gradually tightened, and many of the younger and more reformist members of the party were forced out (over 200,000 purged already in 1958, when the PZPR undertook a "verification" of its membership). The reform-promising Gomułka of 1956 turned into the authoritarian Gomułka of the 1960s. Although Poland enjoyed a period of relative stability in that decade, the idealism of the "Polish October" faded away. The decisions made at the XIII Plenum of the Central Committee, held in 1963, meant a definite end of the post-October liberalization period. The demise of Gomułka's tactical allies, the Puławy faction, gradually replaced by Gomułka's own people, was apparent when Roman Zambrowski, the leading Jewish politician, was removed from the Politburo.
Poland under Gomułka's rule was generally considered one of the more liberal communist states. However, Poles could still go to prison for writing political satire about the party leader, as Janusz Szpotański did, or for publishing a book abroad. A March 1964 "Letter of the 34", signed by leading intellectuals and delivered to the office of Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz, criticized the worsening censorship and demanded a more open cultural policy, as guaranteed by the constitution. Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski were expelled from the party and from 1965 imprisoned for written criticism (an "Open Letter to the Party") of the party rule and pointing out the contradictory nature of the supposedly workers' state. Kuroń and Modzelewski accused the regime of betraying the revolutionary cause; like many younger Polish reformers, they spoke from leftist positions and were ideologically closely aligned with Western radicals of the 1960s.
As the regime was getting less liberal and more repressive, Gomułka's popularity declined as his initial vision lost its impetus. Many Poles found Gomułka's self-righteous attitude irritating and his demeanor provincial. He reacted to increasing criticism by refusing to budge and insulating himself with the help of cronies, of whom Zenon Kliszko was the most influential. Within the party, Minister of the Interior Mieczysław Moczar and his nationalist-communist faction known as "the Partisans" (together with Moczarowcy, the much broader system of Moczar's political clientele) were looking for an opportunity to assert their dominance.
By the mid-1960s, Poland was starting to experience economic difficulties and the appreciable thus far standard of living improvements were showing signs of stagnation (during 1960–70 real wages for workers grew only by an average of 1.8% per year). The postwar economic boom was ending and the increasingly globalized and integrated world economy was becoming inhospitable to national developments operating behind trade barriers. Like the other communist states, Poland was spending too much on heavy industry, armaments and prestige projects and too little on consumer production. The failure of Soviet-style collectivization returned the collectivized land to the peasants, but most of their farms were too small to be prosperous and productivity in agriculture remained low. Economic relations with West Germany were frozen due to East German interference and resistance to economic integration. Gomułka attributed the signs of economic decline to faulty implementation of the fundamentally correct directions issued by central organs of the party. He failed to appreciate the corrective role of the market, whose feedback could not be replaced by theoretical computations, planning and administrative decisions. On the other hand, pursuing conservative investment rather than consumption oriented economic policies, his government generated no foreign debt.
From 1960, the regime increasingly implemented anti-Catholic policies, including harassment, atheistic propaganda, and measures that made carrying out religious practices more difficult. Gomułka, according to Andrzej Leder, was the last Polish politician who seriously tried to realize an anti-clerical program, a staple leftist undertaking. In 1965, the Conference of Polish Bishops issued the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops. In 1966, the celebrations of the 1,000th anniversary of the Christianization of Poland led by the primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and other bishops who toured the country, turned into a huge demonstration of the power and popularity of the Catholic Church in Poland. In fierce competition, the state authorities conducted their own national celebrations, stressing the origin of Polish statehood, but the display of the Church hierarchy's command of enormous crowds in a land ruled by the communists must have impressed the Catholic prelates in the Vatican and elsewhere. The state-church dialogue, symbolized by the presence of the few Znak independent Catholic deputies in parliament, was rapidly deteriorating.
### 1968 events
By the 1960s, rival regime officials and their followers, generally from the younger generation of party activists, had begun to plot against the rule of Gomułka and his associates. Poland's security chief Mieczysław Moczar, a wartime communist partisan commander, based his appeal on nationalistic rhetoric combined with anti-intelligentsia and anti-Jewish sentiments and became the chief challenger. The party leader in Upper Silesia, Edward Gierek, who had become involved with the communist movement as a teenage mining industry laborer in France, also emerged as a possible alternative leader. Gierek was favored by the more pragmatic and technocratic members of the nomenklatura. From January 1968, Polish revisionist opposition and other circles were strongly influenced by the developing movement of the Prague Spring.
In March 1968, student demonstrations at the University of Warsaw broke out in the wake of the government's ban on further performance of the play Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz (written in 1824) at the National Theatre in Warsaw, because of its alleged "anti-Soviet references". Subsequently, the ORMO and other security formations attacked protesting university students in several major cities.
In what became known as the March 1968 events, Moczar used the prior spontaneous and informal celebrations of the outcome of the Arab–Israeli Six-Day War of 1967 and now the Warsaw theatre affair as pretexts to launch an anti-intellectual and anti-Semitic (officially designated as "anti-Zionist") press campaign, whose real goal was to weaken the pro-reform liberal party faction and attack other circles. Thousands of generally secular and integrated people of Jewish origin lost their employment and some 15,000 Jews emigrated between 1967 and 1971. Of what used to be the prewar Europe's largest Jewish community, only several thousand people remained in Poland.
Other victims were college students, many of whom were expelled from their institutions and had their careers destroyed, academic teachers who tried to defend the students and the academic institutions themselves: Warsaw University had several departments administratively dissolved. Liberal intelligentsia members, Jewish or not, were removed from the government and other places of employment. Leftist intellectuals and student leaders lost what was left of their faith in the ostensibly socialist government. Finally the party itself was purged of many thousand suspect members, people who somehow did not fit the new environment of intolerance and hatred. The 1968 purges meant also the beginning of a large scale generational replacement of the party executive membership, a process that continued into the early 1970s, after Gomułka's departure. The prewar communist cadres were removed and people whose careers were formed in People's Poland took their place, which gave Gomułka's successor Edward Gierek one of the youngest in Europe elites of power early in his term.
The revisionist dissident prominence in the 1968 events overshadowed the equally significant awakening taking place among the working class of Poland. Gdańsk, where thousands of students and workers fought the police on March 15, had the highest in the country rate of administrative detentions and court cases. The greatest proportion of people arrested and imprisoned in March and April 1968 in Poland were classified by the authorities as "workers".
An internal attempt was made to discredit Gomułka's leadership, but there were aspects of the ongoing witch hunt which he found to be to his advantage and tolerated. In the meantime, irreversible damage to society had been wrecked by the Moczar movement. Gomułka's regime reasserted itself and was saved by a combination of international and domestic factors, including the Moczar faction's inability to take over the party and state apparatus. The Soviet Union, now led by Leonid Brezhnev, was preoccupied with the crisis in Czechoslovakia and not inclined to support personnel changes in the Polish leadership.
In August 1968, the Polish People's Army took part in the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Some Polish intellectuals protested, and Ryszard Siwiec burned himself alive during celebrations of an official holiday. The Polish participation in the crushing of the Czech liberalization movement (the crowning achievement of Marxist revisionism, according to David Ost) further alienated Gomułka from his former liberal supporters. But within the party, the opposition to Gomułka faded and the 5th Congress of the PZPR reconfirmed his rule in November. Brezhnev, who attended the gathering, used the occasion to expound his Brezhnev Doctrine, a self-granted Soviet right to forcefully intervene if an allied state strays too far from the "fraternal course".
### Treaty with West Germany, food riots and the ousting of Gomułka
In December 1970, Gomułka's government scored a major political success when Poland obtained recognition by West Germany of post-World War II borders. In the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Warsaw, the German side secured the right to emigrate to West Germany for residents of Poland of German identity and the ability to help financially those who stayed in Poland by granting pensions. Hundreds of thousands eventually became affected. German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who signed the agreement, used the occasion to ask on his knees for forgiveness for the crimes of the Nazis (Kniefall von Warschau). His gesture was understood in Poland as being addressed to all Poles, although it was made at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto and thus directed primarily toward the Jews. The notable reconciliation process between the Polish and German nations was initiated five years earlier, when the Polish Church leaders issued the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops, criticized then by the Polish government.
Gomułka felt proud and secure after the treaty with West Germany, his milestone political achievement. It signified a lasting trend in Poland's international policy: extricating the country from the disproportional dependence on Russia and compensating the security vulnerability by building good relations with Germany.
But the event could not mask the economic crisis into which Poland was drifting. Although the system of fixed, artificially low food prices kept urban discontent under control, it caused economic strain. In the long run the situation was unsustainable, and on 12 December 1970 the regime unexpectedly announced substantial increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs. The new measures were incomprehensible to many workers, and their unfortunate timing (before Christmas, the most intense food purchase period for most Polish families) led to strong social reaction and ultimately Gomułka's fall from power.
On 14–19 December 1970, mass demonstrations against the price rises broke out in the northern (Baltic coast) cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg and Szczecin. In violent confrontations at those and other locations 19 public buildings were destroyed or damaged, including headquarters of the party in Gdańsk and Szczecin. The PZPR Central Committee was deliberating in Warsaw, but a smaller conference, led by Gomułka, issued an authorization for a limited use of lethal force to defend lives and property. Gomułka, however, was determined to impose a forceful resolution of the conflict. Among the party leaders who arrived on the coast and directed the local enforcement actions, initially in Gdańsk, were Zenon Kliszko and Stanisław Kociołek. In Gdynia, soldiers were instructed to prevent protesters from returning to factory buildings; they fired into a crowd of workers emerging from commuter trains. Fatal confrontations took place also in Szczecin. Possibly about fifty people were killed in the coastal region in December.
The protest movement spread to other cities, leading to more strikes and causing angry workers to occupy many factories. The general strike across Poland was scheduled for 21 December 1970.
The party leadership meeting in Warsaw on 20 December recognized the danger that the working class revolt presented to their system. In consultations with the disturbed Soviet leaders, they proceeded with arranging the resignation of Gomułka, who was by then stressed out and ill. Several of his collaborators were also removed. Edward Gierek was drafted as the new first secretary. Mieczysław Moczar, another strong contender, was not trusted and even blamed for the current debacle by the Soviets.
Another strike in Szczecin broke out on 22 January 1971. Gierek gambled that his personal appearances would resolve the crisis. He went to Szczecin on 24 January and to Gdańsk the next day, met the workers, apologized for the past mistakes and assured them that as a former worker himself he understood their plight and would now govern Poland for the people. Participants of the Szczecin strike demanded freely elected worker councils and union representatives. Gierek consented, but in reality the authorities soon marginalized and eliminated the worker leaders from the legally existing labor structures and their places of employment. The February 1971 Łódź strikes followed and concentrated on economic demands. Afterwards prices were lowered, wage increases announced, and sweeping economic and political changes promised.
The Polish opposition movement, traditionally led by the intelligentsia, after the two heavy blows of 1968 and 1970 was in disarray and silent. The revisionists' tenuous connection with the communist party was permanently broken, but a new strategy had not yet emerged. However, already in 1971 Leszek Kołakowski published in the émigré Kultura journal a seminal article entitled Theses on Hope and Hopelessness. It put forward a concept of civil democratizing resistance movement that would be valid even in the repressed and seemingly deadlocked state socialist society.
## Gierek decade (1970–1980)
### Catching up with the West
Gierek, like Gomułka in 1956, came to power on a raft of promises that everything would be different from now on: wages would rise, prices would remain stable, there would be freedom of speech, and those responsible for the violence at Gdynia and elsewhere would be punished. Gierek was believed to be an honest and well-intentioned man, and his promises bought him some time. He proceeded to create a new economic program, based on large-scale borrowing from banks in the West, to buy technology that would upgrade Poland's production of export goods. This massive borrowing, estimated to have totaled over 24 billion US (1970s) dollars during Gierek years, was intended to be used for equipment and modernization of Polish industry, and for import of consumer goods to give the workers more incentive to work.
For the next few years, the regime optimistically engaged in reform and experimentation and for the first time many Poles could afford to buy cars, televisions and other luxury items. Attention was paid to the wages workers received. The peasants had their compulsory deliveries abolished, were paid higher prices for their products and free health service was finally extended to rural, self-employed Poland. Censorship was eased and Poles were able to travel to the West and maintain foreign contacts with little difficulty. Relations with the Polish emigrant communities were improved. The relative cultural and political relaxation resulted in a better freedom of speech environment, exercised for example by the respected weekly Polityka. The massive investments and purchases of Western technology were expected to both improve the standard of living of the various segments of society and establish an internationally competitive Polish industry and agriculture. The modernized manufacturing would result in a vastly expanded export of Polish-made products to the West, which in turn would generate hard currency to pay-off the debts.
This "New Development Strategy", based on import-led growth, depended on the global economic conditions and the program faltered suddenly because of worldwide recession and increased oil prices. The effects of the 1973–74 oil crisis produced an inflationary surge followed by a recession in the West, which resulted in a sharp increase in the price of imported consumer goods in Poland, coupled with a decline in demand for Polish exports, particularly coal. Poland's foreign debt, absent at the time of Gomułka's departure, rose rapidly under Gierek to reach a multibillion-dollar figure. Continuing borrowing from the West had become increasingly difficult. Consumer goods began to disappear from Polish shops. The new factories built by Gierek's regime proved to be largely ineffective and mismanaged, as the basics of market demand and cost effectiveness were often ignored. The significant internal economic reform, promised by the Gierek team, had not materialized.
The Western credits thus helped spur industrial growth and helped Gierek's policy of consumerism, but just for a few years. The industrial production grew by an average of 10% per year between 1971 and 1975 (the years remembered later by many older Poles as most prosperous, considering not only the communist period in Poland), only to dwindle to less than 2% in 1979. Debt servicing that took 12% of export earnings in 1971, rose to 75% in 1979.
In 1975, like other European countries, Poland became a signatory of the Helsinki Accords and member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); such developments were possible because of the period of "détente" between the Soviet Union and the United States. Despite the regime's promises that the freedoms listed in the agreement would be implemented in Poland, there was little change. However, the Poles were becoming more aware of the rights they were being denied and emboldened by the knowledge of their government's treaty obligations.
Gierek government's growing difficulties led also to increased dependence on the Soviet Union, including tight economic cooperation and displays of submissiveness not seen under Gomułka's rule. The constitution, amended in February 1976, formalized the alliance with the Soviet Union and the leading role of the communist party. The language of the proposed changes was softened after protests by intellectuals and the Church, but the regime felt it needed additional authority given the indebtedness to the West and the deepening economic crisis. The divisive issues raised helped to coalesce the emerging circles of active political opposition.
Nevertheless, the regime of Gierek deemphasized the Marxist ideology and from his time the "communist" governments of Poland concentrated on pragmatic issues and current concerns. In Polish economic politics new lasting trends were initiated, such as the emphasis on individual initiative, personal aspirations and competition, which some interpreted as an attack on egalitarianism (social inequalities were indeed increasing). Sections of the intelligentsia, nomenklatura and small business gave rise to the emerging middle class. The new "socialist" ways were less totalitarian, stressed innovation, modern management methods and engaged workers, all seen as necessary to push the outdated economy past the constant crisis stage. Poland of the 1970s became more open to the world and entered the global economy, which permanently changed society, creating at the same time a new type of crisis vulnerability. The opposition thinking, its promotion of society formed by active individuals, developed along complementary concepts.
### Renewal of social unrest and the rise of organized opposition
As a result of the 1970 worker rebellion food prices remained frozen and were artificially low. The demand for food products exceeded the supply also because of the higher real wages, which already in the first two years of Gierek's government increased more than during the entire decade of the 1960s. In June 1976, in an attempt to reduce consumption, the government introduced a long-announced and several times delayed, but radical price increase: basic foodstuffs had their prices raised by an average of 60%, three times the rate of Gomułka'a increases from six years before. The compensatory wage rises were skewed toward the better-off part of the population. The result was an immediate nationwide wave of strikes, with violent demonstrations, looting and other labor unrest at the Ursus Factory near Warsaw, in Radom, Płock and other places. The government quickly backed down and repealed the price rises, but the strike leaders were arrested and put on trial. A series of "spontaneous" large scale public gatherings, intended to convey the "anger of the people" at the "trouble-makers" was staged by the party leadership in a number of cities, but the Soviet pressure prevented further attempts at raising prices. Gierek's cordial in the past relations with Leonid Brezhnev were now seriously damaged. Food ration cards, introduced because of the destabilized market in August 1976, were to remain a feature of life in Poland for the duration of the People's Republic. The regime's retreat, having occurred for the second time in several years, amounted to an unprecedented defeat. Within the rigid political system, the government was neither able to reform (it would lose control and power) nor to satisfy society's staple needs, because it had to sell abroad all it could to make foreign debt and interests payments. The government was in a quandary, the population suffered from the lack of necessities, and organized opposition found room to expand and consolidate.
Because of the 1976 disturbances and the subsequent arrests, mistreatment and dismissals of worker militants, a group of intellectuals led by Jacek Kuroń, Antoni Macierewicz, Jan Józef Lipski and Adam Michnik founded and operated the Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników; KOR). The aim of the KOR was to assist the worker victims of the 1976 repression. Working to support the spontaneous workers' movements, the dissidents recognized the necessarily predominant role of the working class in resisting the abuses of the regime. Accordingly, the newly formed opposition was increasingly characterized by an alliance of intelligentsia with workers. The KOR, according to Modzelewski, constituted the core of organized opposition and a seed of political alternative; clearing the way for other opposition formations, it engendered political pluralism. More opposition groups indeed soon followed, including the Movement for Defense of Human and Civic Rights (ROPCiO), Free Trade Unions of the Coast (WZZW) and the Confederation of Independent Poland (KPN). The periodical Robotnik ('The Worker') was distributed in factories from September 1977. The idea of independent trade unions was first raised by the Gdańsk and Szczecin workers striking in 1970–71. Now it was developed and promoted by the KOR and its leftist collaborators, which led to the establishment in 1978 of Free Trade Unions, the precursor of Solidarity. The KPN represented the minority right-wing of the Polish opposition scene at that time. The opposition members tried to resist the regime by denouncing it for violating the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, Polish laws and Poland's international obligations. They fit within the post-Helsinki Soviet Bloc human rights movements and for the most part had not yet developed more radical, anti-system orientations.
For the rest of the 1970s, resistance to the regime grew, assuming also the forms of student groups, clandestine newspapers and publishers, importing books and newspapers, and even a "Flying University". The regime practiced various forms of repression against the budding reform movements.
### Polish Pope John Paul II
On 16 October 1978, Poland experienced what many Poles literally believed to be a miracle. Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the archbishop of Kraków, was elected pope at the Vatican, taking the name John Paul II. The election of a Polish pope had an electrifying effect on what was at that time one of the last idiosyncratically Catholic countries in Europe. When John Paul toured Poland in June 1979, half a million people came to welcome him in Warsaw; in the next eight days, about ten million Poles attended the many outdoor masses he celebrated. John Paul clearly became the most important person in Poland, leaving the regime not so much opposed as ignored. Rather than calling for rebellion, John Paul encouraged the creation of an "alternative Poland" of social institutions independent of the government, so that when the next crisis came, the nation would present a united front.
### Polish emigration
The Polish government-in-exile in London, unrecognized since the end of World War II, ridiculed by the communists, to many Poles was of great symbolic importance. Under President Edward Bernard Raczyński it overcame years of internal squabbles, and after the election of the Polish pope, at the time of the increasingly assertive Polish opposition, improved its image and standing.
The large Polish emigrant communities in North America, Western Europe and elsewhere were politically active and lent significant support to those struggling in the country. The staunchly anti-communist American Polonia and other Poles felt grateful for the leadership of President Ronald Reagan. Of the Polish institutions in the West the most important were the Radio Free Europe, whose Polish section was run by Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, and the monthly literary Kultura magazine in Paris, led by Jerzy Giedroyc and Juliusz Mieroszewski.
## Final decade of the Polish People's Republic (1980–1989)
### Failing economy and labor unrest
By 1980, the authorities had no choice but to make another attempt to raise consumer prices to realistic level, but they knew that doing so would likely spark another worker rebellion. Western financial companies and institutions providing loans to the regime at a meeting at the Bank Handlowy in Warsaw on 24 April 1980 The bankers made it clear that the state could no longer subsidize artificially low prices of consumer goods. The government gave in after two months and, on 1 July, announced a system of gradual but continuous price rises, particularly for meat. A wave of strikes and factory occupations began at once, with the biggest ones taking place in Lublin in July.
The strikes reached the politically sensitive Baltic Sea coast, with a sit-down strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk beginning on 14 August. Among the leaders of the strike were Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Wałęsa, a long-fired shipyard electrician who headed the strike committee. A list of 21 demands was formulated by the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee on 17 August. The strike wave spread along the coast, closing the ports and bringing the economy to a halt. With the assistance of activists from the KOR and support of many other intellectuals (an Expert Commission was established to aid with the negotiations), the workers occupying the various factories, mines and shipyards across Poland organized as a united front. They were not limiting their efforts to seeking economic improvements, but made and stuck to the crucial demand, an establishment of trade unions independent of government control. Among other issues raised were rights for the Church, the freeing of political prisoners and an improved health service.
The party leadership was faced with a choice between repressions on a massive scale and an amicable agreement that would give the workers what they wanted and thus quieten the aroused population. They chose the latter. On 31 August Wałęsa signed the Gdańsk Agreement with Mieczysław Jagielski, a member of the party Politburo. The agreement acknowledged the right of employees to associate in free trade unions, obliged the government to take steps to eliminate censorship, abolished weekend work, increased the minimum wage, improved and extended welfare and pensions and increased autonomy of industrial enterprises, where a meaningful role was to be played by workers' self-management councils. The rule of the party was significantly weakened (to a "leading role in the state", not society) but nonetheless explicitly recognized, together with Poland's international alliances. It was seen by the more moderate forces, including leading intelligentsia advisers and the Catholic hierarchy, as necessary to prevent a Soviet intervention. The opposition negotiators did not concern themselves with the issue of affordability of the economic concessions they obtained and a wave of national euphoria swept the country. In addition to the Gdańsk Agreement, similar documents were signed at other centers of strike activity: in Szczecin (the Szczecin Agreement), Jastrzębie-Zdrój, and at Katowice Steelworks.
### Solidarity
The Gdańsk Agreement, an aftermath of the August 1980 strike, was an important milestone. It led to a national gathering of independent union representatives (Interfactory Organizing Committees, MKZ) on 17 September in Gdańsk and the formation of the trade union "Solidarity" (Polish Solidarność), founded on that day and led by Lech Wałęsa. The ideas of the independent union movement spread rapidly throughout Poland; Solidarity structures were formed in most places of employment and in all regions. Having been able to overcome the regime's efforts to thwart or derail its activities and status, Solidarity was finally registered in court as a national labor union in November. Early in 1981, a network of union organizations at the enterprise-level was established; it included the country's main industrial complexes, such as the Lenin Steelworks in Kraków and the Silesian mines.
Initially, in the KOR's tradition, Solidarity was an ostensibly non-political movement aiming at reconstruction of civil society. Suddenly thrust into legal existence and prominence in 1980, Solidarity and the Polish opposition in general lacked a constructive program or consensus regarding further developments. In 1981, Solidarity accepted the necessity of assuming a political role and helped form a broad anti-ruling system social movement, dominated by the working class and with members ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church to non-communist leftists. The union was backed by intellectual dissidents, including the KOR, and adhered to a policy of nonviolent resistance. According to Karol Modzelewski, the Solidarity of 1980–81 was permeated by the idea of brotherhood between intelligentsia and workers. In the areas of ideology and politics, Solidarity followed the lead of its associated opposition intellectuals.
The activity of Solidarity, although concerned with trade union matters (such as replacing the nomenklatura-run system with worker self-management in enterprise-level decision making), was widely regarded as the first step towards dismantling the regime's dominance over social institutions, professional organizations and community associations. Because of conditions specific to state socialist society, Solidarity soon lost its labor focus and became a universalist movement that emphasized civic rights and open society. Removing the ruling formation or breaking the dependence on the Soviet Union was not on the agenda. Using strikes and other tactics, the union sought to block government policies. The aims of the original, so-called First Solidarity (1980–81), were to reform socialism, not to introduce industrial private ownership or promote capitalism in general. Solidarity was an egalitarian and collectivist movement. It did not postulate any re-privatization of property taken over by the state after World War II or of rural possessions generated by the land reform, as such concepts were beyond the axiological horizon of Polish society. Solidarity was socialist and social justice was its goal. The First Solidarity upheaval could be viewed also as working people revolting against the emerging capitalist features of the economic order that diminished their role in Gierek-led society, combined with the "anti-politics" approach (building civil society "without reference to both state and market") embraced at that time by their allied intellectual leaders. People of decidedly anticommunist or anti-PZPR orientations constituted a relatively small minority within the First Solidarity organization, which accommodated one million communist party members among its ranks. Apart from workers, both individual farmers and students created their own independent organizations: Rural Solidarity and Independent Students' Union. They were formally recognized by the authorities only after strike actions conducted by activists of both movements in January 1981.
In September 1980, in the aftermath of the labor agreements, First Secretary Gierek was removed from office and replaced as party leader by Stanisław Kania. Like his predecessors, Kania made promises that the regime could not fulfill because the authorities were still trapped by the contradiction: if they followed economic necessity, they would generate political instability. The gross national income fell in 1979 by 2%, in 1980 by 8%, and in 1981 by 15–20%.
At the communist summit in December 1980 in Moscow, Kania argued with Leonid Brezhnev and other Warsaw Pact leaders, who pressed for an immediate military intervention in Poland. Kania and Minister of Defense Wojciech Jaruzelski declared their determination to fight the "counterrevolution" in Poland on their own. In regard to Solidarity, as they saw it, there was still a chance for its healthy, working class current to prevail, not the KOR-instigated anti-socialist, troublemaking elements. President Jimmy Carter and President-elect Ronald Reagan made urgent phone calls to Brezhnev and the intervention was postponed. In the meantime Solidarity, not quite aware of the looming danger, did its revolutionary work, practicing democracy in the union movement and pushing for sovereign society in a number of ways. The autonomous labor unions, united under the Solidarity banner, strove to "recapture public life from the monopoly control of the party". On 16 December 1980, the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 was officially unveiled in Gdańsk in a ceremony that marked the high point in the ascent of Solidarity.
Among the mass protests that occurred at that time were the winter 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała, the nationwide warning strike in the spring of that year and hunger demonstrations in summer. The warning strike took place in the aftermath of the Bydgoszcz events (March 1981), during which the authorities resorted to violence to suppress Solidarity activists. The planned general strike was called off after Solidarity's questionable deal with the government, but the negotiators worked under a threat of Soviet intervention. Wałęsa's compromise prevented a confrontation with the regime or its foreign allies, but at the price of the protest movement's loss of some of its dynamics. During the months that followed Solidarity kept getting weaker and its popular support was no longer capable of mass determined action.
Minister Jaruzelski became also prime minister in February 1981. In June, the Soviet Central Committee pressured the Polish party for a leadership change, but Jaruzelski received strong support from the military members of the Polish Central Committee. The extraordinary IX Congress of the PZPR took place in July. Kania was reelected the party's first secretary, while the organization's internal reformers suffered a defeat.
As the economic situation kept deteriorating and the regime avoided implementation of the agreed reforms, the government and Solidarity representatives met in early August to discuss the outstanding issues. The talks ended in disagreement. During a conference of Solidarity's National Commission (a central representative policy making body) that followed, Modzelewski, Kuroń and others proposed a democratic transformation and practical arrangements by which the Union would take upon itself a major political role, participating in governing the country, accepting responsibility for the outcome and keeping social peace, thus relieving the ruling party of some of its burdens. Such a deal was seen as the only constructive way forward, but it would require government partners interested in a negotiated solution.
The existence of Solidarity and the political liberties that the movement brought paralyzed the authoritarian state and the state-controlled economy. Everyday life was becoming increasingly unbearable and the public displayed sentiments of extreme volatility. The hostility of the nomenklatura toward Solidarity was rapidly increasing.
At the State Defense Committee meeting on 13 September (the time of the Soviet Exercise Zapad-81 maneuvers and of renewed pressure on the Polish leadership), Kania was warned by the uniformed cadres that the progressing counterrevolution must be terminated by an imposition of martial law. The PZPR regional secretaries soon issued the same demands. Under the circumstances, in October First Secretary Kania stepped down and Prime Minister Jaruzelski became also the party chief.
In September and October, the First Congress of Solidarity deliberated in Gdańsk. Wałęsa faced activist opposition and was barely elected chairman of the organization. The delegates passed a radical reform program in which the word "social" or "socialized" was repeated 150 times. The congress issued a provocative call for workers in other East European countries, urging them to follow in Solidarity's footsteps. Locally authorized, increasingly "political" strikes continued. They were characterized as "wildcats" by Wałęsa, who desperately tried to impose discipline from the center. He attempted to reach an accord with the state, meeting General Jaruzelski and Catholic Primate Józef Glemp on 4 November. At the time of the regime's re-energized efforts to reduce Solidarity's role, the union had nearly ten million members — almost four times as many as the ruling party. Militant mood was displayed and unrealistic demands made at the meeting of the partially represented National Commission on 3 December, but the proceedings were wiretapped by the authorities, who then broadcast the (previously manipulated to their advantage) recordings.
The government, not consulting Solidarity, adopted a plan of economic measures that could be implemented only by force and asked parliament for extraordinary authority. In early December, Jaruzelski was pressured by his generals and colonels for an immediate forceful action and their demands were repeated at the Politburo meeting on 10 December. On 11 and 12 December Solidarity's National Commission declared 17 December the day of countrywide protest. Neither the exhausted but radicalized Solidarity nor the ruling establishment was willing or able to back down and, in the era of Brezhnev, there could be no peaceful resolution to the situation that developed. The Soviets now expressed a preference for the conflict to be resolved by the Polish authorities, but Poland, according to Karol Modzelewski, was lucky to avoid a carnage of foreign intervention. Others, including the historian Antoni Dudek, feel that there was no sufficient justification for the imposition of martial law that followed.
### Imposition of martial law
On 13 December 1981, claiming that the country was on the verge of economic and civil breakdown and alleging a danger of Soviet intervention, General Wojciech Jaruzelski began a crack-down on Solidarity. Martial law was declared, the free labor union was suspended and most of its leaders detained. Several thousand citizens were interned or imprisoned and much larger numbers were subjected to various forms of harassment. Polish state militia (Milicja Obywatelska, the police) and paramilitary riot police ZOMO suppressed the strike action and demonstrations. Military forces entered industrial enterprises to clamp down on the independent union movement. A series of violent attacks included the pacification of Wujek Coal Mine during which 9 people were killed. The martial law offensive was directed primarily against workers and their union; the workers, rather than intelligentsia activists, were the object of the most brutal treatment. The authorities ultimately succeeded in imposing on members of Solidarity an individual and collective trauma, from which the broken mass movement would not be able to recover. The Catholic Church strove to exert a moderating influence on Solidarity before and after the martial law.
Initially, the regime leadership intended to remold Solidarity into a compliant union, stripped of its intelligentsia advisers and compatible with the state socialist system. The failure to incite most ranking Solidarity leaders to collaborate, especially Wałęsa's refusal to extend any such cooperation, resulted in the government adopting the goal of total liquidation of the union movement.
Strikes and protests followed, but were not nearly as widespread as those of August 1980. The last mass street demonstrations that Solidarity was able to muster occurred on 31 August 1982, the second anniversary of the Gdańsk agreements. The "Military Council of National Salvation" banned Solidarity officially on 8 October. Martial law was formally lifted in July 1983, though many heightened controls on civil liberties and political life, as well as food rationing, remained in place throughout the mid-to-late 1980s. With all the restrictions, however, "the official cultural realm remained far more open than it was prior to 1980" and "cultural policy continued to be the most open in all of Eastern Europe". Among the concessions in the civil and political rights area granted by the troubled regime were the establishment of the Constitutional Tribunal in 1982 and of the Polish Ombudsman office in 1987.
In the mid-1980s and even as late as 1987, Solidarity was seen by many, including most of its activists, as likely a thing of the past. It persisted solely as a rather small underground organization, supported by various international institutions, from the Catholic Church to the Central Intelligence Agency. When most senior Solidarity figures were interned or otherwise neutralized by the authorities, Zbigniew Bujak, head of the union's Warsaw branch, remained in hiding and was the leader of the clandestine organization until his arrest in 1986. But the post-martial law general public showed signs of tiredness and disappointment, as it had become apparent that Solidarity was not a united front.
### "Market socialism" and systemic implosion
During the chaotic years of Solidarity and martial law, Poland entered a decade of economic crisis more pronounced than in Gierek's years. Work on the major unfinished projects that had begun in the 1970s drained the available investment outlays, little money was left for replacing obsolete production equipment and the manufactured goods were not competitive on the world market. Managerial ineffectiveness, bad organization of production and shortages of inputs and raw materials were among the factors that contributed to further deterioration of workers' morale. 640,000 people of productive age left the country between 1981 and 1988.
Throughout their existence, the governments functioning under General Jaruzelski's leadership (1981–1989) engaged in market economy reforms aimed at improving economic performance by eliminating central planning, reducing central bureaucracy, introducing self-management and self-financing of state enterprises and allowing self-government by employee councils. The reform's effects were positive but limited (the process vastly increased general economic literacy and some of its accomplishments were later claimed by Solidarity governments as their own), because enterprises' self-rule had to compete with the traditional party interference, the authorities shied from subjecting the population to hardships, and Western governments and institutions showed no interest in supporting what was perceived as reform of a communist regime. The government allowed more small-scale private enterprises to function, departing further from the 'socialist' model of economy. Ideological considerations were abandoned and priority was given to pragmatic issues and moves. Searching for ways to improve the economy and conscious of its alienation from the industrial working class, the regime turned toward market reforms with an increasingly significant from the mid-1980s elite-oriented liberal component. Marketization, formalized by a 1988 statute on economic activity, was a process that would continue past the mid-1990s. Neoliberal processes may have been initiated by Deputy Prime Minister Zdzisław Sadowski and the government of Zbigniew Messner, then developed further under Minister Mieczysław Wilczek (author of the statute) and the government of Mieczysław Rakowski. "Market socialism" was introduced as the regime leaders lost their faith in the socialist system and even nomenklatura managers were threatened by the declining economy. The enterprises were to be made independent, self-financing and self-managed, which included workers' councils that were resistant to restructuring. Owners of private businesses did well in the final years of the People's Republic and the number of such entities increased. Foreign investment was also encouraged, but limited marketization failed to deliver an economic turnaround. The practice of centralized economic decision making had not been overcome, while the newly autonomous enterprises moved toward a rather spontaneous and chaotic partial privatization of dubious legality; it included elements of kleptocracy and had a significant middle-level nomenklatura component. On a more basic level, countless ordinary Poles took advantage of the changing attitudes and became involved in a great variety of income-producing activities.
The deepening economic crisis caused a marked deterioration in quality of life of ordinary citizens and resulted in increasing political instability. Rationing and queuing became a way of life, with ration cards (kartki) necessary to buy consumer staples. The ration cards were utilized by the government in order to avoid allowing market regulation of income and prices and thus risking social unrest. As Western institutions were no longer willing to extend credit to the de facto bankrupt Polish government, access to goods that the Poles needed became even more restricted. Most of the scarce resources of Western currency available had to be used to pay the crushing rates on Poland's foreign debt, which reached US\$27 billion by 1980 and US\$45 billion in 1989. The government, which controlled all official foreign trade, responded by maintaining a highly artificial exchange rate with Western currencies. The exchange rate worsened distortions in the economy at all levels, resulting in a growing black market and the development of shortage economy. The omnipresent and destructive underground economy was characterized by such phenomena as bribery, waiting lists, speculation, direct exchanges between enterprises and large percentages of personal incomes deriving from secondary activities. Societal degradation was accompanied by unprecedented deterioration of biological environment and physical and mental health; mortality rates kept increasing. In the late 1980s, the PZPR feared another social explosion because of high inflation, depressed living standards and deepening public anger and frustration. The authorities themselves, facing an increasingly disorderly and unmanageable system, felt perplexed and powerless.
### Last years of the People's Republic and the transition period
#### Toward Round Table and semi-free elections
In September 1986, the government declared a general amnesty and began work on a number of meaningful reforms. Given the liberalized political environment, Wałęsa was urged to reconvene the National Commission from the time of the First Solidarity, but he refused, preferring to deal with the circle of Solidarity's Expert Commission advisers. A National Executive Commission, led by Wałęsa, was openly established in October 1987. Other opposition structures such as the Fighting Solidarity, the Federation of Fighting Youth, the Freedom and Peace Movement (Ruch Wolność i Pokój) and the Orange Alternative "dwarf" movement founded by Major Waldemar Fydrych began organizing street protests in form of colorful happenings that assembled thousands of participants. The liberal periodical Res Publica negotiated with the authorities its officially published release.
In the 1987 Polish political and economic reforms referendum, 67% of the eligible voters participated and most of them approved the government-proposed reforms, but a popular mandate was formally missed because of the unrealistically stringent passage requirements self-imposed by the regime. The referendum debacle dealt a blow to the process of market-oriented economic reforms, which had been sought by Polish governments since the early 1980s.
The ruling communist/military establishment slowly and gradually came to realize that a deal of some sort with the opposition would eventually be necessary and would have to include the leading Solidarity figures. Solidarity as such, a labor union representing workers' interests, was unable to reassert itself after the martial law and later in the 1980s was practically destroyed, but preserved in the national consciousness as a myth that facilitated social acceptance of systemic changes previously deemed unthinkable. The Solidarity organization as a mass movement, and with it its dominant social democratic element (supporters of democratic socialism), had been defeated. Solidarity's name had continuously been used, but the opposition movement split to form rival groups of different political orientations. According to a new intellectual consensus, "democracy was grounded not in an active citizenry, as had been argued from the mid-1970s through 1981, but in private property and a free market". The current view no longer entailed broad political participation, emphasizing instead elite leadership and a capitalist economy. Solidarity became a symbolic entity, its activists openly assumed ideological "anti-communist" positions and its leadership moved to the right. The historic mass movement was now represented by a small number of individuals, of whom Lech Wałęsa, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Leszek Balcerowicz were about to assume particularly decisive roles. They were proponents of unfettered free market, strongly influenced by the American and West European financial and other interests.
Jaruzelski's Poland depended on low-cost deliveries of industrial staple commodities from the Soviet Union and meaningful Polish reforms, economic or political, were not feasible during the rule of the last three conservative Soviet general secretaries. The perestroika and glasnost policies of the Soviet Union's new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, were therefore a crucial factor in stimulating reform in Poland. Gorbachev essentially repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine, which had stipulated that attempts by its Eastern European satellite states to abandon the communist bloc would be countered by the Soviet Union with force. The developments in the Soviet Union altered the international situation and provided a historic opportunity for independent reforms in Poland. The hardline stance of US President Ronald Reagan was also helpful. David Ost stressed the constructive influence of Gorbachev. With his support for Polish and Hungarian membership in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and for the Eastern European pluralistic evolution in general, the Soviet leader effectively pushed the region toward the West.
Nationwide strikes broke out in the spring and summer of 1988. They were much weaker than the strikes of 1980 and were discontinued after the intervention by Wałęsa, who secured the regime's commitment to begin negotiations with the opposition. The strikes were the last act of active political involvement of the working class in the history of People's Poland and were led by young workers, not connected to Solidarity veterans and opposed to socially harmful consequences of the economic restructuring that was in progress at that time. According to the researcher Maciej Gdula, the political activity that followed was conducted exclusively by the elites. It was neither inspired by nor consulted with any mass social organization or movement, as the opposition leading circles freed themselves from their strong in the past commitment to the welfare of working people. No longer secure as undisputed leaders, Polish dissidents of the KOR-Solidarity generations were eager to bargain with the weakened regime whose economic goals they now shared.
Both sides having been prompted by the new international situation and the recent strike wave in Poland, in September 1988 preliminary talks between government representatives and Solidarity leaders ensued in Magdalenka. Numerous meetings took place involving Wałęsa and the minister of internal affairs, General Czesław Kiszczak among others, at that time and in the following year, behind the scenes of the official negotiations conducted then. In November, Wałęsa debated on national TV Alfred Miodowicz, chief of the official trade unions. The encounter enhanced Wałęsa's image.
During the PZPR's plenary session of 16–18 January 1989, General Jaruzelski and his ruling formation overcame the Central Committee's resistance by threatening to resign and the party decided to allow re-legalization of Solidarity and to approach its leaders for formal talks. From 6 February to 4 April, 94 sessions of negotiations between 13 working groups, which became known as the "Round Table Talks" (Polish: Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu), resulted in political and economic compromise reforms. Jaruzelski, Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski and Wałęsa did not directly participate in the negotiations. The government side was represented by Czesław Kiszczak, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Janusz Reykowski, Stanisław Ciosek, Romuald Sosnowski, Władysław Baka, Andrzej Gdula and Ireneusz Sekuła; the Solidarity opposition by Adam Michnik, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Bronisław Geremek, Jacek Kuroń, Zbigniew Bujak, Władysław Frasyniuk, Jarosław Kaczyński and Witold Trzeciakowski, among others. The talks resulted in the Round Table Agreement, by which political power was to be vested in a newly created bicameral legislature and in a president, who would be the chief executive.
By 4 April 1989, numerous reforms and freedoms for the opposition were agreed. Solidarity, now in existence as the Solidarity Citizens' Committee, was to be legalized again as a trade union and allowed to participate in semi-free elections. This election had restrictions imposed, designed to keep the PZPR in power, since only 35% of the seats in the Sejm, the key lower chamber of parliament, would be open to Solidarity candidates. The remaining 65% were to be reserved for candidates from the PZPR and its allies (the United People's Party, the Alliance of Democrats and the PAX Association). Since the Round Table Agreement mandated only reform (not replacement) of "real socialism" in Poland, the party thought of the election as a way of neutralizing political conflict and staying in power, while gaining some legitimacy to carry out economic reforms. However, the negotiated social policies, arrived at by economists and trade unionists during the Round Table talks, were quickly tossed out by both the party and the opposition.
A systemic transformation happening sooner rather than later was made possible by the Polish legislative elections of 4 June 1989, which coincided with the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in China. When the results of the voting were released, a political earthquake followed. The victory of Solidarity (caused in part by the electoral system that favored the opposition as far as the contested seats were concerned, but was permitted by the government nevertheless) surpassed all predictions. Solidarity candidates captured all the seats they were allowed to compete for in the Sejm, while in the newly established Senate they captured 99 out of the 100 available seats. At the same time, many prominent PZPR candidates failed to gain even the minimum number of votes required to capture the seats that were reserved for them. The PZPR-led coalition suffered a catastrophic blow to its legitimacy.
#### Political transformation
The next few months were spent on political maneuvering. The increasingly insecure communists, who still had military and administrative control over the country, were appeased by a compromise in which Solidarity allowed General Jaruzelski to remain head of state. On 19 July 1989 Jaruzelski barely won the vote in the National Assembly presidential election, even though his name was the only one on the ballot. He won through an informally arranged abstention by a sufficient number of Solidarity MPs and his position was not strong. Jaruzelski resigned as first secretary of the PZPR on 29 July.
The Round Table deal basically allowed the PZPR to remain in power regardless of the election results, and the party's reshuffled leadership continued to rule. On 1 August, prices were freed because of the ongoing market reforms and hyperinflation resulted. The instantly increased economic hardship caused a new wave of strikes. The strikes were spontaneous, but the Solidarity leaders, no longer in agreement with the strikers' economic demands, were able to emphasize the secondary political aspect of the strikes (anger at the party's obstinacy) and use them to pressure the regime for an expedited transfer of power. The new prime minister, General Kiszczak, who was appointed on 2 August 1989, failed to gain enough support in the Sejm to form a government and resigned on 19 August. He was the last communist head of government in Poland. Although Jaruzelski tried to persuade Solidarity to join the PZPR in a "grand coalition", Wałęsa refused. The two formerly subservient parties allied with the PZPR, prompted by the current strike pressure, were moving toward adopting independent courses and their added votes would give the opposition control of parliament. Under the circumstances, Jaruzelski had to come to terms with the prospect of the new government being formed by political opposition. Solidarity elected representative Tadeusz Mazowiecki was appointed prime minister and confirmed by the assembly on 24 August 1989. The new government led by a non-communist, the first of its kind in the Soviet Bloc, was sworn into office on 13 September. The PZPR did not immediately relinquish all power, remaining in the coalition and retaining control of the ministries of foreign trade, defense, interior and transport.
Mazowiecki's government, forced to deal quickly with galloping hyperinflation, soon adopted radical economic policies, proposed by Leszek Balcerowicz, which transformed Poland into a functioning market economy under an accelerated schedule. Many Polish state-owned enterprises, undergoing privatization, turned out to be woefully unprepared for capitalist competition and the pace of their accommodation (or attrition) was rapid. The economic reform, a shock therapy accompanied by comprehensive neoliberal restructuring, was, in reality, an extension of the previous incremental "communist" policies of the 1970s and 1980s, which were now followed by a leap to greatly expanded integration with the global economy with little protection. Among the reform's negative immediate effects were the economic recession and near-paralysis of foreign trade. On longer-term bases, the country experienced quickly rising unemployment and social inequities, as enterprises were liquidated and income was redistributed away from workers and farmers, in favor of the establishment and the entrepreneurial class. A collapse of Polish industry was among the detrimental consequences of fundamental and lasting importance. Labor unions underwent further marginalization; Solidarity activity as a labor union, prioritized in the past, was now suppressed. On the positive side, the market price-income reform balanced the economy and brought inflation under control, the currency stabilized, shortages were eliminated and significant foreign investment began. The shock therapy solutions were often dictated by Western consultants, of whom Jeffrey Sachs was best known but also most criticized.
The striking electoral victory of Solidarity candidates in the limited elections, and the subsequent formation of the first non-communist government in the region in decades, encouraged many similar peaceful transitions from communist party rule in Central and Eastern Europe in the second half of 1989.
In December 1989, changes to the Polish constitution were made, officially eliminating the "socialist" order: Marxist references were removed and the name of the country was changed back to the Polish Republic.
Wałęsa, president of the Solidarity trade union, demanded early presidential elections. He was acting against the advice of his traditional Solidarity allies, intellectuals who were now running the government. Under pressure from the continuing worker unrest, Wałęsa declared himself a supporter of workers' interests, allegedly threatened by those whom he identified as communists (such as President Jaruzelski), or elitist political liberals (such as Prime Minister Mazowiecki). Wałęsa presented himself as a person of good conservative, Christian and nationalist credentials.
In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's president and was succeeded by Wałęsa, who won the 1990 presidential election. Lech Wałęsa's inauguration as president took place on 22 December 1990. He distanced himself from Wojciech Jaruzelski by accepting the prewar presidential insignia from President-in-Exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, who was stepping down. Wałęsa defeated Mazowiecki and in the second round Stanisław Tymiński, but under his presidency economic policy remained unchanged.
The historically communist Polish United Workers' Party dissolved itself in 1990 and transformed into the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. The German–Polish Border Treaty, signed in November 1990, resolved the sensitive for Prime Minister Mazowiecki and his government issue of recognition of Poland's western border by Germany, after the country's unification. The Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved on 1 July 1991; the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991 and the last post-Soviet troops left Poland in September 1993. On 27 October 1991, the first (since the 1920s) entirely free Polish parliamentary election took place. This completed Poland's transition from a communist party rule to a Western-style liberal democratic political system.
## See also
- Former eastern territories of Germany and Recovered Territories
- Cursed soldiers
- Polish People's Republic
- Administrative division of the Polish People's Republic
- Education in the Polish People's Republic
- Culture in the Polish People's Republic
- History of Solidarity
|
2,361,104 |
Drosera regia
| 1,121,246,106 |
Species of carnivorous plant in the family Droseraceaea endemic to a single valley in South Africa
|
[
"Carnivorous plants of Africa",
"Drosera",
"Endemic flora of South Africa",
"Plants described in 1926"
] |
Drosera regia, commonly known as the king sundew, is a carnivorous plant in the sundew genus Drosera that is endemic to a single valley in South Africa. The genus name Drosera comes from the Greek word droseros, meaning "dew-covered". The specific epithet regia is derived from the Latin for "royal", a reference to the "striking appearance" of the species. Individual leaves can reach 70 cm (28 in) in length. It has many unusual relict characteristics not found in most other Drosera species, including woody rhizomes, operculate pollen, and the lack of circinate vernation in scape growth. All of these factors, combined with molecular data from phylogenetic analysis, contribute to the evidence that D. regia possesses some of the most ancient characteristics within the genus. Some of these are shared with the related Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), which suggests a close evolutionary relationship.
The tentacle-covered leaves can capture large prey, such as beetles, moths, and butterflies. The tentacles of all Drosera species have special stalked glands on the leaf's upper surface that produce a sticky mucilage. The leaves are considered active flypaper traps that respond to captured prey by bending to surround it. In its native fynbos habitat, the plants compete for space with native marsh grasses and low evergreen shrubs. Of the two known populations of D. regia, the higher altitude site appears to be overgrown and is essentially extirpated. The lower altitude site is estimated to have about 50 mature plants, making it the most endangered Drosera species, since it is threatened with extinction in the wild. It is often cultivated by carnivorous plant enthusiasts, and a single cultivar has been registered.
## Description
Drosera regia plants are fairly large herbs that produce horizontal woody rhizomes and a crown of large, linear leaves up to 70 cm (28 in) long and 2 cm (0.8 in) wide. The leaves possess stalked glands (tentacles) on the upper surface of the lamina along nearly the entire length of the leaf. The leaves lack petioles and stipules, emerging by circinate vernation (uncurling) and tapering to a filiform point. The tentacles and the leaf itself are capable of responding to prey by bending toward insects trapped in the sticky mucilage produced by the glands. Leaves are even capable of folding over themselves several times. Each leaf can possess thousands of tentacles, which can aid in the retention of larger prey when combined with the leaf wrapping tightly around captured insects. In its native habitat, D. regia has been known to capture large beetles, moths and butterflies. Plants go dormant during the colder season and form a dormant bud, consisting of a tight cluster of short, immature leaves. Plants begin to break dormancy in mid-July with a typical growing season lasting from October to April, though this is variable and plants can continue growing year-round without dormancy. Individual leaves die back but remain attached to the short stem, clothing the bottom portion of the plant in the blackened dead leaves of former years.
The woody rhizomes produced by the plant are one of the unusual characteristics that it shares only with D. arcturi in the genus; the absence of woody rhizomes in all other Drosera is often cited as an indication of the presumed ancient lineage of D. regia and D. arcturi. Drosera regia also produces relatively few thick, fleshy roots, which possess root hairs along the terminal 15 cm (6 in). Asexual reproduction of mature plants usually occurs after flowering with new plants arising from the rhizome and roots. After a fire, undamaged roots will often re-sprout new plants.
Drosera regia flowers in January and February, producing scapes up to 40 cm (16 in) long. The scapes emerge vertically, lacking the circinate vernation of its leaves and all other scapes of the genus Drosera, with the exception of D. arcturi. The scapes consist of two primary branches and bear 5 to 20 (sometimes 30) unscented pink flowers with 2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in) long petals. Bracts are small, bearing some reduced tentacles. Each flower has three unbranched, spreading styles emerging from the top of the ovary and extending beyond the five erect stamens (15 mm long), which surround the ovary. This arrangement minimizes the chance of self-fertilisation. Studies have shown that the operculate pollen shed in tetrads (fused groups of four pollen grains), characteristics that are similar in the related Dionaea muscipula (the Venus flytrap) and Aldrovanda vesiculosa, is incompatible with clones, failing to produce seed when plants are self-fertilised. Seeds are brown to black, linear and ornamented with fine network-like markings, and 2 mm long and 0.5 mm in diameter. Seed is shed by the end of March.
The unusual characteristics that set it apart from other species in the genus include the woody rhizome, undivided styles, and the operculate pollen. Drosera regia shares other features with the robust Tasmanian form of D. arcturi, including the lack of stipules and petioles and the non-circinate growth of the scape.
It has a diploid chromosome number of 2n = 34, which is unusual for the genus Drosera and closer to the diploid chromosome number of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), another member of the Droseraceae. Variable chromosome counts for Dionaea from multiple studies include 2n = 30, 32, and 33. Of the Drosera species with known chromosome counts, most are a multiple of x = 10. Based on an extensive review of karyotype studies, the botanist Fernando Rivadavia suggested that the base chromosome number for the genus could be 2n = 20, a number that many Drosera species share including the widespread D. rotundifolia. Exceptions to this base number include the Australian, New Zealand and Southeast Asian Drosera, which have chromosome numbers ranging from 2n = 6 to 64.
## Distribution and habitat
Drosera regia is endemic to South Africa and has only ever been found at two sites at altitudes of 500 and 900 m (1,600 and 3,000 ft) in the Bainskloof Range near Wellington, Western Cape in South Africa. Despite extensive exploration, D. regia has not been found at any similar location in neighbouring valleys. Small morphological variations such as broader leaves have been recorded from these two small populations, which are restricted to an area of just a few hundred square meters. Drosera regia is found in a natural fynbos vegetation amongst dense marshy grasses. The fynbos habitat is similar to a low or medium shrubland or heathland, dominated by low evergreen shrubs.
The lower altitude site where D. regia is found is characterised by permanently damp soils consisting mostly of a gravel bench formed from a creek bed. The plants grow in a peaty quartzite sand, often with a gravel cover. Rhizomes of mature plants grow above ground and among associated grasses and sedges when gravel is absent and below ground when there is a gravel cover present. Associated vegetation included species of Leucadendron and members of the families Cyperaceae, Iridaceae, and Restionaceae. The habitat of D. regia depends on periodic fire sweeping through and keeping the larger plants from choking out D. regia. Frost occurs infrequently in the valley.
### Conservation status
In a 2009 report of a 2006 trip, botanist Andreas Fleischmann noted that the higher altitude site is overgrown with plants of the family Restionaceae and he could not locate any remaining D. regia. The lower altitude site was in a similar state, but he recorded approximately 50 mature plants, making this one of the most critically endangered Drosera species. While D. regia has not been evaluated under the current International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) standards for a rating on the Red List of Threatened Species, the International Carnivorous Plant Society recognised D. regia on their list of imperiled carnivorous plant species. Drosera regia was also listed as "rare" on an early IUCN report in 1997, but these earlier IUCN assessments were often poorly documented and are thus not relied upon today. Several other authors have identified how rare D. regia is in the wild, even calling it "threatened with extinction".
The short-term prognosis for natural populations of D. regia was greatly improved when a fire swept through its habitat in 2015. A team from Stellenbosch Botanical Gardens found new populations in the lower elevation zone and rediscovered plants in the higher elevation zone.
## Taxonomy and botanical history
Drosera regia was originally described by South African botanist Edith Layard Stephens in 1926. The binomial name Drosera regia is derived from the Greek word droseros, meaning "dew-covered" and the specific epithet regia comes from the Latin for "royal", a reference to what Stephens described as its "striking appearance". The genus is collectively referred to as the sundews, while Drosera regia is commonly referred to as the king sundew. Stephens was informed about this new species by Mr. J. Rennie, who had found several plants growing by a stream in the upper end of "Baviaans Kloof" on Easter in 1923. Additional specimens were located directly above this site on a plateau between South Ridge Peak and Observation Point. A second population was located in 1926 about 6.5 km (4 mi) away below the Slanghoek Peak near the headwaters of the Witte River.
Stephens placed D. regia in section Psychophila Planch., which at that time included D. arcturi, D. stenopetala, and D. uniflora, though she noted that the many-flowered inflorescence was unusual for this group. In 1970, the South African botanist Anna Amelia Obermeyer suggested that D. regia did not fit into any of the taxonomic groups established by Ludwig Diels in his 1906 monograph on the family. Obermeyer noted the unusual characteristics that set D. regia apart from any other Drosera species: the operculate pollen, circinate leaf vernation, undivided styles, and woody rhizomes. In 1994, Rüdiger Seine and Wilhelm Barthlott proposed classifying D. regia as the sole species in a new subgenus, Drosera subg. Regiae, to "give adequate recognition to the isolated position of D. regia within the genus." This taxonomic position was affirmed by Jan Schlauer in his dichotomous key and taxonomic revisions published in 1996. Also in 1996 two Czech researchers, Jindřich Chrtek and Zdeňka Slavíková, proposed changes to the taxonomy of the genus by splitting D. regia off into its own, monotypic genus, Freatulina. Chrtek and Slavíková cited the many morphological differences between D. regia and every other member of the genus Drosera in support of their decision to make this taxonomic split. They reaffirmed their taxonomic opinions in a 1999 article that also split the tuberous Drosera, members of the subgenus Ergaleium, to Johann Georg Christian Lehmann's resurrected genus Sondera. These taxonomic revisions, however, have not gained any support, being rejected or largely ignored by recent publications on the genus.
### Evolutionary relationships
Phylogenetic analysis of morphological characteristics and gene sequences has supported the basal position within the genus long suspected of D. regia, often regarded as the most ancient of all extant Drosera species. Its distinct morphology and unique relict characteristics, ones it likely shared with the common ancestor of all Drosera such as the operculate pollen, led early researchers to suggest its ancient position in the genus. The first cladistic analysis based on rbcL and morphological data confirmed these ideas and suggested that D. regia formed a clade sister to all other Drosera surveyed, with Dionaea muscipula forming a sister clade to all Drosera. Further analysis in 2002 based on the nuclear 18S rDNA, plastid DNA (rbcL, matK, atpB), and morphological data confirmed these relationships, supporting the basal position of D. regia in the genus and its close relationship with Dionaea and Aldrovanda. New analysis in 2003 revealed a close relationship between D. regia and D. arcturi, both of which clustered basally with respect to all other Drosera, suggesting a link between D. regia and all other Drosera through its relationship with D. arcturi.
Evidence for the evolution of "snap-traps" of Dionaea and Aldrovanda from a flypaper trap like D. regia has also emerged and been argued for based on molecular data. The molecular and physiological data implies that the Venus flytrap (Dionaea) and Aldrovanda snap-traps evolved from the flypaper traps of a common ancestor with the Drosera; the living evidence of a link between Drosera and Dionaea is D. regia and its remnant characteristics. In this evolutionary model, pre-adaptations to evolution into snap-traps were identified in several species of Drosera, such as rapid leaf and tentacle movement. The model proposes that plant carnivory by snap-trap evolved from the flypaper traps of Drosera, driven by increasing prey size. Larger prey can easily escape the sticky mucilage of flypaper traps; the evolution of snap-traps would largely prevent escape and kleptoparasitism (theft of prey captured by the plant before it can derive any benefit from it).
## Cultivation
Drosera regia cultivation was first attempted prior to the formal description of the species in 1926. The author, Edith Layard Stephens, reported the successful cultivation of D. regia, noting that such success required "a moist and comparatively cool atmosphere", similar to that of its native environment.
Drosera regia is often described as being a difficult species to cultivate, though modern reports on its cultivation have indicated which conditions have led to success for some. For optimal growth, D. regia appears to require good soil drainage and sufficient light levels, and prefers cooler temperatures. Cool nights and warm days have been reported to induce vigorous growth. Asexual propagation is frequently achieved through small root cuttings instead of leaf cuttings, which tend to rot before roots can form. Seed germination occurs as early as 10 days to 3 or 4 weeks with fresh seed, faster than many other Drosera species. Germination is phanerocotylar (non-glandular cotyledons exposed, free from seed coverings), with the first true leaves being alternate in arrangement.
In 2004, William Joseph Clemens registered the only cultivar of this species, D. regia 'Big Easy'. It is reputed to be more robust than other clones of the species and is also more compact with maximum leaf lengths of 23 cm (9 in). Under his culture conditions, 'Big Easy' has also never flowered or gone dormant. Clemens originally obtained his D. regia from a vendor at the International Carnivorous Plant Society conference held in 2000. After sufficient investigation, he registered the new cultivar in a 2004 issue of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, the quarterly publication of the International Carnivorous Plant Society.
|
21,060,373 |
Lactifluus volemus
| 1,158,669,119 |
Species of edible fungus in the family Russulaceae widely distributed in the northern hemisphere
|
[
"Edible fungi",
"Fungi described in 1753",
"Fungi of Asia",
"Fungi of Central America",
"Fungi of Europe",
"Fungi of North America",
"Lactifluus",
"Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus",
"Taxa named by Elias Magnus Fries"
] |
Lactifluus volemus, formerly known as Lactarius volemus, is a species of fungus in the family Russulaceae. It is widely distributed in the northern hemisphere, in temperate regions of Europe, North America and Asia as well as some subtropical and tropical regions of Central America and Asia. A mycorrhizal fungus, its fruit bodies grow on the ground at the base of various species of trees from summer to autumn, either individually or in groups. It is valued as an edible mushroom, and is sold in markets in Asia. Several other Lactifluus mushrooms resemble L. volemus, such as the closely related edible species L. corrugis, but these can be distinguished by differences in distribution, visible morphology, and microscopic characteristics. L. volemus produces a white spore print and has roughly spherical spores about 7–8 micrometres in diameter.
The colour of the L. volemus mushroom varies from apricot to tawny, and the cap may be up to 11 cm (4+1⁄2 in) wide. The pale golden yellow gills on the underside of the cap are closely spaced and sometimes forked. One of the mushroom's most distinctive features is the large amount of latex ("milk") that it exudes when the gills are damaged, leading to the common names weeping milk cap and voluminous-latex milky. It also has a distinctive fishy smell, which does not affect the taste. The fruit bodies have been chemically analysed and found to contain several sterols related to ergosterol, some of which are unique to this species. The mushroom also contains a natural rubber that has been chemically characterized. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Lactifluus volemus represents several species or subspecies, rather than a single taxon.
## Taxonomy and naming
The first mention of Lactifluus volemus in the scientific literature was in Carl Linnaeus's 1753 Species Plantarum, under the name Agaricus lactifluus. In 1821, Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries called it Agaricus volemus in his Systema Mycologicum. In this work he proposed a grouping of related species (called a tribus, or tribe) within the genus Agaricus, which he named Galorrheus. Fries later recognised Lactarius as a distinct genus in his 1838 Epicrisis Systematis Mycologici, citing Galorrheus as a synonym. Although Linnaeus had published the species before Fries, Fries's name is sanctioned and thus has nomenclatural priority. In 1871 Paul Kummer raised most of Fries's tribes to generic rank, and so renamed the species Galorrheus volemus. The variety L. volemus var. subrugosus was identified by Charles Horton Peck in 1879, but is now classified as a separate species, L. corrugis. In 1891, Otto Kuntze moved the species into Lactifluus, which was afterwards long considered a synonym of Lactarius but confirmed as a separate genus through molecular phylogenetics in 2008 and subsequent taxonomical rearrangements within the family Russulaceae.
Another historical synonym is Lactarius lactifluus, used by Lucien Quélet in 1886, a renaming based on Linnaeus's Agaricus lactifluus. Lactarius wangii, reported by Hua-An Wen and Jian-Zhe Ying to be a new species from China in 2005, was synonymised two years later with L. volemus.
The specific epithet "volemus" is derived from the Latin vola, meaning "the hollow of the hand", suggestive of Fries's reference to the large amount of latex "flowing enough to fill the hand". Common names for L. volemus include the weeping milk cap, the tawny milkcap, the orange-brown milky, the voluminous-latex milky, the lactarius orange, the fishy milkcap, and the apricot milk cap. In the West Virginian mountains of the United States, the mushroom is called a "leatherback" or a "bradley". The latter name may originate from its German name Brätling.
## Phylogeny
Lactifluus volemus was the type species of the section Dulces in subgenus Lactarius, and is currently classified in Lactifluus section Lactifluus. The group around this L. volemus includes species with a dry cap, abundant latex, and a white or pale cream spore print. Because the closely related L. corrugis has overlapping morphological characters, including similar colouration in the cap and stem, it has been difficult to reliably distinguish between the two species. The difficulty in discerning the two is exacerbated by the fact that both species have several colour forms: Japanese specimens of L. volemus may have a red cap, a yellow cap with a long stem, or a velvet-like surface texture; the caps of L. corrugis may be either red, commonly rust-coloured. In 2005, Japanese researchers clarified the relationships between these two species and others in section Dulces using molecular phylogenetics, and by comparing differences in fatty acid composition, morphology, and taste. The colour variants group phylogenetically into different subclades, suggesting that they might better be considered as "different species, subspecies, or varieties". A 2010 molecular study of L. volemus of northern Thailand found that 79 tested specimens could be divided into 18 distinct phylogenetic species; six of these were described as new species: Lactifluus acicularis, L. crocatus, L. distantifolius, L. longipilus, L. pinguis and L. vitellinus.
## Description
### Macromorphology
The fruit body of Lactifluus volemus has a fleshy and firm cap with a velvety or smooth surface and a shape that changes with maturity: it starts off convex, with edges curved inwards, then later grows flat with a depression in the middle. With a typical diameter of 5 to 11 cm (2–4+1⁄2 in), its colour ranges from apricot to tawny. The cap colouration, however, is somewhat variable, as has been noted in Asian, European, and North American specimens. The stem, whose height varies between 4 and 12 cm (1+1⁄2 and 5 in), and which is typically between 1 and 1.5 cm (0.4 and 0.6 in) thick, has a slightly lighter colouration than the cap. It is firm, with a velvety or smooth surface that sometimes has depressions running longitudinally up and down its length. The gills are adnate to slightly decurrent, brittle, narrow, quite closely spaced and sometimes forked. Normally a pale golden yellow colour, the gills turn brown when bruised. Interspersed between the gills are lamellulae, short gills that do not extend to the stem. The flesh is whitish and firm. The mushroom smells somewhat fishy; one source suggests the odour is "like a dead shad, which anglers will tell you is probably the most malodorous freshwater fish". The odour is concentrated when the fruit bodies are dried. One of the mushroom's most distinctive features is the abundant latex, so plentiful that a small nick on the gills will cause it to "weep" the milky substance. The latex tends to impart brown stains on whatever it contacts.
### Micromorphology
The spore print is whitish. The spores are roughly spherical, translucent (hyaline), and typically measure 7.5–10.0 by 7.5–9.0 μm. The spore surface is reticulate—covered with ridges that form a complete network. The ridges are up to 0.8 μm high and have conspicuous projections up to 1.2 μm high. The spore-bearing cells of the hymenium, the basidia, are club-shaped, hyaline, four-spored, and have dimensions of 40–62 by 7.2–10.4 μm. Interspersed among the basidia are sterile cells called cystidia. The pleurocystidia (cystidia on the side of a gill) are roughly spindle- to club-shaped, and measure 48–145 by 5–13 μm. The cheilocystidia (cystidia on the edge of a gill) may be spindle-, club-, or awl-shaped (subulate), or intermediate in between these forms, and measure 27–60 by 5–7 μm. Additionally, there are cystidia present on both the surface of the cap and the stem. If a drop of ferric sulphate (used as a chemical test in mushroom identification) is applied to the mushroom flesh, it will immediately stain dark bluish-green.
### Varieties
The variety Lactifluus volemus var. flavus was described by Alexander H. Smith and Lexemuel Ray Hesler in their 1979 monograph of North American Lactarius species. This rare variety, found in the southeastern United States (ranging from South Carolina to Florida and extending west to Texas), has a cap that stays yellow throughout its development. It also has slightly smaller spores than the regular variety: 6.5–9.0 by 6–8 μm. It is also a good edible. Some authors have considered the rarely collected L. volemus var. oedematopus, found in central and southern Europe, to be a distinct variety distinguished from the common variety by a darker reddish-brown cap and a swollen stem. This assessment is not universally accepted, possibly because it falls within the range of morphological variation shown by the main variety. L. volemus var. asiaticus was named in 2004 based on Vietnamese specimens; associating with Khasi pine (Pinus khasya), it has small, dull brown, velvety fruit bodies. In general, little taxonomical significance has been ascribed to the several varieties of L. volemus that have been proposed.
### Similar species
Lactifluus volemus is closely related to L. corrugis, and generally similar in appearance. L. corrugis usually has more surface wrinkles, darker gills, weaker or absent scent, and less orange colouration; however, intermediate colour forms can be found. The two can be distinguished more definitively by microscopic characteristics: L. corrugis has larger spores—typically 10.4–12.8 by 9.6–11.8 μm—with a coarser surface reticulum, and larger pleurocystidia. The species Lactifluus austrovolemus is closely related, but has more crowded gills, while L. lamprocystidiatus can only be reliably distinguished from L. volemus by microscopic characteristics: the reticulations on its spores are taller and more acute, and the meshes formed by the intersections of the reticulations are smaller. Both L. austrovolemus and L. lamprocystidiatus are known only from Papua New Guinea. Lactifluus hygrophoroides also resembles L. volemus, but differs in having widely spaced gills, and spores that lack surface reticulations.
Some species of the genus Lactarius are also similar: The tropical African Lactarius chromospermus has a superficial resemblance to L. volemus, but the former species, in addition to its African distribution, can be identified by its cinnamon-brown spore print—unique in the Russulaceae. Lactarius subvelutinus is also similar to L. volemus, but lacks the fishy odour, has a dull yellow-orange to bright golden orange cap, narrow gills, and a white latex that does not change colour.
## Edibility and other uses
Despite the unappealing fishy scent that develops after the mushroom is picked, Lactifluus volemus is edible and recommended for culinary usage, though, typical of milk caps, it has a slightly granular texture that some may find unappetizing. The odor disappears during cooking. The latex only has a mild taste. The species is considered good for novice mushroom hunters to eat, and is best prepared by slow cooking to prevent it from becoming too hard; specimens that have been rehydrated after having been dried will require longer cooking times to eliminate the grainy texture. The mushroom has also been suggested for use in casseroles and thick sauces. Pan frying is not a recommended cooking technique, due to the large amounts of latex it exudes. L. volemus is one of several species of milk caps that are sold in rural markets in Yunnan Province, China, and it is among the most popular wild edible mushroom species collected for consumption and sale in Nepal. In their 2009 book on milk caps of North America, Bessette and colleagues consider the mushroom "the best-known and most popular edible milk mushroom" in the eastern United States. A Turkish study of the nutritional composition of the fruit bodies concluded that L. volemus is a good source of protein and carbohydrates.
Two elderly people developed a transient pancreatitis after consuming L. volemus in central Anatolia in Turkey. Both had eaten the mushroom, which they knew as Tirmit, many times before. The condition resolved spontaneously.
### Bioactive compounds
Fruit bodies contains a unique sterol molecule called volemolide, a derivative of the common fungal sterol ergosterol that may have application in fungal chemotaxonomy. A 2001 study identified a further nine sterols, three of which were previously unknown to science. According to the authors, these types of highly oxygenated compounds—similar to sterols found in marine soft coral and sponges—are rare in fungi. The mushroom also contains volemitol (D-glycero-D-mannoheptitol), a seven-carbon sugar alcohol first isolated from the species by the French scientist Émile Bourquelot in 1889. Volemitol occurs as a free sugar in many plant and brown algal species.
Due to their natural polyisoprene content (1.1–7.7% by dry weight of fruit bodies), L. volemus fruit bodies can also be used to produce rubber. The chemical structure of rubber from the mushroom consists of a high molecular mass homologue of polyprenol, arranged as a dimethylallyl group, two trans isoprene units, a long sequence of cis isoprenes (between 260 and 300 units), terminated by a hydroxyl or fatty acid ester. Biosynthetically, the creation of the polyisoprene begins with the compound trans,trans-farnesyl pyrophosphate, and is thought to terminate by esterification of polyisoprenyl pyrophosphate. The enzyme isopentenyl-diphosphate delta isomerase has been identified as required for the initiation of rubber synthesis in L. volemus and several other milk cap species.
## Ecology, distribution, and habitat
Like all milk caps, L. volemus forms ectomycorrhizae, mutually beneficial symbiotic associations with various tree species. In this association, the fungal hyphae grow around the root of the plant and between its cortical cells, but do not actually penetrate them. The hyphae extend outward into the soil, increasing the surface area for absorption to help the plant absorb nutrients from the soil. It is found growing at the base of both coniferous and broad-leaved trees, although it is more common in deciduous woods. It may also sometimes be found in peat moss beds. The fruit bodies, which appear between summer and autumn, are common. They can be found growing solitarily or in groups, and are more abundant in weather that is warm and humid.
Fruit bodies can be inhabited by species of limoniid flies, such as Discobola marginata or Limonia yakushimensis, as well as several species of fungi-dwelling mites. The flies are hosts for the mites in a symbiotic association known as phoresis, whereby the mites are mechanically carried by its host. Mites are small and unable to migrate the relatively long distances between mushrooms without assistance; the insect hosts, in comparison, are large and can transfer the mites between their preferred feeding habitats.
Lactifluus volemus is found in warm temperate regions and as well as some subtropical and tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The fungus is widely distributed throughout Europe, although it is in decline in some countries, and has become rare enough in the Netherlands (and Flanders) to be considered locally extinct. In the Americas, the northern limit of its distribution reaches southern Canada east of the Great Plains, and the species extends south to the East Coast of the United States and Mexico, and beyond into Central America (Guatemala). It is also known from Asia, including China (Qinling Mountains, Guizhou Province, and Yunnan Province), Japan, India, Korea, Nepal, and Vietnam. Collections have also been made from the Middle East, including Iran and Turkey.
## See also
- List of Lactifluus species
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White-winged fairywren
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Australian species of bird
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[
"Birds described in 1824",
"Endemic birds of Australia",
"Malurus",
"Taxa named by Charles Dumont de Sainte-Croix",
"Taxonomy articles created by Polbot"
] |
The white-winged fairywren (Malurus leucopterus) is a species of passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It lives in the drier parts of Central Australia; from central Queensland and South Australia across to Western Australia. Like other fairywrens, this species displays marked sexual dimorphism and one or more males of a social group grow brightly coloured plumage during the breeding season. The female is sandy-brown with light-blue tail feathers; it is smaller than the male, which, in breeding plumage, has a bright-blue body, black bill, and white wings. Younger sexually mature males are almost indistinguishable from females and are often the breeding males. In spring and summer, a troop of white-winged fairywrens has a brightly coloured older male accompanied by small, inconspicuous brown birds, many of which are also male. Three subspecies are recognised. Apart from the mainland subspecies, one is found on Dirk Hartog Island, and another on Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia. Males from these islands have black rather than blue breeding plumage.
The white-winged fairywren mainly eats insects, supplementing this with small fruits and leaf buds. It occurs in heathland and arid scrubland, where low shrubs provide cover. Like other fairywrens, it is a cooperative breeding species, and small groups of birds maintain and defend territories year-round. Groups consist of a socially monogamous pair with several helper birds who assist in raising the young. These helpers are progeny that have attained sexual maturity but remain with the family group for one or more years after fledging. Although not yet confirmed genetically, the white-winged fairywren may be promiscuous and assist in raising the young from other pairings. As part of a courtship display, the male wren plucks petals from flowers and displays them to female birds.
## Taxonomy and systematics
A specimen of the white-winged fairywren was first collected by French naturalists Jean René Constant Quoy and Joseph Paul Gaimard in September 1818, on Louis de Freycinet's voyage around the Southern Hemisphere. The specimen was subsequently lost in a shipwreck, but a painting entitled Mérion leucoptère by Jacques Arago survived and led to the bird's description in 1824 by French ornithologist Charles Dumont de Sainte-Croix. The name for the species was derived from the Ancient Greek leuko- "white" and pteron "wing".
Ironically, the original specimen was of the black-plumaged subspecies from Dirk Hartog Island, which was not recorded again for 80 years. Meanwhile, the widespread blue-plumaged subspecies was discovered and described as two separate species by John Gould in 1865. He called one specimen collected from inland New South Wales the white-winged superb warbler (M. cyanotus), while another, which appeared to have a white back and wings, was described as the white-backed superb warbler (M. leuconotus). It was not until the early 20th century that both of these blue-plumaged mainland forms were found to be of a single species. George Mack, ornithologist of the National Museum of Victoria, considered the specific name leuconotus to take precedence in his 1934 revision of the genus, and more recent studies have followed suit. The back region between the shoulders is in fact bare, with feathers that arise from the shoulder (scapular) region and sweep inwards in different patterns. This variation confused the early naturalists who described the white-backed and blue-backed species.
The white-winged fairywren was often referred to as the blue-and-white wren, and early observers, such as Norman Favaloro of Victoria, refer to them by this name. However, like other fairywrens, the white-winged fairywren is unrelated to the true wren (family Troglodytidae). Other alternative names used include the white-backed fairywren, white-backed wren and white-winged wren. It was previously classified as a member of the Old World flycatcher family, Muscicapidae, and later as a member of the warbler family, Sylviidae, before they were placed in the newly recognised Australasian wren family, Maluridae, in 1975. More recently, DNA analysis has shown the family Maluridae to be related to the family Meliphagidae (honeyeaters), and the Pardalotidae (pardalotes, scrubwrens, thornbills, gerygones and allies) in the large superfamily Meliphagoidea.
The white-winged fairywren is one of eleven species in the genus Malurus. It is most closely related to the Australian red-backed fairywren, with which it makes up a phylogenetic clade with the white-shouldered fairywren of New Guinea as the next closest relative. Termed the bicoloured wrens by ornithologist Richard Schodde, these three species are notable for their lack of head patterns and ear tufts and their uniform black or blue plumage with contrasting shoulder or wing colour; they replace each other geographically across northern Australia and New Guinea.
### Subspecies
There are three recognised subspecies. Both black-plumaged forms have been called the black-and-white fairywren and black-and-white wren.
- M. l. leucopterus - Dumont, 1824 Range of the nominate subspecies is restricted to Dirk Hartog Island, off the western coast of Australia, and nuptial males display black-and-white plumage. This subspecies is the smallest of the three and bears a proportionally longer tail. It was collected again in 1916 by Tom Carter, 98 years after de Freycinet's expedition collected the type specimen.
- M. l. edouardi - Campbell, A.J, 1901: Originally described as a separate species, this subspecies, like the nominate subspecies, have black-and-white coloured males, but are found only on Barrow Island, also off the western coast of Australia. Birds of this subspecies are larger than those of the nominate subspecies but have a shorter tail. The female has a more cinnamon tinge to her plumage than the grey-brown of the other two subspecies.
- Blue-and-white fairywren (M. l. leuconotus) - Gould, 1865: Originally described as a separate species, it is endemic to mainland Australia and distinct in that it is the only subspecies to have nuptial males that show prominent blue-and-white plumage. The scientific name of this subspecies is derived from the Ancient Greek leukos 'white' and notos 'back'. Birds in the southern parts of its range tend to be smaller than those in the north.
M. l. leucopterus and M. l. edouardi are both generally smaller than their mainland relatives, and both subspecies tend to have smaller family groups that consist of only one male and one female, with an occasional helper bird. While the island subspecies and mainland species have been found to have similar social structure, breeding pairs on both islands have, on average, smaller clutches, longer incubation times, and fewer live fledglings. Additionally, while M. l. leuconotus is considered of least concern by the IUCN due to its widespread occurrence, both island subspecies are considered vulnerable by the Australian government due to their delicate nesting sites that are easily disturbed by human construction and habitation.
### Evolutionary history
Both island subspecies are nearer in genetic distance to mainland populations of leuconotus than to each other; Dirk Hartog Island is 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the mainland while Barrow Island is 56 kilometres (35 mi) from the mainland. Gene flow between the populations existed at the beginning of the present interglacial period, some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, at a time when sea levels were lower and both islands connected with the mainland.
There are three theories as to how the three races of white-winged fairywren could have evolved. The first suggests that black-and-white plumage is an ancestral condition and, following separation of the three populations, blue-and-white plumage evolved in the mainland species. The second hypothesis suggests that black-and-white plumage evolved convergently on the two separate islands. The third suggests that black-and-white plumage evolved once from the blue-and-white ancestral condition, and later the mainland species re-evolved blue plumage.
The distribution of the three bi-coloured fairywren species indicates their ancestors lived across New Guinea and northern Australia in a period when sea levels were lower and the two regions were joined by a land bridge. Populations became separated as sea levels rose, and New Guinea birds evolved into the white-shouldered fairywren, and Australian forms into the red-backed fairywren and the arid-adapted white-winged fairywren.
## Description
Measuring 11 to 13.5 centimetres (4.3 to 5.3 in) in length, white-winged fairywrens are one of the two smallest species of Malurus. Males typically weigh between 7.2 and 10.9 grams (0.25 and 0.38 oz) while females weigh between 6.8 and 11 grams (0.24 and 0.39 oz). Averaging 8.5 mm (0.3 in) in males and 8.4 mm (0.3 in) in females, the bill is relatively long, narrow and pointed and wider at the base. Wider than it is deep, the bill is similar in shape to those of other birds that feed by probing for or picking insects off their environs. It is finer and more pointed in this species than in other fairywrens.
Fully mature adults are sexually dimorphic, with the male being larger and differing in colour from the female. The adult female is sandy-brown with a very light blue tail, and a pinkish buff bill. The male in breeding plumage has a black bill, white wings and shoulders, and a wholly cobalt blue or black body (depending on subspecies). These contrasting white feathers are especially highlighted in flight and ground displays in breeding season. The male in eclipse plumage resembles the female, though it may be distinguished by its darker bill. Both sexes have long, slender, distinct tails held at an upward angle from their bodies. Measuring around 6.25 centimetres (2.46 in), the tail feathers have a white fringe, which disappears with wear.
Nestlings, fledglings, and juveniles have brown plumage and pink-brown bills with shorter tails than adults. Young males develop blue tail feathers and darker bills by late summer or autumn (following a spring or summer breeding season), while young females develop light blue tails. By the subsequent spring, all males are fertile and have developed cloacal protuberances, which store sperm. In contrast, during the breeding season, fertile females develop oedematous brood patches, which are bare areas on their bellies. Males entering their second or third year may develop spotty blue and white plumage during the breeding season. By their fourth year, males have assumed their nuptial plumage, where the scapulars, secondary wing coverts, and secondary flight feathers are white while the rest of their bodies are a vibrant cobalt blue. All sexually mature males moult twice a year, once before the breeding season in winter or spring, and again afterwards in autumn; rarely, a male may moult directly from nuptial to nuptial plumage. The breeding males' blue plumage, particularly the ear-coverts, is highly iridescent due to the flattened and twisted surface of the barbules. The blue plumage also reflects ultraviolet light strongly, and so may be even more prominent to other fairywrens, whose colour vision extends into this part of the spectrum.
### Vocalisations
In 1980, Tideman characterised five different patterns of calls among Malurus leucopterus leuconotus; these were recognised by Pruett and Jones among the island subspecies M. l. edouardi. The main call is a reel made by both sexes in order to establish territory and unify the group. It is a long song of "rising and falling notes" that is first signaled by 3–5 chip notes. Although seemingly weak in sound, the reel carries a long way above the stunted shrubland. A harsh trit call is often used to establish contact (especially between mothers and their young) and to raise alarm; it is characterised by a series of "loud and abrupt" calls that vary in frequency and intensity. Adults will use a high-pitched peep that may be made intermittently with reels as a contact call to birds that are more distant. Nestlings, fledglings, and females around the nest will use high pips—quiet, high-pitched, and short calls. When used by a mature female, they are mixed with harsh calls. Nestlings may also make "gurgling" noises when they are being fed. The subordinate helpers and feeders may also make this sound.
## Distribution and habitat
The white-winged fairywren is well adapted to dry environments, and M.l. leuconotus is found throughout arid and semi-arid environments between latitudes 19 and 32<sup>o</sup>S in mainland Australia. It occupies coastal Western Australia from around Port Hedland south to Perth, and stretches eastwards over to Mount Isa in Queensland, and along the western parts of the Great Dividing Range through central Queensland and central western New South Wales, into the northwestern corner of Victoria and the Eyre Peninsula and across the Nullarbor. It commonly cohabits with other species of fairywren, including the purple-backed fairy-wren (M. lamberti assimilis). White-winged fairywrens often inhabit heathlands or treeless shrublands dominated by saltbush (Atriplex) and small shrubs of the genus Maireana, or grasses such as tussock grass (Triodia) and cane-grass (Zygochloa), as well as floodplain areas vegetated with lignum (Muehlenbeckia florulenta). M. l. leucopterus inhabits similar habitats on Dirk Hartog Island and M. l. edouardi does the same on Barrow Island. The white-winged fairywren is replaced to the north of its range on mainland Australia by the red-backed fairywren.
## Behaviour and ecology
The usual form of locomotion is hopping, with both feet leaving the ground and landing simultaneously. However, birds may run when performing the rodent-run display. Its balance is assisted by a proportionally large tail, which is usually held upright and rarely still. The short, rounded wings provide good initial lift and are useful for short flights, though not for extended jaunts.
White-winged fairywrens live in complex social groups. Clans consist of 2–4 birds, typically one brown or partially blue male and a breeding female. Nest helpers are birds raised in previous years which remain with the family group after fledging and assist in raising young; they may be male that have retained their brown plumage, or female. Birds in a group roost side-by-side in dense cover and engage in mutual preening. Several subgroups live within one territory and make up a clan, which is presided over by one blue (or black) male who assumes breeding plumage. While the blue male is dominant to the rest of the brown and partially blue males within his clan, he nests with only one female and contributes to the raising of only her young. It is unclear whether or not he fathers young in any of the other nests within his territory.
Each clan has a specified area of land that all members contribute to foraging from and defending. Frequently, territory sizes, normally 4 to 6 hectares (10 to 15 acres), are correlated with the abundance of rain and resources in a region; smaller territories occur where insects and resources are plentiful. Additionally, the feeding territories are larger during the winter months when these birds spend much of their time foraging with the entire clan. White-winged fairywrens occupy much larger territories than other fairywren species.
Observed in this species, the wing-fluttering display is seen in several situations: females responding, and presumably acquiescing, to male courtship displays, juveniles begging for food, by helpers to older birds, and immature males to senior ones. The fairywren lowers its head and tail, outstretches and quivers its wings and holds its beak open silently.
Both the male and female adult white-winged fairywren may utilise a rodent-run display to distract predators from nests with young birds. The head, neck and tail are lowered, the wings are held out and the feathers are fluffed as the bird runs rapidly and voices a continuous alarm call.
### Courtship and breeding
Fairywrens exhibit one of the highest incidences of extra-pair mating, and many broods are brought up a by male who is not the natural father. However, courtship methods among white-winged fairywrens remain unclear. Blue-plumaged males have been seen outside of their territory and in some cases, carrying pink or purple petals, which among other species advertise the male to neighboring females. In contrast, black-plumaged males on Barrow and Dirk Hartog islands often carry blue petals. While petal-carrying outside of clan territories strongly suggests mating with other females is occurring, further genetic analysis is necessary.
During another courtship display the male bows deeply forward facing the female, reaching the ground with his bill and spreading and flattening his plumage in a near-horizontal plane for up to 20 seconds. In this pose, the white plumage forms a striking white band across his darker plumage.
Breeding females begin to build their nests in the spring and construct domed structures composed of spider webs, fine grasses, thistle-down, and vegetable-down, typically 6 to 14 centimetres (2.4 to 5.5 in) tall and 3 to 9 millimetres (0.12 to 0.35 in) thick. Each nest has a small entrance on one side and they are normally placed in thick shrubs close to the ground. A clutch of 3–4 eggs is generally laid anywhere from September to January, with incubation lasting around 14 days. The white-winged fairywren generally breeds in the spring in the southwest of Western Australia, but is more opportunistic in arid regions of central and northern Australia, with breeding recorded almost any month after a period of rainfall. Incubation is by the breeding female alone, while the breeding male (a brown or blue male) and nest helpers aid in feeding the nestlings and removing their fecal sacs. The newly hatched nestlings are altricial, gaping immediately for food, and developing downy feather tracts and opening their eyes by the third or fourth day. Nestlings remain in the nest for 10–11 days, and fledglings continue to be fed for 3–4 weeks following their departure from the nest. Fledglings then either stay on to help raise the next brood or move to a nearby territory. It is not unusual for a pair bond to hatch and raise two broods in one breeding season, and helpers tend to lessen the stress on the breeding female rather than increase the overall number of feedings. Like other fairywrens, the white-winged fairywren is particularly prone to parasitic nesting by the Horsfield's bronze cuckoo (Chalcites basalis). Parasitism by the shining bronze cuckoo (C. lucidus) and black-eared cuckoo (C. osculans) is rarely recorded.
### Feeding
The white-winged fairywren is primarily insectivorous; its diet includes small beetles, bugs, moths, praying mantises, caterpillars, and smaller insects, as well as spiders. The larger insects are typically fed to nestlings by the breeding female and her helpers, including the breeding male. Adults and juveniles forage by hopping along the shrubland floor, and may supplement their diets with seeds and fruits of saltbush (Rhagodia), goosefoot (Chenopodium) and new shoots of samphire. During spring and summer, birds are active in bursts through the day and accompany their foraging with song. Insects are numerous and easy to catch, which allows the birds to rest between forays. The group often shelters and rests together during the heat of the day. Food is harder to find during winter and they are required to spend the day foraging continuously.
### Threats
Adults and their young may be preyed upon by mammalian predators, such as the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) or the feral cat (Felis catus), and native predatory birds, such as the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), butcherbird species (Cracticus spp.), laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), currawongs (Strepera spp.), crows and ravens (Corvus spp.), shrike-thrushes (Colluricincla spp.) and reptiles such as goannas. Another threat to the birds is from humans; many nests are trampled on (even by the occasional bird watcher) during breeding season because the nests are hidden close to the ground and therefore difficult for passers-by to spot.
|
4,313,479 |
Japanese aircraft carrier Hiyō
| 1,170,076,215 |
Hiyō-class aircraft carrier
|
[
"1941 ships",
"Aircraft carriers sunk by aircraft",
"Hiyō-class aircraft carriers",
"Maritime incidents in June 1943",
"Maritime incidents in June 1944",
"Ships built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries",
"Ships sunk by US aircraft",
"World War II aircraft carriers of Japan",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Philippine Sea"
] |
Hiyō (飛鷹, "Flying Hawk") was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Originally planned as the ocean liner Izumo Maru (出雲丸) in 1939, she was purchased by the Navy Ministry in 1941 for conversion to an aircraft carrier. Completed shortly after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, she participated in the Guadalcanal campaign, but missed the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October because of an electrical generator fire.
The carrier's aircraft were disembarked several times and used from land bases in battles in the South West Pacific. Hiyō was torpedoed in mid-1943 and spent three months under repair. She spent most of the next six months training and ferrying aircraft before returning to combat. She was sunk by a gasoline-vapour explosion caused by an American torpedo hit during the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 20 June 1944 with the loss of 247 officers and ratings, about a fifth of her complement.
## Design and description
The ship was ordered as the fast luxury passenger liner Izumo Maru by Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Mail Steamship Company) in late 1938. In exchange for a 60 per cent subsidy of her building costs by the Navy Ministry, she was designed to be converted to an aircraft carrier in the event of war. The designs of Izumo Maru and her sister ship Kashiwara Maru were based on the German ocean liner SS Bremen, although they were only about half that ship's size at 27,700 gross register tons (GRT). If completed as designed, they would have been the largest ocean liners in Japan. The ships were designed to carry a total of 890 passengers; 220 first class, 120 second class and 550 third class.
After her conversion, Hiyō had a length of 220 metres (721 ft 9 in) overall. She had a beam of 26.7 metres (87 ft 7 in) and a draught of 8.15 metres (26 ft 9 in). She displaced 24,150 tonnes (23,770 long tons) at standard load. Her crew ranged from 1,187 to 1,224 officers and ratings.
The ship was fitted with a pair of Mitsubishi-Curtis geared steam turbine sets with a total of 56,250 shaft horsepower (41,950 kW), each driving one propeller, using steam provided by six Kawasaki-LaMont boilers. Hiyō had a designed speed of 25.5 knots (47.2 km/h; 29.3 mph) and slightly exceeded that during sea trials. The ship carried enough fuel oil to give her a range of 11,700 nautical miles (21,700 km; 13,500 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph).
### Flight deck arrangements
Hiyō's flight deck was 210.3 metres (690 ft) long and had a maximum width of 27.3 metres (89 ft 7 in). The ship was designed with two superimposed hangars, each approximately 153 metres (502 ft) long, 15 metres (49 ft) wide and 5 metres (16 ft) high. Each hangar could be subdivided by four fire curtains and they had fire fighting foam dispensers on each side. The hangars were served by two aircraft lifts.
Her air group was initially intended to consist of 12 Mitsubishi A5M "Claude" fighters, plus four in storage, 18 Aichi D3A "Val" dive bombers, plus two in storage, and 18 Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpedo bombers. This was revised to substitute a dozen Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters and three in storage for the A5Ms by the time the ship was commissioned in 1942. As a result of the lessons learnt from the Battle of Midway in June, the fighter complement was increased to 21 Zeros and the B5Ns were reduced to 9. By the end of the year, 6 more Zeros replaced an equal number of D3As, giving totals of 27 A6Ms, 12 D3As and 9 B5Ns. Although it was possible to fit all these aircraft into the hangars, 8 or 9 were usually stored on the flight deck to reduce congestion below decks.
### Armour, armament and sensors
As a conversion from an ocean liner, it was not possible to add much armour, although the ship had a double hull. Two plates of Ducol steel, each 25 millimetres (1 in) thick, protected the sides of the ship's machinery spaces. The ship's aviation gasoline tanks and magazines were protected by one layer of Ducol steel. Her machinery spaces were further subdivided by transverse and longitudinal bulkheads to limit any flooding.
The ship's primary armament consisted of a dozen 12.7-centimetre (5 in) Type 89 dual-purpose guns in twin mounts on sponsons along the sides of the hull. Hiyō was also initially equipped with eight triple mounts for 2.5 cm Type 96 light AA guns alongside the flight deck. This was the standard Japanese light AA gun during World War II but it suffered from severe design shortcomings that rendered it a largely ineffective weapon. According to historian Mark Stille, the twin and triple mounts "lacked sufficient speed in train or elevation; the gun sights were unable to handle fast targets; the gun exhibited excessive vibration; the magazine was too small, and, finally, the gun produced excessive muzzle blast". In early 1943, four more triple mounts were added and another four triple mounts were added late in the year. Two of these last four mounts were mounted on the stern and the others were placed in front of and behind the island. A dozen single mounts were also added, some of which were portable and could be mounted on tie-down points on the flight deck.
Two Type 94 high-angle fire-control directors, one on each side of the ship, were fitted to control the Type 89 guns. Four Type 95 directors controlled the 2.5 cm guns and another pair were added in early 1943. Early warning was provided by two Type 2, Mark 2, Model 1 early-warning radars. The first of these was mounted on the top of the island shortly before she was completed in July 1942 and the other was added later in the year. This latter system was fitted on the port side of the hull, outboard of the aft lift. A smaller Type 3, Mark 1, Model 3 early-warning radar was added in 1944.
## Construction and career
Hiyō was laid down on 30 November 1939 by Kawasaki on Slipway No. 4 at their shipyard in Kobe. She was yard number 660 and had the name Izumo Maru. The ship was purchased on 10 February 1941 by the Navy Ministry and she was temporarily referred to as No. 1002 Ship (Dai 1002 bankan) to keep her conversion secret. She was launched on 24 June 1941 and commissioned on 31 July 1942 with Captain Akitomo Beppu in command.
The ship was assigned to the Second Carrier Division of the 1st Air Fleet after commissioning and became flagship of Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuta on 12 August. After spending the next few months working up, Hiyō arrived at Truk, together with her sister Jun'yō, on 9 October, to begin operations against American forces in the Guadalcanal area as part of the 3rd Fleet. On the night of 16 October, the two carriers were ordered to attack the American transports off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal, and they moved south to their launching point 180 nautical miles (330 km; 210 mi) north of Lunga. At 05:15 local each ship launched nine A6M Zeros and nine B5Ns. One of Jun'yō's B5Ns was forced to turn back with mechanical problems; the rest reached their objective and discovered two destroyers bombarding Japanese supply dumps on Guadalcanal around 07:20. Hiyō's aircraft attacked USS Aaron Ward seven minutes later without effect, and the American ship shot down one B5N and damaged another which was forced to make a crash landing. Jun'yō's eight B5Ns engaged USS Lardner and also failed to hit their target, not least because they were attacked by Marine Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters at 07:32. The Marine pilots shot down three B5Ns on their first pass and severely damaged another pair which were also forced to crash-land. The US fighters then shot down the three remaining bombers after they missed Lardner. The defending Zeros were able to shoot down only one Wildcat at the cost of one of Hiyō's fighters forced to crash land, although they claimed to have shot down thirteen Marine fighters.
A fire in the ship's generator room occurred on 21 October and reduced her top speed to 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) so Kakuta transferred his flag to Jun'yō while Hiyō returned to Truk for repairs. Three Zeros, one D3A and five B5Ns were also transferred to Jun'yō before she left. The remaining aircraft of her air group (16 Zeros and 17 D3As) were flown off for Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, on 23 October, from where the fighters escorted bombers attacking Guadalcanal the following day. A detachment from the air group was transferred to Buin, New Guinea, on 1 November and attacked American ships off Lunga Point on 11 November. Escorted by 18 Zeros from Hiyō and the 204th Naval Air Group, 9 D3As slightly damaged three cargo ships in exchange for 4 dive bombers shot down and another forced to crash land. The Zeros were able to ambush six Wildcats in the heavy cloud and shot down four while losing two of their own. That same day, those aircraft that remained at Rabaul flew back to Truk, but the Buin detachment remained there until 14 December when they were ferried back to Japan. Captain Michio Sumikawa relieved Beppu on 30 November.
Hiyō spent November in Truk before returning to Japan in early December where she was rejoined by the rest of her air group. Aside from a brief refit at Kure from 26 February to 4 March 1943 that saw her anti-aircraft armament augmented and an additional radar installed, the ship was training in the Inland Sea until she sailed for Truk on 22 March. Her air group consisted of 27 Zeros and 12 D3As and they were detached from Hiyō in early April to participate in Operation I-Go, a land-based aerial offensive against Allied bases in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. On 7 April her aircraft formed most of the third wave of attacks on Guadalcanal. Escorted by 24 Zeros from Hiyō and another 6 from the light carrier Zuihō, the D3As attacked shipping in the Sealark Channel. The escorts claimed to have shot down three American aircraft for the loss of one Zero and three dive bombers. Allied naval losses during the entire day included Aaron Ward, the oil tanker Kanawha, the minesweeper and damage to a transport and another tanker, although it is uncertain which aircraft sank or damaged each ship.
A second series of attacks was made against Oro Bay, New Guinea, on 11 April. Jun'yō's 9 Zeros, together with Hiyō's 21 fighters, escorted the latter's D3As. One defending fighter was claimed for the loss of a single dive bomber. The following day, 17 of Hiyō's Zeros provided top cover for several waves of attacks on Port Moresby, New Guinea, her pilots claiming nine victories without losing any of their own. On 14 April, the Japanese attacked Milne Bay, New Guinea, with a large force escorted by 75 Zeros contributed by all the carriers involved. Hiyō's fighter pilots claimed to have shot down three Allied aircraft without loss and the bombers sank two transports. Her air group returned to Truk by 18 April to rejoin the ship.
In response to the invasion of Attu Island on 11 May, the Second Carrier Division departed Truk, accompanied by three battleships and two heavy cruisers and reached Japan on 25 May. The Americans recaptured Attu before the fleet could depart to counter-attack. Now the flagship of the Second Carrier Division under Rear Admiral Munetaka Sakamaki, Hiyō departed Yokosuka on 7 June with Junyō en route for Truk. Later that evening, the ship was torpedoed by the submarine USS Trigger off Miyakejima. Hits in the starboard bow and boiler room knocked out all power but she managed to return to Japan the following day after restoring power. Hiyō's fighters were flown to Truk by 15 July and assigned to the light carrier Ryūhō, as were Sakamaki and his staff. While being repaired at Yokosuka until 15 September, more 2.5 cm Type 96 AA guns were installed, and Sumikawa was relieved by Captain Tamotsu Furukawa on 1 September. Two months later, Hiyō's air group was reconstituted in Singapore with 24 Zeros, 18 D3As and 9 B5Ns; the ship departed Japan for Singapore on 24 November. She arrived on 3 December, loaded her air group and was almost immediately assigned duties as an aircraft ferry. On 9 December, Hiyō left Singapore en route for Truk with several deliveries on the way. The ship arrived there on 22 December and disembarked her aircraft before proceeding to Saipan to deliver more aircraft. The air group was transferred to Kavieng and later Rabaul to provide air cover for Japanese operations there where the fighters claimed 80 victories in exchange for 12 losses.
Hiyō returned to Japan on 1 January 1944 and Furukawa was relieved by Captain Toshiyuki Yokoi on 15 February. Her air group was reassigned to her on 2 March, albeit without aircraft. The Japanese Navy had restructured its carrier air groups so that one air group was assigned to one carrier division and the 652nd Naval Air Group was assigned to the Second Carrier Division with Hiyō, Jun'yō and Ryūhō. The air group was the last to be rebuilt; it had only 30 Model 21 Zeros, 13 Model 52 Zeros and four D3As on hand on 1 April of its authorised 81 fighters, 36 dive bombers and 27 torpedo bombers. The ship conducted training for her aircraft in the Inland Sea until 11 May when she sailed for Tawi-Tawi in the Philippines. The new base was closer to the oil wells in Borneo on which the Navy relied for fuel and also to the Palau and western Caroline Islands, where the Japanese expected the next American attack. The location lacked an airfield on which to train the green pilots, and American submarines were very active in the vicinity which restricted the ships to the anchorage.
### Battle of the Philippine Sea
The Japanese fleet was en route to Guimaras Island in the central Philippines on 13 June 1944 where it intended to practice carrier operations in an area better protected from submarines, when Vice-Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa learnt of the American attack on the Mariana Islands the previous day. Upon reaching Guimaras, the fleet refuelled and sortied into the Philippine Sea where it spotted Task Force 58 on 18 June. The Americans failed to detect the Japanese ships that day. Ozawa decided to launch his air strikes early the following morning so the Japanese turned south to maintain a constant distance between them and the American carriers. The 652nd Naval Air Group had 81 Zeros, 27 D3As, 9 Yokosuka D4Y "Judy" dive bombers and 18 Nakajima B6N "Jill" torpedo bombers, roughly evenly divided among the three carriers under his command. The carriers began launching their first air strike of 26 bomb-carrying A6M2 Zeros, 7 B6Ns and 16 A6M5 Zeros as escorts around 09:30. Most of these aircraft were misdirected and failed to find any American ships, although a dozen persisted in their search and found one of the American task groups. A B6N, 5 bomb-carrying Zeros and an escort Zero were shot down by the defending fighters and no damage was inflicted on the American ships.
A second air strike of 27 D3As, 9 D4Ys, 2 B6Ns and 26 escorting Zeros was launched around 11:00, accompanied by at least 18 A6Ms and B6Ns from the carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku. They had also been given an erroneous spot report and were unable to find any American ships. Some of the aircraft headed for airfields at Rota and Guam to refuel while the remainder headed back to the carriers. A pair of Zeros and six D4Ys bound for Rota spotted the carriers Wasp and Bunker Hill en route, but failed to inflict any damage on them while losing five D4Ys to anti-aircraft fire. Radar had spotted those aircraft headed for Guam and they were intercepted by 41 Grumman F6F Hellcats. Only an A6M5, a D4Y and seven D3As of the 49 Japanese aircraft survived the encounter and landed.
At dusk, the Japanese turned away to the north west to regroup and to refuel and the Americans turned west to close the distance. They discovered the retiring Japanese fleet during the afternoon of the following day and Vice-Admiral Marc Mitscher ordered an air strike. Hiyō was struck by two bombs, one of which detonated above the bridge and killed or wounded virtually everyone there. More seriously, the ship was struck by one torpedo dropped by a Grumman TBF Avenger from the light carrier Belleau Wood. The torpedo knocked out the starboard engine room and started fires but Hiyō was able to continue, at reduced speed. Two hours later, a large explosion occurred when leaking gasoline vapour ignited and knocked out all power on the ship. The fires raged out of control and Hiyō sank stern first shortly afterwards at . Roughly 1,200 men were rescued by her escorting destroyers, but 247 officers and ratings died aboard the carrier.
|
381,240 |
Tower Hill Memorial
| 1,138,899,453 |
War memorial in Trinity Square Gardens, in London, England
|
[
"1928 sculptures",
"British military memorials and cemeteries",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1928",
"Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials",
"Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets",
"Grade I listed monuments and memorials",
"History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets",
"Military memorials in London",
"Naval monuments and memorials",
"Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets",
"War memorials by Edwin Lutyens",
"Works of Edwin Lutyens in England",
"World War I memorials in England",
"World War II memorials in England"
] |
The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square Gardens, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate civilian, merchant seafarers and fishermen who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The first, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial, was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1928; the second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, was designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled in 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant seamen who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005.
The first memorial was commissioned in light of the heavy losses sustained by merchant shipping in the First World War—more than 17,000 people died and some 3,300 British and Empire-registered commercial vessels sunk as a result of enemy action. The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) commissioned Lutyens, who initially designed a massive arch on the banks of the River Thames, but this was rejected by the authorities, to Lutyens' disdain. A compromise was struck, as a result of which the memorial was constructed in Trinity Square Gardens on Tower Hill, a site further from the river but with a long maritime history. The site was crown land, meaning a special Act of Parliament was required to allow the construction. Queen Mary unveiled the memorial on 12 December 1928 at a ceremony broadcast live on the radio, her first use of the medium. The memorial is a vaulted corridor reminiscent of a Doric temple and similar to Lutyens' structures in cemeteries on the Western Front. The walls are clad with bronze panels which bear the names of the missing.
Merchant shipping losses in the Second World War were significantly higher than in the first (4,786 ships, 32,000 lives) and the IWGC commissioned a second memorial on the same site, intended to complement the first. Maufe designed a sunken garden, accessed by steps behind the original memorial, the walls of which were again clad with bronze panels with the names of the missing. At regular intervals between the panels are relief sculptures (by Charles Wheeler) representing the seven seas. Wheeler also sculpted two sentries, a Merchant Navy sailor and officer, which stand at the top of the steps. The new memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1955, after which relatives of those named on it were invited to lay flowers.
The memorials to the world wars are both listed buildings—the Mercantile Marine Memorial is grade I and part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials, and Maufe's Merchant Seamen's Memorial is listed at grade II\*. The Falklands War memorial is not listed.
## First World War memorial
### Background
In the aftermath of the First World War and its unprecedented casualties, thousands of war memorials were built across Britain and other countries affected. In particular, the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) assumed responsibility for commemorating all casualties from the British Empire. The commission was established in 1917, and one of its first principal architects was Sir Edwin Lutyens, an English architect who made his reputation building country houses and later designed much of New Delhi. Lutyens acted as an unpaid advisor to the IWGC during the war, in which capacity he made several visits to France to make initial plans for organised cemeteries. The war had a profound effect on Lutyens; following it, he devoted much of his time to memorialising its casualties. He designed The Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London (which became Britain's national memorial to the two world wars) and many other cemeteries and memorials for the IWGC, including the Thiepval Memorial (completed 1932).
The IWGC and its founder, Fabian Ware, were determined from the outset that all casualties should be individually and equally commemorated, regardless of military rank or social status. Where it was not possible to provide a headstone (for example because a body could not be recovered), a casualty's name was included on one of the commission's large memorials, such as Tower Hill. The Admiralty did not initially believe that the IWGC's remit extended to sailors lost at sea and planned its own commemorations, but after negotiation, it was agreed that the commission would take responsibility for commemorating maritime casualties as it did with those who died on land. The commission's charter defined its scope as "members of the military and naval forces of the Crown"; in 1921 the commissioners resolved that this extended to the Mercantile Marine and other civilian organisations who were engaged in the war effort.
Merchant shipping and fishing fleets played a vital role in supporting the British war effort throughout the First World War, both by resupplying the Royal Navy at sea and by delivering food, products, and raw materials to the United Kingdom. Merchant ships were regularly sunk by the German Navy from the outset of the war, particularly after Germany commenced unrestricted submarine warfare. By the end of the war, more than 3,300 British- and empire-registered merchant ships had been sunk, with the loss of more than 17,000 lives.
### History
The IWGC sought advice on the form of the memorial from the seafarers' unions, who consistently requested a memorial in the form of a home for aged seamen or similar, but the commission was set against functional memorials in the belief that they became associated more with their function than with commemoration. It rejected the request, overruling its own advisory committee in doing so, on the grounds that its charter did not allow it to fund the ongoing costs of an institution. It insisted that merchant seamen would be commemorated on a monument.
The commission first intended to site the memorial at Temple Steps, on the bank of the River Thames, for which it commissioned Lutyens. The architect designed a massive arch. The proposed structure would have consisted of two 54-foot (16-metre) stone piers of linked, alternating arches (reminiscent of the Thiepval Memorial, which he was designing for the IWGC at around the same time) joined by a large beam, itself supported by two Doric columns between the arches. This was approved by London County Council, but the Office of Works rejected it on the advice of the Royal Fine Arts Commission (RFAC), which objected on two grounds: first, that Lutyens' proposal would involve the demolition of an arch built when the Thames Embankment was constructed; and second, that the memorial would be better suited to a site further downstream, east of Tower Bridge, where it would be seen by ocean-going vessels which could not travel west of the bridge. Both Lutyens and Ware attempted to persuade the RFAC to reconsider but to no avail. Lutyens was furious, feeling the merchant seamen had been relegated to "some hole in the corner because they happened to be low in social status" and that Sir Reginald Blomfield (a member of the RFAC and a rival of Lutyens) was acting out of spite.
Lutyens described the RFAC's opinion as "bosh", and suggested to Ware that they should continue regardless and force a confrontation. Ware was more diplomatic, and the IWGC chose a new site in Trinity Square Gardens on Tower Hill, still west of Tower Bridge but further from the river. This site was considered appropriate because it was within sight of the Thames, albeit not on the riverbank, and the area already had maritime connections, including the headquarters of the Port of London Authority at 10 Trinity Square, Trinity House, and the church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower (itself home to many nautically themed memorials). Philip Longworth, in a history of the IWGC, remarked that the location meant the commission's only memorial in London "would never be seen by most Londoners, still less find a place in the national consciousness as did Lutyens' stark monument on Whitehall". (The Cenotaph was not commissioned by the IWGC.)
Trinity Square Gardens was Crown land administered by trustees. Although the trustees suggested they would not object to the memorial, they did not have the power to give full consent and a special Act of Parliament was required. The bill was laid before Parliament in December 1926 and received royal assent in June 1927, becoming the Mercantile Marine Memorial Act. The building work was undertaken by Holloway Brothers (London) and the memorial was unveiled by Queen Mary (deputising for her husband, King George V) on 12 December 1928, her first solo engagement of the sort. The unveiling ceremony was broadcast live on the radio in the queen's first use of the medium. Despite taking place in torrential rain, the unveiling ceremony was attended by a large crowd, who cheered the queen as she was driven away.
### Design
The main structure is in Portland stone. It takes the form of a vaulted colonnade or pavilion reminiscent of a Doric temple but open at both ends. After the Arch of Remembrance in Leicester, it is Lutyens' second-largest war memorial in the United Kingdom, and is the only British First World War memorial dedicated exclusively to merchant seamen. It is raised on a platform slightly above street level, oriented east to west and accessed from the street by a set of five stone steps at each end. The structure is 21.5 metres (71 feet) long by 7 metres (23 ft) wide and up to 10 metres (33 ft) tall. It consists of three bays on either side, created by eight alternating square piers and six pairs of round columns. The eight piers are clad in rectangular bronze panels to give the impression of rustication. The panels (divided into 24 numbered sections) contain the names of missing mariners, ordered by ship name and then alphabetically following the name of the captain or master. The vessels of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets are listed separately. Above the bays is a Doric entablature. The low, pitched roof has shallow parapets on either side and gabled ends; on top, in the centre, is a large square attic which supports a large stone drum. The attic is similar to Lutyens' original design for the York City War Memorial, which featured a Stone of Remembrance rather than a drum. The sculptural element is the work of William Reid Dick, who worked on several other war memorials, including the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium.
The memorial's main dedication is in bronze letters to the front (south) of the attic: TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND TO THE HONOUR OF TWELVE THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHO HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA; above it are the dates of the First World War (1914–1918), which are also carved into the stone on north side. To either side are decorative bronze wreaths. On the inside, the floor is in black and white stone in a chequerboard pattern. On the north side, bronze spikes occupy the otherwise-open bays.
The largest single loss of life commemorated on the memorial is from the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915. Of the 1,200 dead, more than 350 British crew members are commemorated on the Mercantile Marine memorial. In total, the First World War memorial records the names of some 12,000 casualties.
In his biography of Lutyens, Michael Barker described the design as "dignified classicism"; another Lutyens biographer, Christopher Hussey, described it as a "classical shrine". Tim Skelton, author of Lutyens and the Great War, notes the similarity of the colonnade to the shelter buildings in Lutyens' cemeteries in France and Belgium and suggests that the memorial would be "equally well at home on the Western Front as in the heart of London". The resemblance to the cemetery buildings is also noted by the Dutch architect Jeroen Geurst, who compares it in particular to those at Hooge Crater in Belgium and Serre Road in France. In the opinion of the historian David Crane, the memorial never recovered from its "miserable start" and is consequently the least well-known of the IWGC's major works following the First World War.
## Second World War memorial
### Background
From the outbreak of the Second World War, shipping losses were again high and a similar convoy system was used in an effort to protect merchant vessels. By the war's end, 4,786 ships had been sunk, with the loss of some 32,000 lives (of which almost 24,000 are commemorated at Tower Hill); almost a quarter of the losses were in British waters. Although military casualties were lower in the Second World War than in the First, civilian casualties were higher and there was widespread destruction of British cities. By the end of the second war there was little appetite for another wave of large memorials. Instead, many memorials from the first war were adapted or expanded to commemorate the new casualties—an approach the IWGC took at Tower Hill and elsewhere. Generally, it only built new memorials to the missing in places which had not been touched by the First World War. The IWGC was by this time a much more established and well-respected institution and thus found it easier to obtain the agreements and public support necessary for its work.
The architect was Edward Maufe, who began his career designing churches and by the 1950s was the IWGC's principal architect for the United Kingdom for the Second World War commemorations. Maufe was also responsible for the Air Forces Memorial in Surrey and extensions to the Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham naval memorials.
### History
Following the Second World War, the IWGC considered various sites for a memorial to the new casualties but, after consultation with the relevant public bodies, decided Tower Hill was the most appropriate location. The commission briefed Maufe that the new memorial should complement Lutyens' design and fit in with the existing architecture in the area, including the Port of London Authority building. Maufe first proposed extending Lutyens' structure with a further colonnade, but this was rejected. His next design, for a sunken garden, was accepted. Another Act of Parliament was required, which was passed in July 1952 as the Merchant Navy Memorial Act. Work began later in 1952 and was completed in 1955. Some modifications to Maufe's design were necessary. Maufe initially planned a larger grassy area between Lutyens' colonnade and the sunken garden with a Stone of Remembrance at the centre. The stone was eliminated and the grass scaled back to reduce the overall size of the memorial and assuage the concerns of local people. The depth of the garden had to be reduced at the south end because of a London Underground tunnel.
The memorial commemorates merchant seamen from ships registered in Britain or its Empire or on loan to the governments of those countries, and who were lost at sea as a result of enemy action in the Second World War; it lists 23,765 men, of whom 832 were fishermen and 80 maritime pilots and lighthousemen. The much larger casualty figures and corresponding scale of the memorial reflect the vital contribution of the Merchant Navy to the British war effort in the Second World War. The memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II at a modest ceremony on 5 November 1955, two days before Remembrance Sunday. The ceremony, described by The Sunday Times as "all as modest and anonymous as the Merchant Navy itself", concluded with the sounding of the "Last Post" by buglers from the Royal Marines, answered by a single ship's horn on the River Thames. After the unveiling, 16,000 relatives of those commemorated on the memorial laid flowers around it, a process which lasted until late in the evening.
### Design
The Second World War memorial takes the form of a semi-circular sunken garden located behind the First World War Memorial, to its north in Trinity Square Gardens. The idea of a sunken garden appears to have originated from discussions immediately following the end of the war. There was a feeling among the new generation of artists and architects that the elaborate and artistic memorials to the First World War did not capture the national mood of mourning for the new wave of casualties and that spaces such as gardens, which provided a location for individual mourning and reflection, were more suitable. According to the architectural historian Philip Ward-Jackson, Maufe's memorial gives the impression of being a wing of an imaginary ruined church, complete with provided seats—an image which would have had "powerful resonance in the bombed City" (much of the surrounding area, including the Port of London Authority building, was severely damaged by German bombing). The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described Maufe's extension as "less assertive" than the original memorial; he praised the idea of a memorial to the missing in the form of a void (the sunken garden), but felt it was let down by Wheeler's "strangely jaunty" reliefs between the lists of names.
The ground-level entrance area to the Second World War memorial is on the southern side of the sunken garden and consists of two pylons flanking a low wall that faces the First World War memorial. Built into the low wall is a stone similar to Lutyens' Stone of Remembrance, which is inscribed with the years of the war (1939–1945) and carries the memorial's dedication: THE TWENTY FOUR THOUSAND OF THE MERCHANT NAVY AND FISHING FLEETS WHOSE NAMES ARE HONOURED ON THE WALLS OF THIS GARDEN GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA. Each of the flanking pylons supports an over-life-sized statue, representing a Merchant Navy sailor (on the east side) and officer (on the west). The entrance steps either side of the pylons descend to the sunken garden which contains the name panels. The walls of the garden are eight feet (2.4 m) high in Portland stone, to match the original memorial, with the names of the missing from the Second World War listed on 132 bronze panels fixed to the walls. The name panels circle the entire sunken garden, lining both the northern and the southern walls, and the eastern and western walls. Spaced at regular intervals along the semi-circular (northern) part of the memorial are seven allegorical sculptures representing the Seven Seas. These are the work of Charles Wheeler, who also executed the sculptures for Maufe's extensions of the Royal Navy memorials. The garden is mainly grass, with a sculpture of a compass in a 'pool' of bronze, set to magnetic north, in the centre. The Red Ensign (the flag flown by British-registered civilian vessels) flies over the site.
## Later history
The Tower Hill memorial commemorates 36,087 seafarers from both world wars. Only merchant seamen who have no known grave are listed at Tower Hill. Those whose bodies were recovered or who served with other organisations (such as the Indian Merchant Navy) are commemorated elsewhere—for example, 1,200 merchant seamen who served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War are commemorated on the Liverpool Naval Memorial. The memorial register for the Mercantile Marine Memorial was originally published by the IWGC in nine volumes in 1928. After the Second World War, a three-volume Roll of Honour of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets 1939–1945 was produced in 1958 by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation and distributed to a range of organisations in the UK and abroad. The first two volumes of this roll of honour contain the names listed on the Merchant Seamen's Memorial at Tower Hill. The registers for the Tower Hill memorials are held at the nearby Trinity House on the north side of Trinity Square Gardens.
Since 2000, 3 September has been celebrated annually as Merchant Navy Day; a memorial service is held close to that date at the Tower Hill Memorial. In 2005, the Merchant Navy Association unveiled another memorial on the site. The work of Gordon Newton, it is dedicated to the Merchant Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary casualties of the 1982 Falklands War. It consists of a 3-metre (9.8-foot) bronze sundial, raised on a granite base; at the dial's centre is a large bronze anchor. Around the base are bronze plaques, one of which contains the inscription IN MEMORY OF THOSE MERCHANT SEAFARERS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES TO SECURE THE FREEDOM OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS 1982. The others record the names of the 17 dead, ordered by ship. The Falklands memorial, which is not listed, was unveiled on 4 September 2005 by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Alan West and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (the IWGC having changed its name in 1960).
Liverpool marked the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, by having twenty-five warships sail through the port to mark the milestone. Ceremonies were also held at the Tower Hill Memorial on 11 May 2013, along with other events elsewhere in London and Britain.
Lutyens' First World War Memorial became a grade II\* listed building in 1973. Listed status offers legal protection from demolition or modification; grade II\* is reserved for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest" and is applied to about 5.5% of listings. It was upgraded to grade I status (which is applied to around 2.5% of listed buildings, those of "the greatest historic interest") in November 2015 when Lutyens' war memorials were declared a national collection. Maufe's Merchant Seamen's Memorial has separately been a grade II\* listed building since 1998. The CWGC began a major restoration project of the colonnade in 2019.
## See also
- List of ships named on the Tower Hill Memorial
- Grade I listed war memorials in England
- Grade II\* listed war memorials in England
- Grade I and II\* listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
- List of Commonwealth War Graves Commission World War I memorials to the missing
- List of Commonwealth War Graves Commission World War II memorials to the missing
|
27,568,728 |
Rivadavia-class battleship
| 1,137,887,341 |
1914 Argentine battleship class
|
[
"Battleship classes",
"Battleships of the United States",
"Rivadavia-class battleships"
] |
The Rivadavia class consisted of two battleships designed by the American Fore River Shipbuilding Company for the Argentine Navy. Named Rivadavia and Moreno after important figures in Argentine history, they were Argentina's entry in the South American dreadnought race and a counter to Brazil's two Minas Geraes-class battleships.
In 1904, Brazil scrapped a previous naval building program in favor of an order that included three warships of the new "dreadnought" type, despite signs that such an action would spark a South American naval arms race. To counter this acquisition by a major rival, Argentina began seeking bids for at least two dreadnoughts in 1908. Over the next two years, shipbuilders from five countries vied for the contracts, complemented by efforts from their respective governments. Argentina was able to play this hyper-competitive environment to its own advantage by rejecting all of the initial proposals and calling for new ones that required the best aspects of each. They then repeated this process, despite complaints from shipbuilders that their trade secrets were being given away. The contracts were awarded to the lowest bidder, Fore River, in early 1910. This move shocked the European bidders, but could partly be explained by the American steel trust's ability to produce steel at a lower cost than any other country.
With increasing tensions in Europe that would eventually lead to the First World War, newspapers speculated that the Argentine dreadnoughts would be sold to another country. Under diplomatic pressure, Argentina kept the ships. Throughout their careers, Rivadavia and Moreno were based in Puerto Belgrano and served principally as training ships and diplomatic envoys. They were modernized in the United States in 1924 and 1925 and were inactive for much of the Second World War due to Argentina's neutrality. Struck from the navy lists on 1 February 1957, Rivadavia was scrapped in Italy beginning in 1959. Moreno was struck on 1 October 1956 and was towed to Japan in 1957 for scrapping.
## Background
The raison d'être for the Rivadavia class can be traced back to Argentine–Chilean territorial disputes over the boundary of Patagonia and control of the Beagle Channel going back to the 1840s. It nearly led to war in 1878 and kindled a naval arms race from 1887 to 1902 which was only settled via British mediation. As part of the three pacts which ended the dispute, restrictions were placed on the navies of both countries. The British Royal Navy bought two Swiftsure-class pre-dreadnought battleships that were being built for Chile, and Argentina sold its two Rivadavia-class armored cruisers under construction in Italy to Japan. Meanwhile, beginning in the late 1880s, Brazil's navy fell into obsolescence after an 1889 revolution, which deposed Emperor Dom Pedro II, and a 1893 civil war. By the turn of the 20th century it was lagging behind the Chilean and Argentine navies in quality and total tonnage, despite Brazil having nearly three times the population of Argentina and almost five times the population of Chile.
By 1904, however, Brazil began to seriously consider upgrading its navy to compete with Argentina and Chile. Soaring demand for coffee and rubber brought the Brazilian economy an influx of revenue, which paid for a US\$31.25 million naval repair scheme, a substantial amount for the time period. The bill authorized 28 ships, including three battleships and three armored cruisers. It was not possible to lay down the battleships until 1906, the same year the trend-setting HMS Dreadnought was constructed. This ship prompted the Brazilians to cancel their battleship plans in favor of two Minas Geraes-class dreadnoughts. The ordering of these powerful ships—designed to carry the heaviest armament in the world at the time—shocked Argentina and Chile. Historian Robert Scheina comments that the dreadnoughts alone "outclassed the entire [elderly] Argentinian fleet."
Debates raged in Argentina over the wisdom of acquiring dreadnoughts to counter Brazil's. The National Autonomist Party cabinet was in favor, despite a probable cost of nearly \$10 million, but a specific plan for two 14,000-long-ton (14,225 t) battleships and ten destroyers was not popular with the public. Alarmed, the American ambassador to Brazil sent a cablegram to his Department of State, warning them of the destabilizing effects that would occur if the situation devolved into a full naval arms race.
Despite American entreaties to preclude the naval arms race, Brazil continued development on the ships. This, combined with renewed border disputes, particularly in the River Plate (Río de la Plata, literally "Silver River") area, spurred Argentina to move forward with plans for their own battleships. Inflamed by newspaper editors, opinion had swung towards supporting a naval building program. While an early plan called for \$35 million to be invested—\$7 million from foreign loans—a \$55 million plan was adopted in August 1908. Hoping to end the arms race, Argentina made an offer to purchase one of the two Brazilian ships, but the refusal prompted the dispatch of an Argentine naval commission to Europe to acquire dreadnoughts.
## Bidding
Proposals from shipbuilders for two dreadnoughts (along with a possible third, to match Brazil should a third ship be ordered) and twelve destroyers were solicited in 1908 by open tender. In order to ensure that the designs reflected the most modern practices, the requirements were intentionally vague.
Fifteen shipyards from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy began bidding on the battleships. Diplomatic pressure to give the contracts was brought to bear from all these countries, especially the first three. Even with this assistance, industry leaders in the United States believed that they had no chance in the bidding without active cooperation from their government, as Europe was the traditional arms supplier to Argentina (and to all of South America). Even when this was given, including the removal of import tariffs on hides from Argentina, promises for additional concessions if American shipbuilders were selected, and an offer to include the most technologically advanced fire-control system and torpedo tubes available on the Argentine battleships, the United States was widely viewed as a non-contender. Historian Seward W. Livermore remarked that "opposition to the United States was formidable. The naval commission was pro-British; the vice-president of the republic, Roque Sáenz Peña, favored Italy, where he had been the Argentine envoy for many years; and the minister of war wanted the contracts to go to Germany, so as to standardize the military and naval equipment of the country."
The president of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company believed that the United States would not receive contracts due to what he saw as a large amount of European meddling in Argentina:
> The political influence of foreign powers is being exerted in a very forceful manner to turn the business to English and Continental firms; the King of Italy, the German Emperor, and the force of English diplomacy are being made use of; and American firms will have very little consideration, I fear, unless our government will exert some very powerful influence in favor of this country.
The United States, however, found an ally in Buenos Aires' main daily newspaper, La Prensa. The owner, editor, and naval editor were all in favor of acquiring American-designed dreadnoughts. In addition, the paper found evidence of British wrongdoing in a related naval contract. Under public pressure, the naval commission was forced to reconsider its original list, which had placed Italy first and Britain second. It now featured the United States first, Britain second, and Italy last.
In a surprise move, the Argentine naval commission then threw out all of the opening tenders and called for another round of bidding; they simultaneously updated the specifications to include what were judged to be the best aspects of all the plans. The competitors were given three weeks to come up with new designs and cost estimates. After diplomatic protests, this was modified slightly; the original bids were kept, but alterations to attempt to conform to the new desired characteristics were allowed.
The commission found that the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company bid was lowest on one battleship, and the Fore River Shipbuilding Company was lowest on the other. Despite a British attempt to allow the Armstrong Whitworth-Vickers team to lower their price by \$570,000, prompt American diplomacy granting various assurances regarding recent events between the United States and Brazil, the upcoming 1910 Pan-American Conference, and a guarantee of American participation in the Argentine centennial celebrations secured the battleship contracts for Fore River on 21 January 1910. The maximum price Fore River tendered, \$10.7 million, underbid the British by more than \$973,000, but their ship's displacement was 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) smaller, the belt armor was 2 inches (51 mm) thinner, and the top speed was slightly lower. Orders for the twelve destroyers were divided among Britain, France, and Germany.
Rivadavia was built by Fore River at its shipyard in Massachusetts, but they were contractually obligated to subcontract the second ship to a different shipyard in the hope that both would be completed faster, so Moreno was constructed by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. The steel for the ships was largely supplied by the Bethlehem Steel Company of Pennsylvania, which, due to their ability to produce steel at a lower price than other nations, was an integral cost-saving measure. The Secretary of the Argentine Naval Commission, the body which chose the final design, said the reason the American tender was lower than that of the English was that "steel for construction work and armor-plating is a great deal cheaper in the United States than in England. Wages are higher there, but the contractors ... are able to obtain it more cheaply owing to the manipulations of the Steel Trust."
A third dreadnought, provided for in the contract, was strongly supported by Argentina and by U.S. diplomats during 1910, while the Minas Geraes class was still under construction. La Prensa and one of its rivals, La Argentina, heavily advocated a third ship; the latter even started a petition to raise money for a new battleship. An American diplomat wrote back to the United States that "this newspaper rivalry promises the early conclusion of a movement which means a third battleship whether by public subscription or by Government funds." However, Brazil's 21–26 November Revolt of the Lash—in which the three most powerful ships in the fleet (the battleships Minas Geraes and São Paulo and the cruiser Bahia) and several smaller warships violently rebelled—crushed the previous sentiment for a new battleship. About two years later in October 1912, a third dreadnought was authorized by Argentina in case Brazil's Rio de Janeiro was completed and delivered. The ship was never named or built, as Rio de Janeiro was sold to the Ottoman Empire due to monetary issues, and a later planned Brazilian ship (Riachuelo) was canceled due to the beginning of the First World War.
## International reaction
The choice of Fore River came as a complete surprise to the European bidders. Britain's reaction in particular was scathing: Sir John H. Biles, a professor and well-known naval architect, decried the bidding process as "unethical":
> ... it may be presumed that everything ... good in the first proposals [was] seized upon by the Argentine authorities and asked for in the new design. This second request went not only to British builders but to all the builders of the world, and in this way it is exceedingly probable that a serious leakage of ideas and practice of our ships was disseminated through the world by the Argentine government.... The third inquiry that was issued showed to all the builders of the world what has been eliminated or modified in the second inquiry; and so the process of leakage went merrily on, and with it that of the education of foreign builders and the Argentine government.
Various British newspapers also cried foul. The Evening Standard believed that as "Argentina's greatest creditor and greatest client", Britain ought to have been awarded the two ships. The Times took a different track, accusing American shipbuilders of slashing prices to an obscene degree, and accusing the government of exerting undue diplomatic pressure to obtain the contracts.
New Zealand's Evening Post noted that the United States had previously built major warships for other countries, including Russia, and Britain's ally Japan, and commented, "The severity of the blow to England rests in ... the amount of English capital in [Argentina]", possibly echoing the Evening Standard's argument. They referred to a "startling" fact printed by the Daily Mail: the steel used for the armor of the American design was obtained for a much lower price. With Bethlehem's ability to produce it at £8 less per ton than British foundries, a cost savings of more than 10% in steel over the British ship could be realized.
Germany asserted that the United States was given the opportunity to view the other nations' tenders and lower their price accordingly. Germany also alleged that the United States had secured the deal by pledging to come to Argentina's defense should they become embroiled in a military conflict.
The New York Times noted that with Argentina's and Brazil's dreadnought orders, countries in North and South America were building the five biggest capital ships in the world (Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, Argentina's Rivadavia and Moreno, and the United States' New York and Texas) in addition to seven of the ten largest (including the United States' Wyoming and Arkansas). Shortly after Rivadavia had completed its trials, the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey remarked that the ship "handle[d] remarkably well ... with comparatively minor modifications the vessel would practically meet the requirements of our own vessels." The Board of Inspection was less pleased with the wing turrets, stating that "while theoretically the Rivadavia has an ahead and astern fire of six guns, this is not so in reality, as it is almost certain that the blast from the waist turrets would dish in the smokepipes and damage the uptakes."
## Possible sale
After Brazil sold Rio de Janeiro to the Ottoman Empire, Argentina began to actively seek a buyer for their two ships so the profits could be invested in education. In the tension that preceded the First World War, there were many suitors. The United States, however, abhorred the idea of their latest technological advances falling into the hands of a possible future combat opponent. While the contract allowed the United States Navy an option to acquire the ships if a deal was reached with a third nation, the Navy did not want the ships; with the rapid advances in dreadnought technology, such as the "all or nothing" armor arrangement, even new ships like Rivadavia and Moreno were seen as outmoded.
Three bills directing that the battleships be sold were introduced into the Argentine National Congress in the summer of 1914, but all were defeated. Still, soon after the beginning of the First World War, the German ambassador to Argentina alleged to the U.S. State Department that Britain's Royal Navy was going to take over the ships as soon as the ships reached the River Plate, and the British put diplomatic pressure on the United States to try to ensure the ships were not sold to any other country (as this new country could in turn sell them to Germany). Italy, the Ottomans, and Greece were all reportedly interested in buying both ships, the latter as a counter to the Ottoman purchase of Rio de Janeiro. The United States, worried that its neutrality would not be respected and its technology would be released for study to a foreign competitor, put diplomatic pressure on Argentina to keep the ships, which it eventually did.
## Design influences
The Rivadavia design was very similar to a 1906 proposal from Fore River for an American dreadnought class. This ship would have mounted a main battery of fourteen 12-inch (300 mm) guns in twin turrets (two superfiring fore, two wing, and three non-superfiring aft), a secondary battery of twenty 4-inch (102 mm) guns and four torpedo tubes on a hull of 22,000 long tons (22,000 t) that would be capable of 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h). Foreign practices also bore a large influence on the design; most were acquired through the unique design process of rejecting multiple bids and calling for the best aspects of each. For example, the superfiring arrangement of the main battery was an American innovation, while the wing turrets were similar to British designs of the time. The secondary battery of 6-inch (152 mm) guns and the three-shaft system were influenced by German design practices, while the engine and boiler layout was reminiscent of the Italian battleship Dante Alighieri.
## Service histories
Rivadavia was named after Bernardino Rivadavia, the first president of Argentina, and was built by Fore River Shipyard. The ship was laid down on 25 May 1910, launched on 26 August 1911, and completed in December 1914. Moreno was named after Mariano Moreno, a member of the first Argentine government; laid down on 9 July 1910 by New York Shipbuilding Corporation, it was launched on 23 September 1911 and completed in February 1915. Both ships had engine trouble soon after completion: Rivadavia's completion was delayed due to a damaged turbine, while Moreno had an entire turbine fail while on its trials. The ships were also plagued by an abnormally high coal consumption even after their trials.
The ships finally arrived in Argentina in February and May 1915, respectively. In the early 1920s, both ships spent time in the reserve fleet due to an economic depression, but enough money was available by 1924 to have the dreadnoughts modernized in the United States. Both refits included a conversion from coal to fuel oil, a new fire-control system, and other minor improvements. In the 1930s they participated in training cruises and diplomatic trips, including:
- Moreno's 1933 visit to Brazil with Argentine president Agustín Pedro Justo aboard;
- A second visit in 1934 to mark the centennial of Brazilian independence;
- Rivadavia's and Moreno's 1937 voyage to Europe, where they visited Brest (France), Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, and Hamburg (Germany);
- Moreno's additional participation on the same voyage in the British Spithead Naval Review, where the New York Times' Hanson Baldwin described it as "a strange vestigial sea monster in this company of more modern fighting ships";
- Rivadavia's and Moreno's 1939 training cruise to Brazil with naval cadets embarked; with the beginning of the Second World War in September, destroyers had to be sent from Argentina to escort them home.
During the war, both ships were mainly inactive due to Argentine neutrality. Rivadavia undertook a last diplomatic cruise to Trinidad, Venezuela, and Colombia in 1946, but both ships were immobile by 1948. Moreno was stricken from the naval register on 1 October 1956 and was brought to Japan in 1957 for scrapping. Rivadavia was stricken on 1 February 1957 and scrapped in Italy beginning in 1959. The money gained from selling the two dreadnoughts along with an older armored cruiser, Pueyrredón, was used to buy an aircraft carrier from the United Kingdom, Independencia (ex-Warrior).
## Specifications
The two ships of the Rivadavia class were 594 feet 9 inches (181.28 m) overall and 585 feet (178 m) between perpendiculars. They had a beam of 98 feet 4.5 inches (29.985 m), a normal draft of 27 feet 8.5 inches (8.446 m), and displaced 27,500 long tons (27,900 t) normally and 30,100 long tons (30,600 t) at full load. The ships were staffed by 130 officers and about 1000 enlisted men.
For armament, the Rivadavia class was equipped with a main battery of twelve 12-inch/50 caliber guns, a secondary battery of twelve 6 inch (152 mm)/50 and twelve 4-inch (102 mm)/50 QF, and two 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes.
The 12"/50 was a Bethlehem development. It was most likely based on the weapon used in the United States' Wyoming-class battleship, the 12"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun. The twelve guns were mounted in six twin turrets. Four turrets were superfiring fore and aft, while the other two were located en echelon in wing turrets. The latter weapons could, in theory, fire on a 180° range on their respective sides of the hull and 100° on the other, but in reality this was not possible, as the blast damage from the weapons would damage the ship. A more reasonable estimate would be 90° on their sides. The 6-inch secondary armament was placed in casemates, with six on either side of the ship. For protection, they were provided with 6 inches of armor. The 4-inch weaponry, intended for use against marauding destroyers, was mounted unarmored in various places around the ship, including the main deck, superstructure, and far up near the bow. As originally built, there were sixteen 4-inch guns, but four of those were replaced with four 3-inch AA guns and four 3-pounders during the 1924–1926 modernization. The torpedo tubes were located underneath the waterline and were loaded in a dedicated compartment.
Full ammunition loads were 1,440 rounds for the 12-inch guns (120 per gun), 3,600 rounds for the 6-inch (300), 5,600 rounds for the 4-inch (350), and 16 torpedoes manufactured by Whitehead. To assist the main battery with targeting during a battle, the two ships were equipped with two Barr & Stroud rangefinders that were located above the conning towers.
Rivadavia and Moreno used Brown–Curtis geared steam turbines, powered by 18 Babcock & Wilcox boilers and connected to three propellers. With a total output of about 40,000 shaft horsepower (30,000 kW), the ships were designed to travel at a maximum speed of 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph) and may have been capable of slightly more. At speeds of 11 to 15 knots (20 to 28 km/h; 13 to 17 mph), their endurance ranged from 11,000 to 7,000 nautical miles (20,000 to 13,000 km; 12,700 to 8,100 mi), respectively. Their fuel was a coal–oil mix and the ships carried 3,900 long tons (4,000 t) of the former and 590 long tons (600 t) of the latter.
Typical of American-designed dreadnoughts at the time, the Rivadavia class included substantial armor protection. A 12-inch (305 mm) belt was fitted amidships, covering 5 feet (1.5 m) above and 6 feet (1.8 m) below the designed waterline, gradually decreasing towards the bow and stern to 5 inches (127 mm) and 4 inches (100 mm), respectively. The gun turrets received heavy armor, including 12 inches (305 mm) on the front, 9 inches (230 mm) on the sides, 9.5 inches (240 mm) on the back, and 4 inches (100 mm) on the top. Deck armor consisted of .5 inches (13 mm) medium steel and 2 inches (51 mm) nickel steel.
## See also
- Dreadnoughtus – a fossilized dinosaur found in Patagonia, Argentina, named in part because of the Rivadavia class
## Endnotes
|
93,824 |
Interstate 82
| 1,163,243,034 |
Interstate in Washington and Oregon
|
[
"Interstate Highway System",
"Interstate Highways in Oregon",
"Interstate Highways in Washington (state)",
"Transportation in Benton County, Washington",
"Transportation in Kittitas County, Washington",
"Transportation in Umatilla County, Oregon",
"Transportation in Yakima County, Washington"
] |
Interstate 82 (I-82) is an Interstate Highway in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States that travels through parts of Washington and Oregon. It runs 144 miles (232 km) from its northwestern terminus at I-90 in Ellensburg, Washington, to its southeastern terminus at I-84 in Hermiston, Oregon. The highway passes through Yakima and the Tri-Cities, and is also part of the link between Seattle and Salt Lake City, Utah. I-82 travels concurrently with U.S. Route 97 (US 97) between Ellensburg and Union Gap; US 12 from Yakima to the Tri-Cities; and US 395 from Kennewick and Umatilla, Oregon.
I-82 primarily serves the Yakima Valley agricultural region, following the Yakima and Columbia rivers southeastward to the Tri-Cities. The highway enters the valley from the north by crossing the Manastash Ridge, which separates Yakima from the Kittitas Valley. I-82 bypasses the Tri-Cities by traveling southwest around Richland and Kennewick and then turns south to cross the Columbia River on the Umatilla Bridge. Its only auxiliary route, I-182, connects the highway to Richland and Pasco in the Tri-Cities.
The I-82 corridor was originally used by several state and national highways, including the Inland Empire Highway and US 410, which were built in the early 20th century. The federal government created I-82 in late 1957 to serve military facilities in the region, replacing an earlier designation for what is now I-84. The first section of I-82 to be constructed was the easterly bypass of Yakima, which opened in 1963 and was gradually extended north to Ellensburg by 1971. The Yakima Valley section, connecting Union Gap to Prosser, was constructed between 1977 and 1982.
The routing of the highway between Prosser and I-84 was very controversial among Tri-Cities residents, who lobbied for a longer I-82 alignment to serve them. Oregon legislators and highway officials remained opposed to a routing that bypassed Umatilla, leading to several attempts at finding a compromise along the Wallula Gap or in other areas southeast of the Tri-Cities. In 1973, Oregon and Washington adopted a federal compromise to build I-82 through Umatilla and around the outskirts of the Tri-Cities with a spur route (I-182) to serve the area directly. The Tri-Cities section opened in 1986 while in Oregon, the final section of I-82 was completed in 1988. In the early 2000s, Oregon highway officials examined plans to extend I-82 farther south through eastern Oregon and towards California, but they were not considered for further study.
## Route description
I-82 travels 143.6 miles (231 km) through a part of the Inland Northwest in a generally northwest–southeast direction along the Yakima and Columbia rivers. The four-lane divided highway forms part of the link between Seattle and the inland West, which includes Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. I-82 is a component of the Interstate Highway System and is also designated as an important national highway under the National Highway System. It is also listed as a Highway of Statewide Significance by the Washington state government. I-82 has one auxiliary route, I-182, a spur route that serves the Tri-Cities region. It also has two child state highways in Washington: State Route 821 (SR 821) that runs from Selah to Ellensburg, and SR 823 that runs from Yakima to Selah.
I-82 is maintained by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) within their respective states. Both agencies conduct annual surveys of traffic on segments of the freeway, the results of which are expressed in terms of average annual daily traffic (AADT), a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. The most heavily trafficked and the least trafficked sections of I-82 are located in Washington; the busiest section is in downtown Yakima near SR 24, which carried a daily average of 52,000 vehicles in 2016, and the least-trafficked section is the terminus at I-90 near Ellensburg, which carried 9,100 vehicles. In 2016, ODOT's measurements of average daily traffic ranged from a minimum of 13,700 vehicles at Powerline Road near Hermiston to a maximum of 21,700 vehicles at the Umatilla Bridge.
### Yakima Valley
I-82 begins southeast of Ellensburg, Washington, at a trumpet interchange with I-90, the state's major east–west freeway. I-82 travels southward in a concurrency with US 97, which continues northwest along I-90 around Ellensburg and intersects with SR 821 at Thrall on the southern edge of the Kittitas Valley. The freeway climbs the Manastash Ridge, traveling southeastward around Yakima River Canyon, where SR 821 runs as a meandering scenic byway. Here, I-82 also forms the western edge of the Yakima Firing Range, a military training and exercise facility that stretches across the plateau to the Columbia River Gorge. The freeway reaches its highest point at Vanderbilt Gap, which is 2,672 feet (814 m) above sea level and only 300 feet (91 m) lower than Snoqualmie Pass on I-90. From the gap, the highway crosses into Yakima County and turns southwestward as it begins its descent from the ridge.
Just north of Selah, I-82 crosses the Fred G. Redmon Bridge, a 325-foot-high (99 m), twinned arch bridge that spans Selah Creek. At the time of its opening in 1971, the Redmon Bridge was the longest concrete-arch bridge in North America at 1,337 feet (408 m), losing its record in 1993 to new bridges in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Franklin, Tennessee. Southwest of the bridge, the freeway passes several farms and industrial buildings before reaching an interchange with the southern end of SR 821. I-82 continues on the eastern bank of the Yakima River to the east of Selah and intersects SR 823 in Selah Gap, a narrow canyon between two arms of the Yakima Ridge. The freeway, which runs parallel to a section of SR 823 in its median, crosses the Yakima and Naches rivers at their confluence and enters Yakima.
On the southern side of the confluence, I-82 and US 97 intersect US 12, a major cross-state highway that uses White Pass to travel over the Cascade Mountains, and begins a concurrency with it. The three highways travel southward along the Yakima River, veering east of downtown Yakima and its inner neighborhoods. The freeway passes through several urban interchanges, including the western terminus of SR 24 at Nob Hill Boulevard and a hybrid dogbone–partial cloverleaf interchange at the Valley Mall. I-82 continues southward through Union Gap and splits from US 97 at the eponymous canyon, where it crosses the Yakima River with US 12.
I-82 and US 12 travel southeastward in the shadow of the Rattlesnake Hills and along the north side of the Yakima River, opposite from US 97 and the BNSF Railway's Yakima Valley Subdivision on the Yakama Indian Reservation. The freeway follows the Central Washington Railroad and intersects several roads connecting to cities on the southern side of the river, including Wapato and Toppenish, the latter of which is connected via an interchange with SR 22 near Buena. This section of the highway also passes through the Yakima Valley agricultural region, which includes Rattlesnake Hills AVA and Yakima Valley AVA—major areas for wine and hops production, along with other crops. I-82 travels along the southern edge of Zillah and passes the historic Teapot Dome Service Station, a gas station and piece of political and novelty architecture that became a roadside attraction. Past Zillah, the freeway intersects SR 223 in Granger and SR 241 southeast of Sunnyside, bypassing both towns. I-82 continues southeastward through Grandview and toward Prosser at the edge of the Tri-Cities metropolitan area in Benton County.
### Tri-Cities and Umatilla
I-82 and US 12 pass several wineries and tasting rooms in northern Prosser before crossing the Yakima River east of the city center. The freeway continues northeastward on the southern side of the Yakima River, running along the bottom of the Horse Heaven Hills. Near Chandler Butte, the highway turns southeastward and intersects SR 224 and SR 225 on the southern side of Benton City. I-82 continues eastward to an interchange with I-182, its sole auxiliary route, at Goose Gap near West Richland; from here, I-182 travels concurrently with US 12 into Richland and Pasco, while I-82 bypasses the Tri-Cities to the southwest, staying south of Badger Mountain. I-82 continues southeastward along the edge of the Horse Heaven Hills to an interchange with US 395 south of Kennewick, where it forms another concurrency. The Kennewick–Plymouth section of the freeway is also signed as part of the Lewis and Clark Trail, a Washington state scenic byway.
I-82 and US 395 travel southward and ascend the Horse Heaven Hills to an intersection with SR 397, a highway that provides an alternate truck route for Kennewick and Finley. The freeway continues southwestward along Bofer and Fourmile canyons, descending from the hills and passing irrigated farmland while approaching the Columbia River. Northeast of Plymouth, it intersects the eastern terminus of SR 14, a cross-state highway that follows the Columbia River westward to Vancouver, and crosses the BNSF Fallbridge Subdivision, which carries Amtrak's Empire Builder passenger trains. I-82 and US 395 cross the Columbia River west of McNary Dam on Umatilla Bridge, which consists of a unique, multiple cantilever, steel truss bridge carrying the eastbound lanes, a newer concrete segmental bridge that carries the westbound lanes, and a multi-use trail for bicyclists and pedestrians.
After crossing into Oregon, the freeway enters Umatilla and intersects US 730, which becomes briefly concurrent with US 395 after it splits from I-82. I-82, designated as the unsigned McNary Highway No. 70 under Oregon's named highway system, continues southwestward across the Umatilla River around central Hermiston. The freeway runs along the edge of the Umatilla Chemical Depot and terminates at an interchange with I-84, which is concurrent with US 30, southwest of Hermiston; I-84 and US 30 continue westward along the Columbia River toward Portland and eastward to Pendleton and Boise, Idaho.
## History
### Predecessor highways
Several sections of I-82 follow railroads and wagon roads that were built in the late 19th century to connect towns in Washington Territory, generally following early Indian trails. In the 1880s, the Northern Pacific Railway constructed a railroad along the Yakima River between Ellensburg and Pasco as part of its transcontinental route to Tacoma via Stampede Pass. The section through Yakima River Canyon between Ellensburg and North Yakima (now Yakima) bypassed an early toll road constructed by settler Jacob Durr that traveled farther west via Wenas Valley and Shushuskin Canyon.
In 1909, the Washington state government appropriated funds to survey routes through the Yakima Valley as part of a potential extension of the state road system. In 1913, at the suggestion of good roads advocates, the Washington State Legislature established the Inland Empire Highway as one of the trunk routes of its state highway system and appropriated \$301,000 (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to construct it to modern standards. The highway incorporated several existing and planned county roads from Ellensburg to Pasco; it then continued eastward to Walla Walla and northward to Spokane and the Canadian border near Kettle Falls. The Durr toll road was bypassed by a new highway through the Yakima River Canyon that opened on September 12, 1924, and was fully paved in 1932.
The Inland Empire Highway was also incorporated into the Yellowstone Trail, a national auto trail, and the federal numbered highway system created in 1926. Under the federal system, the Ellensburg–Yakima section formed part of US 97, a north–south route through central Washington and Oregon, and the Yakima–Walla Walla portion became part of US 410, which connected Aberdeen to Lewiston, Idaho. In 1923, the Washington state government renumbered the Inland Empire Highway as State Road 3, which would carry over as Primary State Highway 3 (PSH 3) in 1937. The federal highway system was expanded in the 1930s with an extension of US 395 along US 730 from the Tri-Cities towards Pendleton, Oregon and continuing southward. A branch highway between PSH 3 and the Columbia River near Plymouth—across from Umatilla, Oregon—was added to the state highway system in 1943 as an extension of PSH 8—the North Bank Highway; it was renumbered to SR 12 in 1964 and later SR 14 in 1967. The Plymouth extension connected to the Umatilla Bridge, a toll bridge that was built downstream from the McNary Dam in 1955. US 410 itself was replaced by a western extension of US 12 that was approved in June 1967.
### Planning and early disputes
The Ellensburg–Pendleton corridor was authorized in 1956 but was not formally added to the Interstate system until October 17, 1957. The 132-mile (212 km) corridor was proposed by the Department of Defense and Washington senator Warren Magnuson in part to connect military facilities in the Puget Sound region to the Hanford Site and the Umatilla Chemical Depot. Its inclusion was initially opposed by Oregon, fearing the loss of truck traffic bound for the Intermountain West through Portland. Under the initial plan approved by the Washington state government in January 1958, the highway would travel through the Yakima Valley and cross the Columbia River at Boardman, Oregon, bypassing the Tri-Cities region entirely. It was numbered "Interstate 82" in 1958, re-using an older designation for what would become Interstate 80N (now I-84). In 1959, the Washington State Highway Commission requested that the interstate would follow US 410 across Naches Pass to Tacoma and Aberdeen, but the proposal was quietly abandoned.
The routing of the freeway's northwestern half was subject to disputes, namely the bypassing of the Yakima River Canyon that was favored by truckers due to its gentler grades. In 1965, state highway commissioners chose the eastern route through the Yakima Firing Center, primarily because of its cost and room to support four lanes. A land transfer for 2,612 acres (1,057 ha) from the U.S. Army was approved by Congress in November 1967 to allow for freeway construction near the firing center. A section of the Yakima River Freeway was also planned to pass through part of the Yakama Indian Reservation but the Yakama Nation refused to allow the condemnation of 10 acres (4.0 ha) belonging to its members and filed suit against the state government in 1969. The U.S. District Court and U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the Yakamas, forcing I-82 to be rerouted across the river on non-reservation land.
I-82's chosen route between Union Gap and Granger would pass through 15 miles (24 km) of the Yakima River's flood plain, attracting criticism from the federal Environmental Protection Agency for its potential effects on the area. The Yakima County government also disliked the routing, arguing that it would destroy hundreds of acres of prime agricultural land. A later attempt by environmentalists to move the freeway farther away from the river, including a potential route along the Rattlesnake Ridge, was rejected by the state shorelines hearings board in 1978 due to its extra distance and potential effects on a rare butterfly bog.
### Tri-Cities routing dispute
The routing of I-82's southern half was altered several times during the planning process, which lasted until the early 1970s. Due to complications with the construction of a crossing at Blalock Island that was favored by the Port of Morrow, Oregon leaders lobbied for the interstate to cross farther east at the existing Umatilla Bridge. The Prosser–Umatilla route remained the favored alignment for both states in the early part of the process of identifying alternatives, despite growing opposition from business leaders in the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla who sought an interstate connection.
In 1962, the Washington highway commissioner ordered a new routing study for the I-82 corridor after hearing requests from legislators in the Tri-Cities area. The study produced four general corridors, including alternatives that shifted I-82 closer to the Tri-Cities, traversed the area, and continued southeastward along Lake Wallula. The states remained committed to the Umatilla crossing and formally approved the Horse Heaven routing after a two-day public hearing in October 1963. The Tri-Cities and Wallula routes were rejected, in part because of the limited supply of miles allotted by Congress to the Interstate program. Senator Magnuson and Oregon congressman Al Ullman intervened during the federal approval of the routing and called for a re-study. Magnuson later proposed a bill to add 19,000 miles (31,000 km) to the Interstate system, including an allotment for the Tri-Cities, but it failed to advance beyond Congressional committees for several years before quietly excluding I-82. In 1968, the federal government authorized \$25 million in funding (equivalent to \$ in dollars) for the 28-mile (45 km) addition.
The new study was funded jointly by the two states and contracted to an independent firm that completed it in September 1966. The study recommended that I-82 be routed through Pasco and follow Lake Wallula to a junction with I-80N near Pendleton, fulfilling the general goals of the project despite adding 37 miles (60 km) to the highway and costing another \$36 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) to construct. Oregon legislators, particularly those representing the Umatilla area, remained opposed to the routing and accused Washington of trying to "pick-pocket" traffic bound for Oregon. The Washington State Highway Commission gave preliminary approval to the Wallula route in December 1967, with support from the regional director of the Bureau of Public Roads, but their Oregon counterpart remained opposed. Oregon governor Tom McCall met with Senator Magnuson to propose a compromise route that would serve the Tri-Cities and the Port of Umatilla, which would later form the basis of a new study begun in mid-1968.
In May 1969, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the successor to the Bureau of Public Roads, announced a new compromise proposal, routing I-82 through Umatilla and adding a spur route I-182 to serve the Tri-Cities. The Washington State Highway Commission approved the compromise in July 1969, but the Oregon delegation expressed its support of the Wallula routing after it was modified to terminate farther west near Stanfield. The FHWA approved the Wallula alignment in October 1971, but protests from environmentalists over potential harm to local wildlife areas, including the McNary National Wildlife Refuge, forced the plan to be reconsidered in early 1973.
The Oregon commission remained opposed to all options that bypassed the Umatilla Bridge, mirroring public opinion from hearings in Pendleton, while the Washington commission considered a narrowed set of options around Umatilla that were both opposed by the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla. Support for the Wallula routing from the Tri-Cities waned in late 1973, allowing for a revival of the I-182 compromise proposed by the FHWA. The Washington commission approved a compromise route along the Horse Heaven Hills connecting Kennewick to the Umatilla Bridge, along with the I-182 spur to the Tri-Cities, in October 1973 and the Oregon commission approved it that December. The Washington state government also created a new state highway, SR 143, that connected the Umatilla Bridge to Plymouth. The FHWA approved the routing decision but as late as 1978, attempts were made to propose new alignments for the freeway in Oregon.
### Construction and opening
The first section of I-82 to open was the eastern bypass of Yakima, which was planned as an upgrade to PSH 3 in the 1950s and completed in November 1963. The bypass freeway was later extended 2 miles (3.2 km) southward to Union Gap in August 1965 and northward to Selah in August 1967. The 26-mile (42 km) section between Ellensburg and Yakima was funded earlier than scheduled, money being diverted from stalled freeway projects in the Seattle area, and construction began in October 1968. The \$35 million freeway project (equivalent to \$ in dollars) required the excavation of approximately 20 million cubic yards (15 million m<sup>3</sup>) of dirt and facilitated the discovery of a new geologic fault that would be monitored for seismic movement. WSDOT contractors built the longest concrete arch spans in North America on the Fred G. Redmon Bridge, which crosses Selah Creek near the city of the same name. The Ellensburg–Yakima freeway was opened on November 12, 1971, and US 97 was transferred to the new highway and the Yakima Canyon route became SR 821, a scenic highway.
Major construction in the Yakima Valley began in 1977 with the building of a \$5 million section (equivalent to \$ in dollars) between Zillah and Granger, and a bypass of Prosser estimated to cost \$7.2 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars). Freeway construction was accelerated for sections bypassing the worst stretches of US 410, including winding highways or high-traffic roads. The 4-mile (6.4 km) Zillah–Granger freeway opened in January 1979, and the Prosser bypass opened in late August the same year. I-82 was then extended 7 miles (11 km) westward from Prosser to Grandview in January 1981 at a cost of \$19 million. A 15-mile (24 km) connection between the existing Yakima Freeway at Union Gap and the Zillah freeway was completed on November 24, 1981, and cost \$47 million to construct (equivalent to \$ in dollars). The freeway's construction created an embankment between the Yakima River and surrounding areas, which helped to worsen major floods; it also required the digging of several gravel pits nearby, which were later converted into seven trout-stocked ponds that feed a local osprey population. The last section of the Yakima Valley Freeway to be built, running 15 miles (24 km) from Granger to Sunnyside and Grandview, was opened to traffic on October 29, 1982, shortly after a dedication ceremony to commemorate the Yakima Valley project.
The routing of I-82 around the Tri-Cities and to the Umatilla Bridge was approved by the Benton County government in 1972, generally following SR 14 and bypassing Kennewick to the southwest. Construction on I-82 and I-182 began in 1980, using \$340 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) in newly earmarked funds from the U.S. Congress. A short, 2-mile (3.2 km) section bypassing Plymouth and preparing for the new Umatilla Bridge was opened to traffic on August 31, 1981, and cost \$5 million to construct (equivalent to \$ in dollars). The remaining sections on SR 14 between Plymouth and Kennewick were constructed and paved between 1983 and 1985. US 395 was re-aligned onto the new freeway in 1985, replacing an earlier alignment that traveled through Wallula, while SR 14 was truncated to Plymouth and SR 143 was eliminated. The final section of I-82 within Washington state, spanning 17 miles (27 km) from Kiona to an interchange south of Kennewick, was dedicated on February 23, 1986, and opened the following month. During construction of I-82, a pair of fossilized tusks belonging to a mastodon and Columbian mammoth were found by workers near Kiona and Plymouth, respectively, and were excavated by local archaeologists. The existing 12-mile (19 km) divided highway between Prosser and Kiona, built in 1960, was upgraded to Interstate standards in 1987 at a cost of \$19.2 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars).
Construction of the northbound Umatilla Bridge, located 100 feet (30 m) upriver from the original bridge, began in 1985. The new bridge cost \$16.5 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) and was completed in October 1987 after two years of construction. The final section of I-82, extending 9.9 miles (15.9 km) between Umatilla and Hermiston, began construction in February 1984 and was dedicated and opened to traffic on September 20, 1988. It was also the final segment of the Interstate Highway system in Oregon, which spanned 731 miles (1,176 km). The southbound Umatilla Bridge underwent a major \$5.2 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) rehabilitation project and re-opened in July 1990. The total cost to construct I-82 was estimated in 1988 to be \$317 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars), of which \$288 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) was spent in Washington and \$29 million (equivalent to \$ in dollars) was spent in Oregon.
### Later years
I-80N was renumbered to I-84 in 1980 as part of a mandate by American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials to eliminate suffixed routes and reduce traveler confusion. The designation of I-82 fell outside the standard numbering scheme for Interstates, which uses comparatively higher numbers for the northernmost east–west routes. A 1970s proposal to renumber I-82 to remain in compliance with the numbering scheme was rejected by the Washington State Department of Highways due to the cost of sign replacement and potential for public confusion.
In 1999, the Oregon Legislative Assembly passed a bill directing the Oregon Department of Transportation to study a proposal for an extension of I-82 to the California or Nevada border. The study was completed two years later and outlined three general routes that would replace existing north–south highways in eastern Oregon. The westernmost route would follow US 97 from Klamath Falls through Bend and Redmond to Biggs Junction, relying on I-84 to complete its connection with I-82. A variation of the route with a direct connection to I-82 near Hermiston would branch off at Madras and travel northeastward through a mountainous region along Route 218 and Route 207. The easternmost route would follow US 395 between the California border and Pendleton, passing through a less-densely populated region but serving Burns and John Day. The study found that a new freeway would have little effect on economic growth in eastern Oregon and congestion relief in the Willamette Valley, but would provide a suitable alternative route for long-haul travel.
Since the 1990s, the Washington state government has improved or rebuilt several interchanges on I-82, particularly in the Yakima area. In 1998, SR 823 was extended southward from Selah to northern Yakima via a new road in the median of I-82, whose bridges over the Naches and Yakima rivers were also refurbished. The Valley Mall interchange in Union Gap was rebuilt from 2009 to 2011 using a series of roundabouts and a loop ramp to replace the existing freeway ramps. In 2010, two overpasses carrying I-82 were demolished and replaced with new structures that would accommodate a future widening project. A separate proposal in the early 2010s included a third lane for I-82 in northern Yakima, but it was postponed in favor of the building of a new interchange and east–west road at the Cascade Mill development site. A proposal to add climbing lanes for trucks on the steep grades in the Manastash Ridge between Ellensburg and Yakima was made in the 2000s and remains unfunded as of 2017.
I-82's current interchange with SR 224 in Kiona was rebuilt in 2016 and will be supplemented with a new interchange serving the Red Mountain AVA. Construction of the new interchange, which was intended to divert traffic bound for the winery region and new development near West Richland, was proposed by local politicians in the early 2000s but failed to earn funding from the state. The project was postponed in September 2019 after federal officials stated that the traffic volumes would be too low to justify an interchange.
## Exit list
|
46,182,131 |
Black American Sign Language
| 1,172,726,415 |
Dialect of American Sign Language
|
[
"African-American culture",
"American Sign Language",
"American Sign Language family",
"Deaf culture in the United States",
"French Sign Language family",
"Languages attested from the 19th century",
"School segregation in the United States",
"Sign languages of the United States",
"Special education in the United States"
] |
Black American Sign Language (BASL) or Black Sign Variation (BSV) is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) used most commonly by deaf African Americans in the United States. The divergence from ASL was influenced largely by the segregation of schools in the American South. Like other schools at the time, schools for the deaf were segregated based upon race, creating two language communities among deaf signers: black deaf signers at black schools and white deaf signers at white schools. As of the mid 2010s, BASL is still used by signers in the South despite public schools having been legally desegregated since 1954.
Linguistically, BASL differs from other varieties of ASL in its phonology, syntax, and vocabulary. BASL tends to have a larger signing space, meaning that some signs are produced further away from the body than in other dialects. Signers of BASL also tend to prefer two-handed variants of signs, while signers of ASL tend to prefer one-handed variants. Some signs are different in BASL as well, with some borrowings from African American English.
## History
Like many educational institutions for hearing children during the 1800s and early 1900s, schools for deaf children were segregated based on race. The first school for the Deaf in the United States, the American School for the Deaf (ASD), was founded in 1817 but did not admit any Black students until 1952. Of the schools for the Deaf that were founded, few admitted students of color. Seeing a lack of educational opportunities for Black Deaf children, Platt Skinner founded the Skinner School for the Colored Deaf, Dumb, and Blind in 1856 in Niagara Falls, New York. Skinner described his school as "the first effort of its kind in the country ... We receive and instruct those and only those who are refused admission to all other institutions and are despised on account of their color." The school moved to Trenton, New Jersey, in 1860. After it closed in 1866, no Northern state created an institution for Black Deaf children. Even after these states outlawed segregation by 1900, integration was sparse, as some institutions allowed black students and others did not.
After the foundation and success of the American School for the Deaf, many other institutions for the deaf were founded throughout the country. Since schools, particularly in the South, were segregated, many Southern states created separate schools or departments for Black Deaf children. The first school established for Black Deaf children below the Mason–Dixon line opened in the District of Columbia in 1857; it remained segregated until 1958. The last Southern state to create an institution for Black Deaf children was Louisiana in 1938. Black deaf children became a language community isolated from white Deaf children, with different means of language socialization, allowing for different dialects to develop. Because the education of white children was privileged over that of Black children, oralism—the prominent pedagogical method of the time—was not as strictly applied to the Black Deaf students. Oralist methods often forbade the use of sign language, so Black Deaf students had more opportunities to use ASL than did their white peers. Despite the decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, integration was slow to come. Schools for the deaf were no exception: the last desegregated in 1978, 24 years after the decision.
As schools began to integrate, students and teachers noticed differences in the way Black students and white students signed. Carolyn McCaskill, now professor of ASL and Deaf Studies at Gallaudet University, recalls the challenge of understanding the dialect of ASL used by her white principal and teachers after her segregated school of her youth integrated: "When I began attending the school, I did not understand the teacher and she did not understand me because we used different signs." Carl G. Croneberg was the first to discuss differences between BASL and White ASL in his appendices of the 1965 version of the Dictionary of American Sign Language. Work has continued on BASL since then.
As Deaf education and sign language research continued to evolve, so did the perception of ASL. With the publication of the Dictionary of American Sign Language, ASL began to be recognized as a legitimate language. The greater acceptance of ASL as a language led to standardization and the development of a prestige dialect, which was based upon the signs used at Gallaudet University. Despite this standardization, ASL has regional, distinct accents similar to those of spoken languages. Dialects that are different from the standard one, and especially those spoken by marginalized groups, are often stigmatized. As a non-standard dialect, BASL is stigmatized by signers and considered to be inferior to prestige dialects of ASL. This difference in prestige has led BASL speakers to code switch to a prestige dialect when speaking with different groups of people, despite BASL being mutually intelligible with other dialects of ASL.
A study of Southern Black signers found that when compared to older signers who attended segregated schools, younger Black ASL signers express more positive attitudes toward the dialect. Older signers who attended lower quality schools due to the inequality of "separate but equal" clauses believed that white signing is higher quality because it appears to be more complicated. However, this is likely because the lack of ASL-skilled teachers in the Black schools at the time; there is no evidence that white signing is more official or complex than Black ASL. Black signs are typically more like the "standard" signs taught in schools and textbooks. Black signing is also associated with rhythm and expression.
## Phonology
When asked, many signers in the South gave anecdotal accounts of differences between the signing of Black and White signers. These differences turned out to be aspects of the differing phonology of BASL. Among these accounts were claims that Black signers had a larger signing space and used more two-handed signs. Investigation into these anecdotes has found correlations.
When compared, Black signers were more likely than were White signers to produce signs outside of the typical signing space and to use two-handed signs. Adverbs are most likely to use a larger signing space. Less marked forms, such as pronouns, determiners, plain verbs, and nouns, tend to be less likely to be produced outside the typical signing space. The selection of two-handed signs over one-handed signs was found to have systematic constraints on their production. When the sign could be produced with one or two hands, Black signers often produced the variant that matched the handedness of the following sign; if the following sign was two-handed, they were more likely to produce a two-handed variant, while if the following sign was one-handed, they were more likely to produce the one-handed variant. The use of innovative one-handed forms, though, even in environments which favored them, did not exceed 50 percent.
BASL signers further tend to favor lowered variants of side-of-forehead signs resulting in contact at the cheek. The sign KNOW is usually produced by placing the fingers of a flat hand on the temple, but when lowered the fingers make contact at the cheek. Early research showed that BASL signers used these lowered forms at a rate of 53 percent, with grammatical category being the strongest constraint. Other conditioning environments for lowered signs depend on preceding location; for instance, signs produced in front of the body lead to lowered sign variants, while signs produced at the head cause signers to favor non-lowered forms.
## Syntax
Unlike ASL, BASL allows for the frequent use of syntactic repetition. In a study conducted by McCaskill, of 26 signers (13 Black and 13 White), Black signers had 57 instances of repetition compared to 19 from White signers, and of those 19 instances, 18 were made by a single signer. The use of repetition by BASL signers is considered to be pragmatic rather than as a way to clarify meaning.
A study in 2004 by Melanie Metzger and Susan Mather found that Black male signers used constructed action, with or without constructed dialogue, more often than White signers, but never used constructed dialogue by itself. These results were not reproduced in a later study into constructed action and constructed dialogue by McCaskill, which found that Black signers not only used constructed dialogue, but did so more frequently than white signers.
## Lexical variation
Lexical variation between BASL and other dialects of ASL was first noted in the Dictionary of American Sign Language. In a later study of 34 lexical signs, black signers were found to have 28 signs that White signers did not know. Older signers are more likely to use variant signs than younger signers. Most of these signs, having been developed in segregated schools for the Black Deaf, refer to everyday life. Younger signers of BASL are less likely to use these variants, but when asked about them are aware that older signers have and use these innovative signs.
### Borrowing from African-American Vernacular English
A body of work has arisen looking at the similarities between Black American Sign Language and African-American English (AAVE), since both are language varieties marked by their use in African-American communities. In 1998 John Lewis investigated the incorporation of aspects of AAVE into BASL. He reported that, during narrative storytelling by a Black signer, there were "Ebonic shifts" marked by shifts in posture and rhythmicity and by incorporating side-to-side head movement. He concluded that this "songified" quality was related to the style of AAE. This finding was not reproduced by McCaskill, which she attributes to the nature of the speech acts: Lewis analyzed a narrative event while McCaskill used natural or elicited data. Lexical borrowing has been seen in BASL signers under age 3, which is likely due to the advances in mass media—younger signers would have more contact with AAE through movies, television, and the Internet.
When asked about distinctive features of their signing, Black Deaf signers tended to identify a number of idioms borrowed from AAVE. Some were literal translations, such as I FEEL YOU or GIRL PLEASE, which are signed the standard way but have meanings different from their literal interpretation. Other loan words modified existing signs, such as STOP TRIPPING, which took the bent-v handshape of TRIP and moved it up to the head to indicate a new meaning of "stop imagining things".
## See also
- Sociolinguistics of sign languages
- Varieties of American Sign Language
|
998,432 |
Hungarian nobility
| 1,169,171,938 |
Privileged social class in the Kingdom of Hungary
|
[
"Hungarian nobility",
"Kingdom of Croatia",
"Kingdom of Hungary",
"Social history of Croatia",
"Social history of Hungary",
"Social history of Slovakia",
"Transylvania in the Kingdom of Hungary"
] |
The Kingdom of Hungary held a noble class of individuals, most of whom owned landed property, from the 11th century until the mid-20th century. Initially, a diverse body of people were described as noblemen, but from the late 12th century only high-ranking royal officials were regarded as noble. Most aristocrats claimed ancestry from chieftains of the period preceding the establishment of the kingdom around 1000; others were descended from western European knights who settled in Hungary. The lower-ranking castle warriors also held landed property and served in the royal army. From the 1170s, most privileged laymen called themselves royal servants to emphasize their direct connection to the monarchs. The Golden Bull of 1222 established their liberties, especially tax exemption and the limitation of military obligations. From the 1220s, royal servants were associated with the nobility and the highest-ranking officials were known as barons of the realm. Only those who owned allods – lands free of obligations – were regarded as true noblemen, but other privileged groups of landowners, known as conditional nobles, also existed.
In the 1280s, Simon of Kéza was the first to claim that noblemen held authority in the kingdom. The counties developed into institutions of noble autonomy, and the nobles' delegates attended the Diets (parliaments). The wealthiest barons built stone castles allowing them to control vast territories, but royal authority was restored in the early 14th century. In 1351, King Louis I introduced an entail system and enacted the principle of "one and the selfsame liberty" of all noblemen, but legal distinctions between true noblemen and conditional nobles prevailed. The most powerful nobles employed lesser noblemen as their familiares (retainers) but this private link did not sever the familiaris' direct subjection to the monarch. According to customary law, only males inherited noble estates, but under the Hungarian royal prerogative of prefection the kings could promote "a daughter to a son", allowing her to inherit her father's lands. Noblewomen who had married a commoner could also claim their inheritance – the daughters' quarter (that is one-quarter of their father's possessions) – in land.
Although the Tripartitum – a frequently cited compilation of customary law published in 1514 – reinforced the idea that all noblemen were equal, the monarchs granted hereditary titles to powerful aristocrats, and the poorest nobles lost their tax exemption from the mid-16th century. In the early modern period, because of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, Hungary was divided into three parts: Royal Hungary, Transylvania and Ottoman Hungary. The princes of Transylvania supported the noblemen's fight against the Habsburg dynasty in Royal Hungary, but prevented the Transylvanian noblemen from challenging their own authority. Ennoblement of whole groups of people was not unusual in the 17th century. Examples include the 10,000 hajdú who received nobility as a group in 1605. After the Diet was divided into two chambers in Royal Hungary in 1608, noblemen with a hereditary title had a seat in the upper house, other nobles sent delegates to the lower house.
After the Ottomans' defeat in the Great Turkish War in the late 17th century, Transylvania and Ottoman Hungary were integrated into the Habsburg monarchy. The Habsburgs confirmed the nobles' privileges several times, but their attempts to strengthen royal authority regularly brought them into conflicts with the nobility, who represented nearly five percent of the population. Reformist noblemen demanded the abolition of noble privileges from the 1790s, but their program was enacted only during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Most noblemen lost their estates after the emancipation of their serfs, but the aristocrats preserved their distinguished social status. State administration employed thousands of impoverished noblemen in Austria-Hungary. Prominent (mainly Jewish) bankers and industrialists were awarded with nobility, but their social status remained inferior to traditional aristocrats. Noble titles were abolished only in 1947, months after Hungary was proclaimed a republic.
## Origins
The Magyars (or Hungarians) lived in the Pontic steppes when they first appear in written sources from the mid-9th century. Muslim merchants described them as wealthy nomadic warriors, but they also noticed the Magyars had extensive arable lands. The Magyars crossed the Carpathian Mountains after the Pechenegs invaded their lands in 894 or 895. They settled in the lowlands along the Middle Danube, annihilated Moravia and defeated the Bavarians in the 900s. According to some scholarly theories, at least three Hungarian noble clans were descended from Moravian aristocrats who survived the Magyar conquest. Historians who are convinced that the Vlachs (or Romanians) were already present in the Carpathian Basin in the late 9th century propose that the Vlach knezes (or chieftains) also endured. Neither of these hypotheses are universally accepted.
Around 950, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 913–959) wrote that the Hungarians were organized into "tribes", and each had its own "prince". The tribal leaders most probably bore the title úr (now "lord"), as it is suggested by Hungarian terms deriving from this word, such as ország (now "realm") and uralkodni ("to rule"). The Emperor noted the Magyars spoke both Hungarian and "the tongue of the Chazars" (a powerful steppe people), showing that at least their leaders were bilingual.
The Magyars lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic life but archaeological research shows that most settlements consisted of small pit-houses and log cabins in the 10th century. Tents in use are only mentioned in 12th-century literary sources. No archeological finds evidence fortresses in the Carpathian Basin in the 10th century, but fortresses were also rare in Western Europe during the same period. A larger log cabin – measuring five by five metres (16 ft × 16 ft) – which was built on a foundation of stones in Borsod was tentatively identified as the local leader's household.
More than a 1,000 graves yielding sabres, arrow-heads and bones of horses show that mounted warriors formed a significant group in the 10th century. The highest-ranking Hungarians were buried either in large cemeteries (where hundreds of their men were buried without weapons around their leader's burial place), or in small cemeteries with 25–30 graves. The wealthy warriors' burial sites yielded richly decorated horse harness, and sabretaches ornamented with precious metal plaques. Rich women's graves contained their braid ornaments and rings made of silver or gold and decorated with precious stones. The most widespread decorative motifs which can be regarded as tribal totems – the griffin, wolf and hind – were rarely applied in Hungarian heraldry in the following centuries. Defeats during the Hungarian invasions of Europe and clashes with the paramount rulers from the Árpád dynasty had decimated the leading families by the end of the 10th century. The Gesta Hungarorum, a chronicle written around 1200, claimed that dozens of noble kindred flourishing in the late 12th century had been descended from tribal leaders, but most modern scholars do not regard this list as a reliable source.
## Middle Ages
### Development
Stephen I (r. 997–1038), who was crowned the first king of Hungary in 1000 or 1001, defeated the last resisting tribal chieftains. Earthen forts were built throughout the kingdom and most of them developed into centers of royal administration. About 30 administrative units, known as counties, were established before 1040; more than 40 new counties were organized during the next centuries. Each county was headed by a royal official, the ispán. The royal court provided further career opportunities. As the historian Martyn Rady noted, the "royal household was the greatest provider of largesse in the kingdom" where the royal family owned more than two thirds of all lands. The palatine – the head of the royal household – was the highest-ranking royal official.
The kings from the Árpád dynasty appointed their officials from among the members of about 110 aristocratic clans. These aristocrats were descended either from native (that is, Magyar, Kabar, Pecheneg or Slavic) chiefs, or from foreign knights who had migrated to the country in the 11th and 12th centuries. The foreign knights had been trained in the Western European art of war, which contributed to the development of heavy cavalry in Hungary. Their descendants were labelled as newcomers for centuries, but intermarriage between natives and newcomers was not rare, which enabled their integration in two or three generations. The monarchs pursued an expansionist policy from the late 11th century. Ladislaus I (r. 1077–1095) seized Slavonia – the plains between the river Drava and the Dinaric Alps – in the 1090s. His successor, Coloman (r. 1095–1116), was crowned king of Croatia in 1102. Both realms retained their own customs, and Hungarians rarely received land grants in Croatia. According to customary law, Croatians could not be obliged to cross the river Drava to fight in the royal army at their own expense.
The earliest royal decrees authorized landowners to dispose freely of their private estates, but customary law prescribed that inherited lands could only be transferred with the consent of the owner's kinsmen who could potentially inherit them. From the early 12th century, only family lands traceable back to a grant made by Stephen I could be inherited by the deceased owner's distant relatives; other estates escheated to the Crown if their owner did not have offspring or brothers. Aristocratic families held their inherited domains in common for generations before the 13th century. Thereafter the division of inherited property became the standard practice. Even families descended from wealthy clans could become impoverished through the regular divisions of their estates.
Medieval documents mention the basic unit of estate organization as praedium or allodium. A praedium was a piece of land (either a whole village or part of it) with well-marked borders. Archaeologist Mária Wolf identifies the small motte forts, built on artificial mounds and protected by a ditch and a palisade that appeared in the 12th century, as the centers of private estates. Most wealthy landowners' domains consisted of scattered praedia, in several villages. Due to the scarcity of documentary evidence, the size of the private estates cannot be determined. The descendants of Otto Győr, the ispán of Somogy County remained wealthy landowners even after he donated 360 households to the newly established Zselicszentjakab Abbey in 1061. The establishment of monasteries by wealthy individuals was common. Such proprietary monasteries served as burial places for their founders and the founders' descendants, who were regarded as the co-owners, or from the 13th century, co-patrons, of the monastery. Serfs cultivated part of the praedium, but other plots were hired out in return for in-kind taxes.
The term "noble" was rarely used and poorly defined before the 13th century: it could refer to a courtier, a landowner with judicial powers, or even to a common warrior. The existence of a diverse group of warriors, who were subjected to the monarch, royal officials or prelates is well documented. The castle warriors, who were exempt from taxation, held hereditary landed property around the royal castles. Lightly armored horsemen, known as lövők (or archers), and armed castle folk, mentioned as őrök (or guards), defended the borderlands.
### Golden Bulls
Official documents from the end of the 12th century only mentioned court dignitaries and ispáns as noblemen. This group had adopted most elements of chivalric culture. They regularly named their children after Paris of Troy, Hector, Tristan, Lancelot and other heroes of Western European chivalric romances. The first tournaments were held around the same time.
The regular alienation of royal estates is well-documented from the 1170s. The monarchs granted immunities, exempting the grantee's estates from the jurisdiction of the ispáns, or even renouncing royal revenues that had been collected there. Béla III (r. 1172–1196) was the first Hungarian monarch to give away a whole county to a nobleman: he granted Modrus in Croatia to Bartholomew of Krk in 1193, stipulating that the grantee was to equip warriors for the royal army. Béla's son, Andrew II (r. 1205–1235), decided to "alter the conditions" of his realm and "distribute castles, counties, lands and other revenues" to his officials, as he narrated in a document in 1217. Instead of granting the estates in fief, with an obligation to render future services, he gave them as allods, in reward for the grantee's previous acts. The great officers who were the principal beneficiaries of his grants were mentioned as barons of the realm from the late 1210s.
Donations of such a large scale accelerated the development of a wealthy group of landowners, most descending from a high-ranking kindred. Some wealthy landowners could afford to build stone castles. Closely related aristocrats were distinguished from other lineages through a reference to their (actual or presumed) common ancestor with the words de genere ("from the kindred"). Families descending from the same kindred adopted similar insignia. The author of the Gesta Hungarorum fabricated genealogies for them and emphasized that they could never be excluded from "the honor of the realm", that is from state administration.
The new owners of the transferred royal estates wanted to subjugate the freemen, castle warriors and other privileged groups of people living in or around their domains. The threatened groups wanted to achieve confirmation of their status as royal servants, emphasizing that they were only to serve the king. Béla III issued the first extant royal charter about the grant of this rank to a castle warrior. Andrew II's Golden Bull of 1222 enacted royal servants' privileges. They were exempt from taxation; they were to fight in the royal army without proper compensation only if enemy forces invaded the kingdom; only the monarch or the palatine could judge their cases. According to the Golden Bull, only royal servants who died without a son could freely will their estates, but even in this case, their daughters were entitled to the daughters' quarter. The final article of the Golden Bull authorized the bishops, barons and other nobles to resist the monarch if he ignored its provisions. Most provisions of the Golden Bull were first confirmed in 1231.
The clear definition of the royal servants' liberties distinguished them from all other privileged groups, whose military obligations remained theoretically unlimited. From the 1220s, the royal servants were regularly called noblemen and started to develop their own corporate institutions at the county level. In 1232, the royal servants of Zala County asked Andrew II to authorize them "to judge and do justice", stating that the county had slipped into anarchy. The king granted their request and Bartholomew, Bishop of Veszprém, sued one Ban Oguz for properties before their community.
The first Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241 proved the importance of well-fortified locations and heavily armored cavalry. In the following decades, Béla IV of Hungary (r. 1235–1270) gave away large parcels of the royal demesne, expecting that the new owners would build stone castles there. Béla's burdensome castle-building program was unpopular, but achieved his aim: almost 70 castles were built or reconstructed during his reign. More than half of the new or reconstructed castles were in noblemen's domains. Most new castles were erected on rocky peaks, mainly along the western and northern borderlands. The spread of stone castles profoundly changed the structure of landholding, because castles could not be maintained without proper income. Lands and villages were legally attached to each castle, and castles were thereafter always transferred and inherited along with these "appurtenances".
The royal servants were legally identified as nobles in 1267. That year "the nobles of all Hungary, called royal servants" persuaded Béla IV and his son, Stephen V (r. 1270–1272), to hold an assembly and confirm their collective privileges. Other groups of land-holding warriors could also be called nobles, but they were always distinguished from the true noblemen. They held their estates conditionally, as they were required to provide well-defined services to another lord, hence their groups are now collectively known as conditional nobles. The noble Vlach knezes who had landed property in the Banate of Severin were obliged to fight in the army of the ban (or royal governor). Most warriors known as the "noble sons of servants" were descended from freemen or liberated serfs who received estates from Béla IV in Upper Hungary on the condition that they were to equip jointly a fixed number of knights. The nobles of the Church formed the armed retinue of the wealthiest prelates. The nobles of Turopolje in Slavonia were required to provide food and fodder to high-ranking royal officials. Two privileged groups, the Székelys and Saxons firmly protected their communal liberties, which prevented their leaders from exercising noble privileges in the Székely and Saxon territories in Transylvania. Székelys and Saxons could only enjoy the liberties of noblemen if they held estates outside the lands of the two privileged communities.
Most noble families failed to adopt a strategy to avoid the division of their inherited estates into dwarf-holdings through generations. Daughters could only demand the cash equivalent of the quarter of their father's estates, but younger sons rarely remained unmarried. Impoverished noblemen had little chance to receive land grants from the kings, because they were unable to participate in the monarchs' military campaigns, but commoners who bravely fought in the royal army were regularly ennobled.
### Self-government and oligarchs
The historian Erik Fügedi noted that "castle bred castle" in the second half of the 13th century: if a landowner erected a fortress, his neighbors would also build one to defend their own estates. Between 1271 and 1320, noblemen or prelates built at least 155 new fortresses. In comparison, only about a dozen castles were erected on the royal demesne. Most castles consisted of a tower, surrounded by a fortified courtyard, but the tower could also be built into the walls. Noblemen who could not erect fortresses were occasionally forced to abandon their inherited estates or seek the protection of more powerful lords, even through renouncing their liberties.
The lords of the castles had to hire a professional staff for the defence of the castle and the management of its appurtenances. They primarily employed nobles who held nearby estates, which gave rise to the development of a new institution, known as familiaritas. A familiaris was a nobleman who entered into the service of a wealthier landowner in exchange for a fixed salary or a portion of revenue, or rarely for the ownership or usufruct (right to enjoyment) of a piece of land. Unlike a conditional noble, a familiaris remained de jure an independent landholder, only subject to the monarch.
From the 1270s, the monarchs' coronation oath included a promise to respect the noblemen's liberties. The counties gradually transformed into an institution of the noblemen's local autonomy. Noblemen regularly discussed local matters at the counties' general assemblies. The sedria (the counties' law courts) became important elements in the administration of justice. They were headed by the ispáns or their deputies, but they consisted of four (in Slavonia and Transylvania, two) elected local noblemen, known as judges of the nobles.
Hungary fell into a state of anarchy because of the minority of Ladislaus IV (r. 1272–1290) in the early 1270s. To restore public order, the prelates convoked the barons and the delegates of the noblemen and the nomadic Cumans who had settled in Hungary to a general assembly near Pest in 1277. This first Diet (or parliament) declared the fifteen-year-old monarch to be of age in an attempt to put en end to the anarchy. In the early 1280s, Simon of Kéza associated the Hungarian nation with the nobility in his Deeds of the Hungarians, emphasizing that the community of noblemen held real authority.
The barons took advantage of the weakening of royal authority and seized large, contiguous territories. The monarchs could not appoint and dismiss their officials at will anymore. The most powerful barons – known as oligarchs in modern historiography – appropriated royal prerogatives, combining private lordship with their administrative powers. When Andrew III (r. 1290–1301), the last male member of the Árpád dynasty, died in 1301, about a dozen lords held sway over most parts of the kingdom.
### Age of the Angevins
Ladislaus IV's great-nephew, Charles I (r. 1301–1342), who was a scion of the Capetian House of Anjou, restored royal power in the 1310s and 1320s. He seized the oligarchs' castles mainly by force, which again secured the preponderance of the royal demesne. He refuted the Golden Bull in 1318 and claimed that noblemen had to fight in his army at their own expense. He ignored customary law and regularly "promoted a daughter to a son", granting her the right to inherit her father's estates. The King reorganized the royal household, appointing pages and knights to form his permanent retinue. He established the Order of Saint George, which was the first chivalric order in Europe. Charles I was the first Hungarian monarch to grant coats of arms (or rather crests) to his subjects. He based royal administration on honors (or office fiefs), distributing most counties and royal castles among his highest-ranking officials. These "baronies", as the historian Matteo Villani (d. 1363) recorded it in about 1350, were "neither hereditary nor lifelong", but Charles rarely dismissed his most trusted barons. Each baron was required to hold his own banderium (or armed retinue), distinguished by his own banner.
In 1351, Charles's son and successor, Louis I (r. 1342–1382) confirmed all provisions of the Golden Bull, save the one that authorized childless noblemen to freely will their estates. Instead, he introduced an entail system, prescribing that childless noblemen's landed property "should descend to their brothers, cousins and kinsmen". This new concept of aviticitas also protected the Crown's interests: only kin within the third degree could inherit a nobleman's property and noblemen who had only more distant relatives could not dispose of their property without the king's consent. Louis I emphasized all noblemen enjoyed "one and the selfsame liberty" in his realms and secured all privileges that nobles owned in Hungary proper to their Slavonian and Transylvanian peers. He rewarded dozens of Vlach knezes with true nobility for military merits. The vast majority of the Upper Hungarian "noble sons of servants" achieved the status of true noblemen without a formal royal act, because the memory of their conditional landholding fell into oblivion. Most of them preferred Slavic names even in the 14th century, showing that they spoke the local Slavic vernacular. Other groups of conditional nobles remained distinguished from true noblemen. They developed their own institutions of self-government, known as seats or districts. Louis decreed that only Catholic noblemen and knezes could hold landed property in the district of Karánsebes (now Caransebeș in Romania) in 1366, but Eastern Orthodox landowners were not forced to convert to Catholicism in other territories of the kingdom. Even the Catholic bishop of Várad (now Oradea in Romania) authorized his Vlach voivodes (leaders) to employ Orthodox priests. The king granted the Transylvanian district of Fogaras (around present-day Făgăraș in Romania) to Vladislav I of Wallachia (r. 1364–1377) in fief in 1366. In his new duchy, Vladislaus I donated estates to Wallachian boyars; their legal status was similar to the position of the knezes in other regions of Hungary.
Royal charters customarily identified noblemen and landowners from the second half of the 14th century. A man who lived in his own house on his own estates was described as living "in the way of nobles", in contrast with those who did not own landed property and lived "in the way of peasants". A verdict of 1346 declared that a noble woman who was given in marriage to a commoner should receive her inheritance "in the form of an estate in order to preserve the nobility of the descendants born of the ignoble marriage". According to the local customs of certain counties, her husband was also regarded as a nobleman – a noble by his wife.
The peasants' legal position had been standardized in almost the entire kingdom by the 1350s. The free peasant tenants were to pay seigneurial taxes, but were rarely obliged to provide labour service. In 1351, the king ordered that the ninth – a tax payable to the landowners – was to be collected from all tenants, thus preventing landowners from offering lower taxes to persuade tenants to move from other lords' lands to their estates. In 1328, all landowners were authorized to administer justice on their estates "in all cases except cases of theft, robbery, assault or arson" which remained under the jurisdiction of the sedria. The kings started to grant noblemen the right to execute or mutilate criminals who were captured in their estates. The most influential noblemen's estates were also exempted of the jurisdiction of the counties' law courts.
### Emerging Estates
Royal power quickly declined after Louis I died in 1382. His son-in-law, Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1387–1437), entered into a formal league with the aristocrats who had elected him king in early 1387. Initially, when his position was weak, he gave away more than half of the 150 royal castles to his supporters, although this abated when he strengthened his authority in the early 15th century. His favorites were foreigners, but old Hungarian families also took advantage of his magnanimity. The wealthiest noblemen, known as magnates, built comfortable castles in the countryside which became important centers of social life. These fortified manor houses always contained a hall for representative purposes and a private chapel. Sigismund regularly invited the magnates to the royal council, even if they did not hold higher offices. He founded a new chivalric order, the Order of the Dragon, in 1408 to reward his most loyal supporters.
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached the southern frontiers in the 1390s. A large anti-Ottoman crusade ended with a catastrophic defeat near Nicopolis in 1396. Next year, Sigismund held a Diet in Temesvár (now Timișoara in Romania) to strengthen the defence system. He confirmed the Golden Bull, but without the two provisions that limited the noblemen's military obligations and established their right to resist the monarchs. The Diet obliged all landowners to equip one archer for every 20 peasant plots on their domains to serve in the royal army. Sigismund granted large estates in Hungary to neighboring Orthodox rulers to secure their alliance. They established Basilite monasteries on their estates.
Sigismund's son-in-law, Albert of Habsburg (r. 1438–1439), was elected king in early 1438, but only after he promised always to make important decisions with the consent of the royal council. After he died in 1439, a civil war broke out between the partisans of his son, Ladislaus the Posthumous (r. 1440–1457), and the supporters of the child king's rival, Vladislaus III of Poland (r. 1440–1444). Ladislaus the Posthumous was crowned without election with the Holy Crown of Hungary, but the Diet proclaimed the coronation invalid, stating that "the crowning of kings is always dependent on the will of the kingdom's inhabitants, in whose consent both the effectiveness and the force of the crown reside". Vladislaus died fighting the Ottomans during the Crusade of Varna in 1444 and the Diet elected seven captains in chief to administer the kingdom. The talented military commander, John Hunyadi (d. 1456), was elected the sole regent in 1446.
The Diet developed from a consultative body into an important institution of law making in the 1440s. The magnates were always invited to attend it in person. Lesser noblemen were also entitled to attend the Diet, but in most cases they were represented by delegates, who were almost always the magnates' familiares.
### Birth of titled nobility and the Tripartitum
Hunyadi was the first noble to receive a hereditary title from a Hungarian king, when Ladislaus the Posthumous granted him the Saxon district of Bistritz (now Bistrița in Romania) with the title perpetual count in 1453. Hunyadi's son, Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490), who was elected king in 1458, rewarded further noblemen with the same title. Fügedi states that 16 December 1487 was the "birthday of the estate of magnates in Hungary", because an armistice signed on this day listed 23 Hungarian "natural barons", contrasting them with the high officers of state, who were mentioned as "barons of office". Corvinus' successor, Vladislaus II (r. 1490–1516), and Vladislaus' son, Louis II (r. 1516–1526), formally began to reward important persons of their government with the hereditary title of baron.
Differences in the nobles' wealth increased in the second half of the 15th century. About 30 families owned more than a quarter of the territory of the kingdom when Corvinus died in 1490. A further tenth of all lands in the kingdom was in the possession of about 55 wealthy noble families. Other nobles held almost one third of the lands, but this group included 12–13,000 peasant-nobles who owned a single plot (or a part of it) and had no tenants. The Diets regularly compelled the peasant-nobles to pay tax on their plots. Average magnates held about 50 villages, but the regular division of inherited landed property could lead to the impoverishment of aristocratic families. Strategies applied to avoid this – family planning and celibacy – led to the extinction of most aristocratic families after a few generations.
The Diet ordered the compilation of customary law in 1498. The jurist István Werbőczy (d. 1541) completed the task, presenting a law-book at the Diet in 1514. His Tripartitum – The Customary Law of the Renowned Kingdom of Hungary in Three Parts – was never enacted, but it was consulted at the law courts for centuries. It summarized the noblemen's fundamental privileges in four points: noblemen were only subject to the monarch's authority and could only be arrested in a due legal process; furthermore, they were exempt from all taxes and were entitled to resist the king if he attempted to interfere with their privileges. Werbőczy also implied that Hungary was actually a republic of nobles headed by a monarch, stating that all noblemen "are members of the Holy Crown" of Hungary. Quite anachronistically, he emphasized the idea of all noblemen's legal equality, but he had to admit that the high officers of the realm, whom he mentioned as "true barons", were legally distinguished from other nobles. He also mentioned the existence of a distinct group, who were barons "in name only", but without specifying their peculiar status.
The Tripartitum regarded the kindred as the basic unit of nobility. A noble father exercised almost autocratic authority over his sons, because he could imprison them or offer them as a hostage for himself. His authority ended only if he divided his estates with his sons, but the division could rarely be enforced. The "betrayal of fraternal blood" (that is, a kinsman's "deceitful, sly, and fraudulent ... disinheritance") was a serious crime, which was punished by loss of honor and the confiscation of all property. Although the Tripartitum did not explicitly mention it, a nobleman's wife was also subject to his authority. She received her dower from her husband at the consummation of their marriage. If her husband died, she inherited his best coach-horses and clothes.
Demand for foodstuffs grew rapidly in Western Europe in the 1490s. The landowners wanted to take advantage of the growing prices. They demanded labour service from their peasant tenants and started to collect the seigneurial taxes in kind. The Diets passed decrees that restricted the peasants' right to free movement and increased their burdens. The peasants' grievances unexpectedly culminated in a rebellion in May 1514. The rebels captured manor houses and murdered dozens of noblemen, especially on the Great Hungarian Plain. The voivode of Transylvania, John Zápolya, annihilated their main army at Temesvár on 15 July. György Dózsa and other leaders of the peasant war were tortured and executed, but most rebels received a pardon. The Diet punished the peasantry as a group, condemning them to perpetual servitude and depriving them of the right of free movement. The Diet also enacted the serfs' obligation to provide one day's labour service for their lords each week.
## Early modern and modern times
### Tripartite Hungary
The Ottomans annihilated the royal army at the Battle of Mohács. Louis II died fleeing from the battlefield and two claimants, John Zápolya (r. 1526–1540) and Ferdinand of Habsburg (r. 1526–1564), were elected kings. Ferdinand tried to reunite Hungary after Zápolya died in 1540, but the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566), intervened and captured Buda in 1541. The sultan allowed Zápolya's widow, Isabella Jagiellon (d. 1559), to rule the lands east of the river Tisza on behalf of her infant son, John Sigismund (r. 1540–1571), in return for a yearly tribute. His decision divided Hungary into three parts: the Ottomans occupied the central territories; John Sigismund's eastern Hungarian Kingdom developed into the autonomous Principality of Transylvania; and the Habsburg monarchs preserved the northern and western territories (or Royal Hungary).
Most noblemen fled from the central regions to the unoccupied territories. Peasants who lived along the borders paid taxes both to the Ottomans and their former lords. Commoners were regularly recruited to serve in the royal army or in the magnates' retinues to replace the noblemen who had perished during fights. The irregular hajdú foot-soldiers – mainly runaway serfs and dispossessed noblemen – became important elements of the defence forces. Stephen Bocskai, Prince of Transylvania (r. 1605–1606), settled 10,000 hajdús in seven villages and exempted them from taxation in 1605, which was the "largest collective ennoblement" in the history of Hungary.
In addition to the Székely and Saxon leaders, the noblemen formed one of the three nations (or Estates of the realm) in Transylvania, but they could rarely challenge the princes' authority. In Royal Hungary, the magnates successfully protected the noble privileges, because their vast domains were almost completely exempt from royal officials' authority. Their manors were fortified in the "Hungarian manner" (with walls made of earth and timber) in the 1540s. Noblemen in Royal Hungary could also count on the support of the Transylvanian princes against the Habsburg monarchs. Intermarriages among Austrian, Czech and Hungarian aristocrats gave rise to the development of a "supranational aristocracy" in the Habsburg monarchy. Foreign aristocrats regularly received Hungarian citizenship, and Hungarian noblemen were often naturalized in the Habsburgs' other realms. The Habsburg kings rewarded the most powerful magnates with hereditary titles such as baron from the 1530s.
The aristocrats supported the spread of the Reformation. Most noblemen adhered to Lutheranism in the western regions of Royal Hungary, but Calvinism was the dominant religion in Transylvania and other regions. John Sigismund promoted Unitarian views, but most Unitarian noblemen perished in battles in the early 1600s. The Habsburgs remained staunch supporters of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the most prominent aristocratic families converted to Catholicism in Royal Hungary in the 1630s. The Calvinist princes of Transylvania supported their co-religionists. Gabriel Bethlen granted nobility to all Calvinist pastors.
The kings and the Transylvanian princes regularly ennobled commoners, but often without granting landed property to them. Jurisprudence maintained that only those who owned land cultivated by serfs could be regarded as fully fledged noblemen. Armalists – noblemen who held a charter of ennoblement, but not a single plot of land – and peasant-nobles continued to pay taxes, for which they were collectively known as taxed nobility. Nobility could be purchased from the kings who were often in need of funds. Landowners also benefitted from the ennoblement of their serfs, because they could demand a fee for their consent.
The Diet was officially divided into two chambers in Royal Hungary in 1608. All adult male members of the titled noble families had a seat in the Upper House. The lesser noblemen elected two or three delegates at the general assemblies of the counties to represent them in the Lower House. The Croatian and Slavonian magnates also had seats at the Upper House, and the sabor (or Diet) of Croatia and Slavonia sent delegates to the Lower House.
### Liberation and war of independence
Forces from the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth inflicted a crushing defeat on the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683. The Ottomans were expelled from Buda in 1686. Michael I Apafi, the prince of Transylvania (r. 1661–1690), acknowledged the suzerainty of Emperor Leopold I, who was also king of Hungary (r. 1657–1705), in 1687. Grateful for the liberation of Buda, the Diet abolished the noblemen's right to resist the monarch for the defense of their liberties. In 1688, the Diet authorized the aristocrats to establish a special trust, known as fideicommissum, with royal consent to prevent the distribution of their landed wealth among their descendants. In accordance with the traditional concept of aviticitas, inherited estates could not be subject to the trust. Estates in fideicommissum were always held by one person, but he was responsible for the proper boarding of his relatives.
The liberation of central Hungary continued, and the Ottomans were forced to acknowledge the loss of the territory in 1699. Leopold set up a special committee to distribute the lands in the reconquered territories. The descendants of the noblemen who had held estates there before the Ottoman conquest were required to provide documentary evidence to substantiate their claims to the ancestral lands. Even if they could present documents, they were to pay a fee – a tenth of the value of the claimed property – as compensation for the costs of the liberation war. Few noblemen could meet the criteria and more than half of the recovered lands were distributed among foreigners. They were naturalized, but most of them never visited Hungary.
The Habsburg administration doubled the amount of the taxes to be collected in Hungary and demanded almost one third of the taxes (1.25 million florins) from the clergy and the nobility. The palatine, Prince Paul Esterházy (d. 1713), convinced the monarch to reduce the noblemen's tax burden to 0.25 million florins, but the difference was to be paid by the peasantry. Leopold did not trust the Hungarians, because a group of magnates had conspired against him in the 1670s. Mercenaries replaced the Hungarian garrisons, and they frequently plundered the countryside. The monarch also supported Cardinal Leopold Karl von Kollonitsch's attempts to restrict the Protestants' rights. Tens of thousands of Catholic Germans and Orthodox Serbs were settled in the reconquered territories.
The outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1715) provided an opportunity for the discontented Hungarians to rise against Leopold. They regarded one of the wealthiest aristocrats, Prince Francis II Rákóczi (d. 1735), as their leader. Rákóczi's War of Independence lasted from 1703 to 1711. Although the rebels were forced to yield, the Treaty of Szatmár granted a general amnesty for them and the new Habsburg monarch, Charles III (r. 1711–1740), promised to respect the privileges of the Estates of the realm.
### Cooperation and absolutism
Charles III again confirmed the privileges of the Estates of the "Kingdom of Hungary, and the Parts, Kingdoms and Provinces thereto annexed" in 1723 in return for the enactment of the Pragmatic Sanction which established his daughters' right to succeed him. Montesquieu, who visited Hungary in 1728, regarded the relationship between the king and the Diet as a good example of the separation of powers. The magnates almost monopolized the highest offices, but both the Hungarian Court Chancellery – the supreme body of royal administration – and the Lieutenancy Council – the most important administrative office – also employed lesser noblemen. In practice, Protestants were excluded from public offices after a royal decree, the Carolina Resolutio, obliged all candidates to take an oath on the Virgin Mary.
The Peace of Szatmár and the Pragmatic Sanction maintained that the Hungarian nation consisted of the privileged groups, independent of their ethnicity, but the first debates along ethnic lines occurred in the early 18th century. The jurist Mihály Bencsik claimed that the burghers of Trencsén (now Trenčín in Slovakia) should not send delegates to the Diet because their ancestors had been forced to yield to the conquering Magyars in the 890s. A priest, Ján B. Magin, wrote a response, arguing that ethnic Slovaks and Hungarians enjoyed the same rights. In Transylvania, a bishop of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, Baron Inocențiu Micu-Klein (d. 1768), tried to speak "on behalf of the whole Romanian nation in Transylvania" at the Diet in 1737 but he could not finish the speech because other delegates stated that he could refer only to the Romanians or to the Romanian people for the Romanian Nation did not exist. Five years later, he unsuccessfully demanded the recognition of the Romanians as the fourth Nation on ethnic grounds.
Maria Theresa (r. 1740–1780) succeeded Charles III in 1740, which gave rise to the War of the Austrian Succession. The noble delegates offered their "lives and blood" for their new "king" and the declaration of the general levy of the nobility was crucial at the beginning of the war. Grateful for their support, Maria Theresa strengthened the links between the Hungarian nobility and the monarch. She established the Theresian Academy and the Royal Hungarian Bodyguard for young Hungarian noblemen. Both institutions enabled the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. Freemasonry became popular, especially among the magnates, but masonic lodges were also open to untitled noblemen and professionals.
Cultural differences between the magnates and lesser noblemen grew. The magnates adopted the lifestyle of the imperial aristocracy, moving between their summer palaces in Vienna and their newly built splendid residences in Hungary. Prince Miklós Esterházy (d. 1790) employed the celebrated composer Joseph Haydn. Count János Fekete (d. 1803), a fierce protector of noble privileges, bombarded the French philosopher Voltaire with letters and dilettante poems. Count Miklós Pálffy (d. 1773) proposed to tax the nobles to finance a standing army. Most noblemen were unwilling to renounce their privileges. Lesser noblemen also insisted on their traditional way of life and lived in simple houses, made of timber or packed clay.
Maria Theresa did not hold Diets after 1764. She regulated the relationship of landowners and their serfs in a royal decree in 1767. Her son and successor, Joseph II (r. 1780–1790), mocked as the "king in hat", was never crowned, because he wanted to avoid the coronation oath. He introduced reforms which clearly contradicted local customs. He replaced the counties with districts and appointed royal officials to administer them. He also abolished serfdom, securing all peasants the right to free movement after the revolt of Romanian serfs in Transylvania. He ordered the first census in Hungary in 1784. According to its records, the nobility made up about 4.5 percent of the male population in the Lands of the Hungarian Crown (with 155,519 noblemen in Hungary proper, and 42,098 noblemen in Transylvania, Croatia and Slavonia). The nobles' proportion was significantly higher (six–sixteen percent) in the northeastern and eastern counties, and less (three percent) in Croatia and Slavonia. Poor noblemen, who were mocked as "nobles of the seven plum trees" or "sandal-wearing nobles", made up almost 90 percent of the nobility. Previous investigations of nobility show that more than half of the noble families received their rank after 1550.
### National awakening
The few reformist noblemen greeted the news of the French Revolution with enthusiasm. (d. 1795) translated the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen into Latin, and (d. 1795) published its Hungarian translation. To appease the Hungarian nobility, Joseph II revoked almost all his reforms on his deathbed in 1790. His successor, Leopold II (r. 1790–1792), convoked the Diet and confirmed the liberties of the Estates of the realm, emphasizing Hungary was a "free and independent" realm, governed by its own laws. News about the Jacobin terror in France strengthened royal power. Hajnóczy and other radical (or "Jacobin") noblemen, who had discussed the possibility of the abolition of all privileges in secret societies, were captured and executed or imprisoned in 1795. The Diets voted in favor of the taxes and the recruits that Leopold's successor, Francis (r. 1792–1835), demanded between 1792 and 1811.
The last general levy of the nobility was declared in 1809, but Napoleon easily defeated the noble troops near Győr. Agricultural bloom encouraged the landowners to borrow money and to buy new estates or to establish mills during the war, but most of them went bankrupt after peace was restored in 1814. The concept of aviticitas prevented both the creditors from collecting their money and the debtors from selling their estates. Radical nobles played a crucial role in the reform movements of the early 19th century. Gergely Berzeviczy (d. 1822) attributed the backwardness of the local economy to the peasants' serfdom already around 1800. Ferenc Kazinczy (d. 1831) and János Batsányi (d. 1845) initiated language reform, fearing the disappearance of the Hungarian language. The poet Sándor Petőfi (d. 1849), who was a commoner, ridiculed the conservative noblemen in his poem The Magyar Noble, contrasting their anachronistic pride and their idle way of life.
From the 1820s, a new generation of reformist noblemen dominated political life. Count István Széchenyi (d. 1860) demanded the abolition of the serfs' labour service and the entail system, stating that, "We, well-to-do landowners are the main obstacles to the progress and greater development of our fatherland". He established clubs in Pressburg and Pest and promoted horse racing, because he wanted to encourage the regular meetings of magnates, lesser noblemen and burghers. Széchenyi's friend, Baron Miklós Wesselényi (d. 1850), demanded the creation of a constitutional monarchy and the protection of civil rights. A lesser nobleman, Lajos Kossuth (d. 1894), became the leader of the most radical politicians in the 1840s. He declared that the Diets and the counties were the privileged groups' institutions, and that only a wider social movement could secure the development of Hungary.
Since the end of the Age of Enlightenment, nationality was more and more associated with the vernacular. Predictions by the German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (d. 1803) about the inevitable assimilation of small peoples to a large linguistic group fanned the flames of linguistic nationalism. Although ethnic Hungarians made up only about 38 percent of the population, the official use of the Hungarian language spread from the late 18th century. Kossuth declared that all who wanted to enjoy the liberties of the nation should learn Hungarian. In contrast, the Slovak Ľudovít Štúr (d. 1856) stated that the Hungarian nation consisted of many nationalities and their loyalty could be strengthened by the official use of their languages. Count Janko Drašković (d. 1856) recommended that Croatian should replace Latin as the official language in Croatia and Slavonia.
### Revolution and neo-absolutism
News of the Revolutions of 1848 reached Pest on 15 March 1848. Young intellectuals proclaimed a radical program, known as the Twelve Points, demanding equal civil rights to all citizens. Count Lajos Batthyány (d. 1849) was appointed the first prime minister of Hungary. The Diet quickly enacted the majority of the Twelve Points, and Ferdinand V (r. 1835–1848) sanctioned them in April.
The April Laws abolished the nobles' tax-exemption and the aviticitas, but the magnates' 31 fideicommissa remained intact. Although the peasant tenants received the ownership of their plots, a compensation was promised to the landowners. Adult men who owned more than 0.032 km<sup>2</sup> (7.9 acres) of arable lands or urban estates with a value of at least 300 florins – about one quarter of the adult male population – were granted the right to vote in the parliamentary elections. The noblemen's exclusive franchise in county elections was confirmed, otherwise ethnic minorities could have easily dominated the general assemblies in many counties. Noblemen made up about one quarter of the members of the new parliament, which assembled after the general elections on 5 July.
The Slovak delegates demanded autonomy for all ethnic minorities at their assembly in May. Similar demands were adopted at the Romanian delegates' meeting. Ferdinand V's advisors persuaded the ban (or governor) of Croatia, Baron Josip Jelačić (d. 1859), to invade Hungary proper in September. A new war of independence broke out and the Hungarian parliament dethroned the Habsburg dynasty on 14 April 1849. Nicholas I of Russia (r. 1825–1855) intervened on the legitimist side and Russian troops overpowered the Hungarian army, forcing it to surrender on 13 August.
Hungary, Croatia (and Slavonia) and Transylvania were incorporated as separate realms in the Austrian Empire. The advisors of the young emperor, Franz Joseph (r. 1848–1916), declared that Hungary had lost its historic rights and the conservative Hungarian aristocrats could not persuade him to restore the old constitution. Noblemen who had remained loyal to the Habsburgs were appointed to high offices, but most new officials came from other provinces of the empire. The vast majority of noblemen opted for a passive resistance: they did not hold offices in state administration and tacitly obstructed the implementation of imperial decrees. An untitled nobleman from Zala County, Ferenc Deák (d. 1876), became their leader around 1854. They tried to preserve an air of superiority, but their vast majority was assimilated to the local peasantry or petty bourgeoisie during the following decades. In contrast to them, the magnates, who retained about one quarter of all lands, could easily raise funds from the developing banking sector to modernize their estates.
### Austria-Hungary
Deák and his followers knew the great powers did not support the disintegration of the Austrian Empire. Austria's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 accelerated the rapprochement between the king and the Deák Party, which led to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Hungary proper and Transylvania were united and the autonomy of Hungary was restored within the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Next year, the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement restored the union of Hungary proper and Croatia, but secured the competence of the Croatian sabor in internal affairs, education and justice.
The Compromise strengthened the position of the traditional political elite. Only about six percent of the population could vote in the general elections. More than half of the prime ministers and one third of the ministers were appointed from among the magnates from 1867 to 1918. Landowners made up the majority of the members of parliament. Half of the seats in municipal assemblies were preserved for the greatest taxpayers. Noblemen also dominated the state administration, because tens of thousands of impoverished nobles took jobs at the ministries, or at the state-owned railways and post offices. They were ardent supporters of Magyarization, denying the use of minority languages. An emigrant aristocrat Baroness Emma Orczy (d. 1947) wrote her novels in English in the United Kingdom. She had left Hungary with her parents when farm workers fearing of losing their job set the Orczy manor on fire at Abádszalók in 1868. Her first novel featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel – "the first character who could be called a superhero" (Stan Lee) – was published in 1905.
Only nobleman who owned an estate of at least 1.15 km<sup>2</sup> (280 acres) were regarded as prosperous, but the number of estates of that size quickly decreased. The magnates took advantage of lesser noblemen's bankruptcies and bought new estates during the same period. New fideicommissa were created which enabled the magnates to preserve the entailment of their landed wealth. Aristocrats were regularly appointed to the boards of directors of banks and companies.
Jews were the prime movers of the development of the financial and industrial sectors. Jewish businessmen owned more than half of the companies and more than four-fifths of the banks in 1910. They also bought landed property and had acquired almost one-fifth of the estates of between 1.15–5.75 km<sup>2</sup> (280–1,420 acres) by 1913. The most prominent Jewish burghers were awarded with nobility and there were 26 aristocratic families and 320 noble families of Jewish origin in 1918. Many of them converted to Christianity, but other nobles did not regard them as their peers.
### Revolutions and counter-revolution
The First World War brought about the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918. The Aster Revolution – a movement of the left-liberal Party of Independence, the Social Democratic Party and the Radical Citizens' Party – persuaded Charles IV (r. 1916–1918), to appoint the radical Count Mihály Károlyi (d. 1955), prime minister on 31 October. After the Lower House dissolved itself, Hungary was proclaimed a republic on 16 November. The Hungarian National Council adopted a land reform setting the maximum size of the estates at 1.15 square kilometres (280 acres) and ordering the distribution of any excess among the local peasantry. Károlyi, whose inherited domains had been mortgaged to banks, was the first to implement the reform.
The Allied Powers authorized Romania to occupy new territories and ordered the withdrawal of the Royal Hungarian Army almost as far as the Tisza on 26 February 1919. Károlyi resigned and the Hungarian Communist Party leader Béla Kun (d. 1938) announced the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on 21 March. All estates of over 0.43 km<sup>2</sup> (110 acres) and all private companies employing more than 20 workers were nationalized. The Bolsheviks could not stop the Romanian invasion and their leaders fled from Hungary on 1 August. After a short-lived temporary government, the industrialist István Friedrich (d. 1951) formed a coalition government with the support of the Allied Powers on 6 August. The Bolsheviks' nationalization program was abolished. The Hungarian Social Democratic Party boycotted the general elections in early 1920. The new one-chamber Diet of Hungary restored the Hungarian monarchy, but without restoring the Habsburgs. Instead, a Calvinist nobleman, Miklós Horthy (d. 1957), was elected regent on 1 March 1920. Hungary had to acknowledge the loss of more than two thirds of its territory and more than 60 percent of its population (including one third of the ethnic Hungarians) in the Treaty of Trianon on 4 June.
Horthy was never crowned king, and therefore could not grant nobility, but he established a new order of merit, the Order of Gallantry. Its members received the hereditary title of vitéz ("brave"). They were also granted parcels of land, which renewed the "medieval link between land tenure and service to the crown" (Bryan Cartledge). Two Transylvanian aristocrats, Counts Pál Teleki (d. 1941) and István Bethlen (d. 1946), were the most influential politicians in the interwar period. The events of 1918–19 convinced them that only a "conservative democracy", dominated by the landed nobility, could secure stability. Most ministers and the majority of the members of the parliament were nobles. A conservative agrarian reform – limited to 8.5 percent of all arable lands – was introduced, but almost one third of the lands remained in the possession of about 400 magnate families. The two-chamber parliament was restored in 1926, with an Upper House dominated by the aristocrats, prelates and high-ranking officials.
Antisemitism was a leading ideology in the 1920s and 1930s. A numerus clausus law limited the admission of Jewish students in the universities. Count Fidél Pálffy (d. 1946) was one of the leading figures of the national socialist movements, but most aristocrats disdained the radicalism of "petty officers and housekeepers". Hungary participated in the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and joined the war against the Soviet Union after the bombing of Kassa in late June. Fearing the defection of Hungary from the war, Nazi Germany occupied the country in Operation Margarethe on 19 March 1944. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and tens of thousands of Romani were transferred to Nazi concentration camps with the local authorities' assistance. The wealthiest business magnates of Jewish origin were forced to renounce their companies and banks to redeem their own and their relatives' lives.
### The fall of the Hungarian nobility
The Soviet Red Army reached the Hungarian borders and took possession of the Great Hungarian Plain by 6 December 1944. Delegates from the region's towns and villages established the Provisional National Assembly in Debrecen, which elected a new government on 22 December. Three prominent Anti-Nazi aristocrats had a seat in the assembly. The Provisional National Government soon promised land reform, along with the abolishment of all "anti-democratic" laws. The last German Wehrmacht troops left Hungary on 4 April 1945.
Imre Nagy (d. 1958), the Communist Minister of Agriculture, announced land reform on 17 March 1945. All domains of more than 5.75 km<sup>2</sup> (1,420 acres) were confiscated and the owners of smaller estates could retain a maximum 0.58–1.73 km<sup>2</sup> (140–430 acres) of land. The land reform, as Cartledge noted, destroyed the nobility and eliminated the "elements of feudalism, which had persisted for longer in Hungary than anywhere else in Europe". Similar land reforms were introduced in Romania and Czechoslovakia. In both countries, ethnic Hungarian aristocrats were sentenced to death or prison as alleged war criminals. Hungarian aristocrats could retain their estates only in Burgenland (in Austria) after 1945.
Soviet military authorities controlled the general elections and the formation of a coalition government in late 1945. The new parliament declared the Second Hungarian Republic on 1 February 1946. An opinion poll showed that more than 75 percent of men and 66 percent of women were opposed to the use of noble titles in 1946. The parliament adopted an act that abolished all noble ranks and related styles, also banning their use. The new act came into force on 14 February 1947.
## Unofficial nobility
The Communists took full control of the government between 1947 and 1949, and Hungary was proclaimed a "people's republic" on 20 August 1949. The aristocrats were declared as "class enemies", and most of them interned to "social camps" – actually, forced labour camps – to work in the fields in the Great Hungarian Plain. Mass internal deportations occurred in 1950 and 1951. Almost all aristocrats were interned from Budapest to under-populated villages in eastern Hungary, primarily in Hortobágy region within two months in May–July 1951. Figures of a final report shows that 9 dukes, 163 counts, 121 barons and 8 knighted noblemen – altogether 301 aristocrats – and their families were deported from the capital during this period. The deportees were prohibited to leave the boundary of their assigned village and were under constant police surveillance. They were deprived of their belongings, properties and civil rights – they were prohibited to take part in elections. Most of them could work as manual workers in agriculture at state farms on a limited basis, but their deprivation was constant.
Some leftist aristocrats tried to cooperate with the new regime but the Communist leaders did not trust them. As a consequence of the Khrushchev Thaw, those who had been interned were allowed to leave the labour camps, but their former homes were not restored to them. Although Communist historians did their utmost to prove the aristocrats' preeminent role during the failed anti-Communist Hungarian revolution of 1956, few aristocrats took an active part. Many aristocrats left the country following the suppression of the 1956 revolt. During the 1960s and 1970s, people of aristocratic descent were mainly employed as blue-collar workers, and their children needed a special permit for studying at universities until 1962. Although official discrimination was abolished, former aristocrats were rarely appointed to higher positions. Péter Esterházy (d. 2016) became a celebrated writer during the last decades of the Communist regime.
The Communist one-party system collapsed in the late 1980s, and Hungary was proclaimed a republic in 1989. The first prime minister of the democratic era, József Antall (d. 1993) offered positions in state administration to aristocrats who returned to Hungary, but the aristocracy did not regain its former position. The restitution of former property was an important political issue in most new democracies in the early 1990s. In Hungary, in kind restitution was excluded because many pieces of formerly confiscated property had already been privatized during the last years of the Communist regime. Instead, monetary compensation was made available to the original owners and their descendants but its amount was limited to about US\$70,000. In contrast, in kind restitution was the preferred method of restitution in Czechoslovakia, and the original owners could also claim in kind restitution in Romania and Poland. Hungarian aristocrats regained part of their former properties in Romania, and at least one Hungarian noble family also seized property in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia during the restitution process.
The Hungarian act banning the use of noble ranks and styles has not been abolished, and the Constitutional Court of Hungary declared, in 2009 and 2010, that the ban was fully in line with the revised Hungarian Constitution of 1949. In December 2010, two members of the rightist Jobbik Group submitted a draft for the abolition of the ban but they withdrew it in two weeks. On the initiative of the former aristocrat János Nyáry, a private club, the Association of Hungarian Noble Families, was established for people of noble descent in Budapest in 1994. The association became a member of the European Commission of the Nobility in 2007.
## See also
- List of titled noble families in the Kingdom of Hungary
|
182,896 |
Warwick Castle
| 1,171,959,347 |
Medieval motte-and-bailey castle in Warwickshire, England
|
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"Motte-and-bailey castles",
"Scheduled monuments in Warwickshire",
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Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone during the 12th century. During the Hundred Years War, the facade opposite the town was refortified, resulting in one of the most recognisable examples of 14th-century military architecture. It was used as a stronghold until the early 17th century, when it was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I in 1604. Greville converted it to a country house, and it was owned by the Greville family (who became Earls of Warwick in 1759) until 1978, when it was bought by the Tussauds Group.
In 2007, the Tussauds Group was purchased by the Blackstone Group, which merged it with Merlin Entertainments. Warwick Castle was then sold to Nick Leslau's investment firm, Prestbury Group, under a sale and leaseback agreement. Merlin continues to operate the site under a renewable 35-year lease.
## Location
Warwick Castle is situated in the town of Warwick, on a sandstone bluff at a bend of the River Avon. The river, which runs below the castle on the east side, has eroded the rock the castle stands on, forming a cliff. The river and cliff form natural defences. When construction began in 1068, four houses belonging to the Abbot of Coventry were demolished to provide space. The castle's position made it strategically important in safeguarding the Midlands against rebellion. During the 12th century, King Henry I was suspicious of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. To counter the earl's influence, Henry bestowed Geoffrey de Clinton with a position of power rivalling that of the earl. The lands he was given included Kenilworth – a castle of comparable size, cost, and importance, founded by Clinton – which is about 8 kilometres (5 mi) to the north. Warwick Castle is about 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) from Warwick railway station and less than 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) from junction 15 of the M40 motorway; it is also relatively close to Birmingham Airport.
## History
### Antecedent
An Anglo-Saxon burh was established on the site in 914; with fortifications instigated by Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great. The burh she established was one of ten which defended Mercia against the invading Danes. Its position allowed it to dominate the Fosse Way, as well as the river valley and the crossing over the River Avon. Though the motte to the south-west of the present castle is now called "Ethelfleda's Mound" ('Ethelfleda' being an alternative form of Æthelflæd), it is in fact part of the later Norman fortifications, and not of Anglo-Saxon origin.
It was also at this time that what is now Warwick School was founded in the castle - making it arguably the oldest boys' school in the country. It still resides just over the River Avon, visible from all of the castle's towers.
### Middle Ages
After the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror established a motte-and-bailey castle at Warwick in 1068 to maintain control of the Midlands as he advanced northwards. Building a castle in a pre-existing settlement could require demolishing properties on the intended site. In the case of Warwick, the least recorded of the 11 urban castles in the 1086 survey, four houses were torn down to make way for the castle. A motte-and-bailey castle consists of a mound – on which usually stands a keep or tower – and a bailey, which is an enclosed courtyard. William II appointed Henry de Beaumont, the son of a powerful Norman family, as constable of the castle. In 1088, Henry de Beaumont was made the first Earl of Warwick. He founded the Church of All Saints within the castle walls by 1119; the Bishop of Worcester, believing that a castle was an inappropriate location for a church, removed it in 1127–28.
In 1153, the wife of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick, was tricked into believing that her husband was dead, and surrendered control of the castle to the invading army of Henry of Anjou, later King Henry II of England. According to the Gesta Regis Stephani, a 12th-century historical text, Roger de Beaumont died upon hearing the news that his wife had handed over the castle. King Henry II later returned the castle to the Earls of Warwick, as they had been supporters of his mother, Empress Matilda, in The Anarchy of 1135–1154.
During the reign of King Henry II (1154–89), the motte-and-bailey was replaced with a stone keep castle. This new phase took the form of a shell keep with all the buildings constructed against the curtain wall. During the Barons' Rebellion of 1173–74, the Earl of Warwick remained loyal to King Henry II, and the castle was used to store provisions. The castle and the lands associated with the earldom passed down to the Beaumont family until 1242. When Thomas de Beaumont, 6th Earl of Warwick, died, the castle and lands passed to his sister, Margaret de Beaumont, 7th Countess of Warwick in her own right. Her first husband, John Marshal, died soon after, and while she looked for a suitable husband, the castle was in the ownership of King Henry III of England. When she married John du Plessis in December 1242, the castle was returned to her. During the Second Barons' War of 1264–67, William Maudit, 8th Earl of Warwick, was a supporter of King Henry III. The castle was taken in a surprise attack by the forces of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, from Kenilworth Castle in 1264. According to 15th-century chronicler John Rous, the walls along the northeastern side of Warwick Castle were slighted, so "that it should be no strength to the king". Maudit and his countess were taken to Kenilworth Castle and were held there until a ransom was paid. After the death of William Maudit in 1267, the title and castle passed to his nephew, William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick. Following William's death, Warwick Castle passed through seven generations of the Beauchamp family, who, over the next 180 years, were responsible for most of the additions made to the castle. In 1312, Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall, was captured by Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick, and imprisoned in Warwick Castle, until his execution on 9 June 1312. A group of magnates led by the Earl of Warwick and Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, accused Gaveston of stealing the royal treasure.
Under Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl, the castle defences were significantly enhanced in 1330–60 on the north eastern side by the addition of a gatehouse, a barbican (a form of fortified gateway), and a tower on either side of the reconstructed wall, named Caesar's Tower and Guy's Tower. The Watergate Tower also dates from this period.
Caesar's and Guy's Towers are residential and may have been inspired by French models (for example Bricquebec). Both towers are machicolated and Caesar's Tower features a unique double parapet. The two towers are also vaulted in stone on every storey. Caesar's Tower contained a grim basement dungeon; according to local legend dating back to at least 1644 it is also known as Poitiers Tower, either because prisoners from the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 may have been imprisoned there, or because the ransoms raised from the battle helped to pay for its construction. The gatehouse features murder holes, two drawbridges, a gate, and portcullises – gates made from wood or metal. The towers of the gatehouse were machicolated.
The facade overlooking the river was designed as a symbol of the power and wealth of the Beauchamp earls and would have been "of minimal defensive value"; this followed a trend of 14th-century castles being more statements of power than designed exclusively for military use.
### 15th and 16th centuries
The line of the Beauchamp Earls ended in 1449 when Anne de Beauchamp, 15th Countess of Warwick, died. Richard Neville, the Kingmaker, became the next Earl of Warwick through his wife's inheritance of the title. During the summer of 1469, Neville rebelled against King Edward IV of England and imprisoned him in Warwick Castle. Neville attempted to rule in the King's name; however, constant protests by the King's supporters forced the Earl to release the King. Neville was subsequently killed in the Battle of Barnet, fighting against the King in 1471 during the Wars of the Roses. Warwick Castle then passed from Neville to his son-in-law, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (brother of King Edward IV). George Plantagenet was executed in 1478, and his lands passed onto his son, Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick; however, Edward Plantagenet was only two when his father died, so his lands were taken in the custody of The Crown. He was placed under attainder, and so could not inherit the throne, by King Henry VII of England, being held by the King for fourteen years in the Tower of London until he was executed for high treason in 1499, supposedly for conspiring to escape with the 'pretender' Perkin Warbeck. Edward was the last Earl of Warwick of the title's first creation.
In the early 1480s, King Richard III of England (the other son-in-law of Neville) instigated the construction of two gun towers, Bear and Clarence Towers, which were left unfinished on his death in 1485; with their own well and ovens, the towers were an independent stronghold from the rest of the castle, possibly in case of mutiny by the garrison. With the advent of gunpowder, the position of Keeper of the Artillery was created in 1486.
When antiquary John Leland visited the castle some time between 1535 and 1543, he noted that:
> ... the dungeon now in ruin standeth in the west-north-west part of the castle. There is also a tower west-north-west, and through it a postern-gate of iron. All the principal lodgings of the castle with the hall and chapel lie on the south side of the castle, and here the king doth much cost in making foundations in the rocks to sustain that side of the castle, for great pieces fell out of the rocks that sustain it.
While in the care of The Crown, Warwick Castle underwent repairs and renovations using about 500 loads of stone. The castle, as well as lands associated with the earldom, was in Crown care from 1478 until 1547, when they were granted to John Dudley with the second creation of the title the Earl of Warwick. When making his appeal for ownership of the castle Dudley said of the castle's condition: "... the castle of its self is not able to lodge a good baron with his train, for all the one side of the said castle with also the dungeon tower is clearly ruinated and down to the ground".
Warwick Castle had fallen into decay due to its age and neglect, and despite his remarks Dudley did not initiate any repairs to the castle. Queen Elizabeth I visited the castle in 1566 during a tour of the country, and again in 1572 for four nights. A timber building was erected in the castle for her to stay in, and Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick, left the castle to the Queen during her visits. When Ambrose Dudley died in 1590 the title of Earl of Warwick became extinct for the second time. A survey from 1590 recorded that the castle was still in a state of disrepair, noting that lead had been stolen from the roofs of some of the castle's buildings, including the chapel.
### 17th-century country house
In October 1601 Sir Fulke Greville wrote that "the little stone building there was, mightily in decay, the timber lodgings built thirty years ago for herself (Elizabeth I) all ruinous; ... so as in very short time there will be nothing left but a name of Warwick".
Greville was granted the ruinous Warwick Castle by King James I in 1604 and it was converted to a country house. The conversion of the castle coincided with a period of decline in the use of castles during the 15th and 16th centuries; many were either being abandoned or converted into comfortable residences for the gentry. In the early 17th century, Robert Smythson was commissioned to draw a plan of the castle before any changes were made. Whilst the castle was undergoing repairs, it was peripherally involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The conspirators involved awaited news of their plot in Dunchurch in Warwickshire. When they discovered the plot had failed they stole cavalry horses from the stables at Warwick Castle to help in their escape. When the title of Earl of Warwick was created for the third time in 1618, the Greville family were still in possession of Warwick Castle. Fulke Greville, who was himself ennobled as Baron Brooke in 1621, spent over £20,000 (£ as of ) renovating the castle, while occupying a suite of rooms in the Watergate Tower; according to William Dugdale, a 17th-century antiquary, this made it "a place not only of great strength but extraordinary delight, with most pleasant gardens, walks and thickets, such as this part of England can hardly parallel".
On 1 September 1628 Fulke Greville was murdered in Holborn by his manservant: Ralph Haywood – a "gentleman" – who stabbed the baron twice after discovering he had been omitted from mention in Greville's will. Greville died from his wounds four weeks later. The Watergate Tower, which is said to be haunted by his ghost, became known as the Ghost Tower.
Under Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, Warwick Castle's defences were enhanced from January to May 1642 in preparation for attack during the First English Civil War. The garden walls were raised, bulwarks – barricades of beams and soil to mount artillery – were constructed and gunpowder and wheels for two cannons were obtained. Robert Greville was a Parliamentarian, and on 7 August 1642 a Royalist force laid siege to the castle. Greville was not in the castle at the time and the garrison was under the command of Sir Edward Peyto. Spencer Compton, 2nd Earl of Northampton, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire commanded the Royalist force. William Dugdale, acting as a herald, called for the garrison commander to surrender the castle, but he was refused. The besieging army opened fire on the castle, to little effect. According to Richard Bulstrode:
> ... our endeavours for taking it were to little purpose, for we had only two small pieces of cannon which were brought from Compton House, belonging to the Earl of Northampton, and those were drawn up to the top of the church steeple, and were discharged at the castle, to which they could do no hurt, but only frightened them within the castle, who shot into the street, and killed several of our men.
The siege was lifted on 23 August 1642 when the garrison was relieved by the forces of the Earl of Essex, and the Royalists were forced to retreat to Worcester. After the Battle of Edgehill in 1642 – the first pitched battle of the English Civil War – prisoners were held in Caesar's and Guy's Towers. During the Second English Civil War prisoners were again held at the castle, including those from the Battle of Worcester in 1651. A garrison was maintained in the castle complete with artillery and supplies from 1643 to 1660, at its strongest it numbered 302 soldiers. In 1660 the English Council of State ordered the castle governor to disband the garrison and hand over the castle to Robert Greville, 4th Baron Brooke. The state apartments were found to be outmoded and in poor repair. Under Roger and William Hurlbutt, master carpenters of Warwick, extensive modernization of the interiors was undertaken, 1669–78. To ensure that they would be in the latest taste, William was sent to Dorset to make careful notes of the interiors recently finished at Kingston Lacy for Sir Ralph Bankes to designs by Sir Roger Pratt. On 4 November 1695 the castle was in sufficient state to host a visit by King William III.
Francis Greville, 8th Baron Brooke, undertook a renewed programme of improvements to Warwick Castle and its grounds. The 8th Baron Brooke was also bestowed with the title Earl of Warwick in 1759, the fourth creation of the title. With the recreation of the title, the castle was back in the ownership of the earls of Warwick. Daniel Garrett's work at Warwick is documented in 1748; Howard Colvin attributed to him the Gothic interior of the chapel. Lancelot "Capability" Brown had been on hand since 1749. Brown, who was still head gardener at Stowe at the time and had yet to make his reputation as the main exponent of the English landscape garden, was called in by Lord Brooke to give Warwick Castle a more "natural" connection to its river. Brown simplified the long narrow stretch by sweeping it into a lawn that dropped right to the riverbank, stopped at each end by bold clumps of native trees. A serpentine drive gave an impression of greater distance between the front gates and the castle entrance.
Horace Walpole saw Brown's maturing scheme in 1751 and remarked in a letter: "The castle is enchanting. The view pleased me more than I can express; the river Avon tumbled down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown who has set up on a few ideas of Kent and Mr Southcote."
In 1754 the poet Thomas Gray, a member of Walpole's Gothicising circle, commented disdainfully on the activity at the castle:
> ... he [Francis Greville] has sash'd the great apartment ... and being since told, that square sash windows were not Gothic, he has put certain whimwams withinside the glass, which appearing through are to look like fretwork. Then he has scooped out a little burrough in the massy walls of the place for his little self and his children, which is hung with paper and printed linnen, and carved chimney-pieces, in the exact manner of Berkley-square or Argyle Buildings.
Gray's mention of Argyle Buildings, Westminster, London, elicited a connotation of an inappropriately modern Georgian urban development, for the buildings in Argyll Street were a speculation to designs of James Gibbs, 1736–40.
Greville commissioned Italian painter Antonio Canaletto to paint Warwick Castle in 1747, while the castle grounds and gardens were undergoing landscaping by Brown. Five paintings and three drawings of the castle by Canaletto are known, making it the artist's most often represented building in Britain. Canaletto's work on Warwick Castle has been described as "unique in the history of art as a series of views of an English house by a major continental master". As well as the gardens, Greville commissioned Brown to rebuild the exterior entrance porch and stairway to the Great Hall. Brown also contributed Gothick designs for a wooden bridge over the Avon (1758). He was still at work on Warwick Castle in 1760. Timothy Lightoler was responsible for the porch being extended and extra rooms added adjacent to it in 1763–69. and during the same years William Lindley provided a new Dining Room and other interior alterations. In 1786–88 the local builder William Eboral was commissioned to build the new greenhouse conservatory, with as its principal ornament the Warwick Vase, recently purchased in Rome.
In 1802 George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick of the new creation, had debts amounting to £115,000 (£ as of ). The earl's estates, including Warwick Castle, were given to the Earl of Galloway and John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1806, but the castle was returned to the earls of Warwick in 1813. The Great Hall was reroofed and repaired in Gothic taste in 1830–31 by Ambrose Poynter. Anthony Salvin was responsible for restoring the Watergate Tower in 1861–63. The castle was extensively damaged by a fire in 1871 that started to the east of the Great Hall. Although the Great Hall was gutted, the overall structure was unharmed. Restoration and reparations carried out by Salvin during 1872–75 were subsidised by donations from the public, which raised a total of £9,651 (£ as of ).
## Advent of tourism
Individuals had been visiting the castle since the end of the 17th century and this grew in importance through the 19th century. In 1858 Queen Victoria visited the 4th earl with great local celebrations. However, by 1885 it would appear the visitors were becoming a nuisance as the earl closed the castle to visitors, causing consternation in the town. A local report stated, "One day last week eight American visitors who were staying at one of the principal hotels left somewhat hurriedly in consequence of their being unable to gain admission to the castle". It soon re-opened again and by 1900 had a ticket office and was employing a permanent guide. By 1936 Arthur Mee was enthusing not just that "these walls have seen something of the splendour of every generation of our [English] story", with rooms "rich in treasure beyond the dreams of avarice" but also that "their rooms are open to all who will". The collection of armoury on display at Warwick Castle is regarded as second only to that of the Tower of London.
Through the 20th century successive earls expanded its tourism potential until in 1978, after 374 years in the Greville family, it was sold to a media and entertainment company, the Tussauds Group for £1.3 million, who opened it as a tourist attraction. Tussauds performed extensive restorations to the castle and grounds. In 12 of the apartments open to tourists since the Tussauds Group takeover, a number of wax figures of historic individuals is presented. The persons depicted were guests at the 1898 weekend party hosted by Frances Countess of Warwick; the principal guest was the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. The furniture in those rooms is said to be authentic to the period.
In 2001, Warwick Castle was named one of Britain's "Top 10 historic houses and monuments" by the British Tourist Authority; the list included Tower of London, Stonehenge, and Edinburgh Castle. Warwick Castle was recognised as Britain's best castle by the Good Britain Guide 2003. Around this time it was getting in excess of half a million visitors a year.
After the Tussauds Group sold the castle to the Blackstone Inc. investment firm, in March 2007, the site was operated by Merlin Entertainments, a division of that corporation. In July of that year, Warwick Castle was sold to the Prestbury Group but continued to be operated by Merlin under a renewable 35-year lease.
### Heritage protection
The castle is protected against unauthorised change as a scheduled monument in recognition of its status as a "nationally important" archaeological site or historic building, and is a Grade I listed building together with its boundary walls, stables, conservatory, mill and lodge.
On 23 June 2006, a £20,000 stained glass window was damaged by teenage vandals and a ceremonial sword stolen, recovered soon after.
### Warwick Castle trebuchet
In June 2005, Warwick Castle became home to one of the world's largest working siege engines. The trebuchet is 18 metres (59 ft) tall, made from over 300 pieces of oak and weighs 22 tonnes (21.7 long tons; 24.3 short tons). It sits on the riverbank below the castle.
The machine was built with drawings from the Danish living history museum Middelaldercentret, who, in 1989, were the first to recreate a fully functioning trebuchet. It was built in Wiltshire with expertise from the Danish museum.
The trebuchet takes eight men half an hour to load and release . The process involves four men running in 4 metres (13 ft) tall treadwheels to lift the counterweight, weighing 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons), into the air. It is designed to be capable of hurling projectiles of up to 150 kilograms (330 lb) distances of up to 300 metres (980 ft) and as high as 25 metres (82 ft).
On 21 August 2006, the trebuchet claimed the record as the most powerful siege engine of its type when it sent a projectile weighing 13 kilograms (29 lb) a distance of 249 metres (817 ft) at a speed of 195 kilometres per hour (121 mph), beating the previous record held by the trebuchet at Middelaldercentret in Denmark.
On 10 April 2015 a thatched boathouse caught fire shortly after a burning cannonball was fired by the trebuchet. It was reported that a spark from the cannonball had started the blaze although a castle spokeswoman said the cause had not yet been established. Hundreds of tourists were evacuated from the castle, but the spokeswoman said they were not at any risk. The Daily Telegraph described the boathouse as "historic", "medieval" and dating to 1896, when the 5th Earl had it built to house an electric boat.
### Seasonal exhibits
Other tourist attractions include "Falconer's Quest'" (a bird show, featuring bald eagles, vultures, and sea eagles), archery displays, Jousting,"The Trebuchet Show" and "The Sword in the Stone Show". The Castle is also home to "The Castle Dungeon", a live actor experience similar to that of "London Dungeons". Warwick Castle is the subject of many ghost stories. One such instance is that of Fulke Greville who is said to haunt the Watergate Tower despite having been murdered in Holborn. The castle's reputation for being haunted is used as a tourist attraction with events such as "Warwick Ghosts Alive", a live-action show telling the story of Fulke Greville's murder. Musical events at the castle have included carolling, with performances by bands such as the Royal Spa Brass.
At times during Summer 2018, the castle offered its War of the Roses event with jousting and other action. On certain dates in August, Dragon Slayer evenings were scheduled, with dining, a projection light show, pyrotechnics, fire jousting and live action stunts.
## Layout
The current castle, built in stone during the reign of King Henry II, is on the same site as the earlier Norman motte-and-bailey castle. A keep used to stand on the motte which is on the south west of the site, although most of the structure now dates from the post-medieval period. In the 17th century the motte was landscaped with the addition of a path. The bailey was incorporated into the new castle and is surrounded by stone curtain walls.
When Warwick Castle was rebuilt in the reign of King Henry II it had a new layout with the buildings against the curtain walls. The castle is surrounded by a dry moat on the northern side where there is no protection from the river or the old motte; the perimeter of the walls is 130 metres (140 yd) long by 82 metres (90 yd) wide. The two entrances to castle are in the north and west walls. There was originally a drawbridge over the moat in the north east. In the centre of the north west wall is a gateway with Clarence and Bears towers on either side; this is a 15th-century addition to the fortifications of the castle. The residential buildings line the eastern side of the castle, facing the River Avon. These buildings include the great hall, the library, bedrooms, and the chapel.
## Owners
Over its 950 years of history Warwick Castle has been owned by 36 different individuals, plus four periods as crown property under seven different monarchs. It was the family seat of three separate creations of the Earls of Warwick, and has been a family home for members of the Beaumont, Beauchamp, Neville, Plantagenet, Dudley and Greville families. The first creation of the Earldom specifically included the right of inheritance through the female line, so the castle three times had a woman (or girl) as the owner. Eleven of the owners were under 20 when they inherited, including a girl aged two and a boy aged three. At least three owners died in battle, two were executed and one murdered. Every century except the 21st has seen major building work or adaptations at the castle.
## Grounds, park, accommodations
Formal gardens belonging to Warwick Castle were first recorded in 1534. Landscaping in the 17th century added spiral paths to the castle motte during Fulke Greville's programme of restoration. Francis Greville commissioned Capability Brown to re-landscape the castle grounds; he began working on the grounds and park in 1749 and had completed his work by 1757, having spent about £2,293 (£ as of ). on the project. The gardens cover 2.8 square kilometres (690 acres). Robert Marnock created formal gardens in the castle's grounds in 1868–69. Started in 1743 and originally known as Temple Park, Castle Park is located to the south of the castle. Its original name derived from the Knights Templar, who used to own a manor in Warwick. Houses around the perimeter of the park were demolished and the land they stood on incorporated into the park. Attempts to make profits from the park in the late 18th century included leasing it for grazing, growing wheat, and keeping sheep.
A water-powered mill in the castle grounds was probably built under Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick. By 1398 the mill had been relocated to just outside the eastern castle walls, on the west bank of the River Avon. Both mills were subject to flooding. By 1644, an engine house had been added to the mill. The mill was reused as an electricity generating plant after it had stopped being used to grind, but once Warwick Castle was fitted with mains electricity in 1940, the mill was no longer required and was dismantled in 1954.
The latest option at the castle is glamping, overnight stays in nicely decorated tents in an area labelled Knight's Village. The units include no cooking facilities, so the fee for the stay includes a buffet dinner and a breakfast. The previously introduced accommodations in timber lodges also remain available in the Woodland Hideaway area.
## See also
- Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
- Kenilworth Castle
- List of castles in England
- List of owners of Warwick Castle
- Old Castle Bridge - ruined medieval bridge adjacent to the castle
|
30,014,673 |
SMS Friedrich der Grosse (1911)
| 1,159,313,496 |
Battleship of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"1911 ships",
"Frederick the Great",
"Kaiser-class battleships",
"Maritime incidents in 1919",
"Ships built in Hamburg",
"World War I battleships of Germany",
"World War I warships scuttled at Scapa Flow"
] |
SMS Friedrich der Grosse was the second vessel of the Kaiser class of dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Friedrich der Grosse's keel was laid on 26 January 1910 at the AG Vulcan dockyard in Hamburg, her hull was launched on 10 June 1911, and she was commissioned into the fleet on 15 October 1912. The ship was equipped with ten 30.5-centimeter (12 in) guns in five twin turrets, and had a top speed of 23.4 knots (43.3 km/h; 26.9 mph). Friedrich der Grosse was assigned to III Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of World War I, and served as fleet flagship from her commissioning until 1917.
Along with her four sister ships, Kaiser, Kaiserin, König Albert, and Prinzregent Luitpold, Friedrich der Grosse participated in all the major fleet operations of World War I, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. Toward the center of the German line, Friedrich der Grosse was not as heavily engaged as the leading German ships, such as the battleships König and Grosser Kurfürst and the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group—Friedrich der Grosse emerged from the battle completely unscathed. In 1917, the new battleship Baden replaced Friedrich der Grosse as the fleet flagship.
After Germany's defeat in the war and the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, Friedrich der Grosse and most of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet were interned by the British Royal Navy in Scapa Flow. The ships were disarmed and reduced to skeleton crews while the Allied powers negotiated the final version of the Treaty of Versailles. On 21 June 1919, days before the treaty was signed, the commander of the interned fleet, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered the fleet to be scuttled to ensure that the British would not be able to seize the ships. Friedrich der Grosse was raised in 1936 and broken up for scrap metal. Her bell was returned to Germany in 1965 and is now located at the Fleet Headquarters in Glücksburg.
## Design
Friedrich der Grosse was 172.40 m (565 ft 7 in) long overall and displaced a maximum of 27,000 metric tons (26,570 long tons) at full load. The ship had a beam of 29 m (95 ft 2 in) and a draft of 9.10 m (29 ft 10 in) forward and 8.80 m (28 ft 10 in) aft. She was powered by three sets of AEG Curtis turbines, supplied with steam by sixteen coal-fired water-tube boilers. On trials, the powerplant produced a top speed of 22.4 knots (41.5 km/h; 25.8 mph). She carried 3,600 metric tons (3,500 long tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of 7,900 nautical miles (14,600 km; 9,100 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten 30.5 cm SK L/50 guns in five twin turrets. She disposed with the inefficient hexagonal turret arrangement of previous German battleships; instead, three of the five turrets were mounted on the centerline, with two of them arranged in a superfiring pair aft. The other two turrets were placed en echelon amidships, such that both could fire on the broadside. The ship was also armed with a secondary battery of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates amidships. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried eight 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns in casemates. The ship was also armed with four 8.8 cm L/45 anti-aircraft guns. Her armament was rounded out by five 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes, all mounted in the ship's hull; one was in the bow, and the other four were on the broadside.
Her main armored belt was 350 mm (13.8 in) thick in the central citadel, and was composed of Krupp cemented armor (KCA). Her main battery gun turrets were protected by 300 mm (11.8 in) of KCA on the sides and faces. Friedrich der Grosse's conning tower was heavily armored, with 400 mm (15.7 in) sides. As with the other four ships in her class, Friedrich der Grosse carried anti-torpedo nets until after the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
## Service history
Ordered under the contract name Ersatz Heimdall as a replacement for the obsolete coastal defense ship Heimdall, Friedrich der Grosse was laid down at the AG Vulcan dockyard in Hamburg on 26 January 1910. She was launched on 10 June 1911, after which AG Vulcan conducted builder's trials. At her launching ceremony, Princess Alexandra Victoria performed the christening and Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz gave a speech. She was then transferred to Wilhelmshaven and commissioned into the fleet on 15 October 1912. Exercises in the Baltic Sea followed; Friedrich der Grosse then went to Kiel for final fitting-out work. On 22 January 1913, the ship was finally ready for active service.
After her commissioning in January 1913, Friedrich der Grosse conducted sea trials before becoming the fleet flagship on 2 March, replacing Deutschland. The ship participated in her first round of fleet maneuvers in February 1913, which were conducted in the Kattegat and the North Sea. The next month saw another round of exercises, from 12 to 14 March. The ship went into dock for periodic maintenance in April, and was ready for artillery training by the end of the month. Extensive fleet maneuvers were conducted in the North Sea from 5 to 27 May. Friedrich der Grosse, as the Navy's newest battleship, was sent to Kiel for Kiel Week in June. While there, she was visited by the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III and his wife Elena. In mid-July, the fleet conducted its annual summer cruise to Norway, which lasted until mid-August. During the cruise, Friedrich der Grosse visited Balholmen, Norway. The autumn maneuvers followed after the fleet returned; they lasted from 31 August to 9 September. Unit drills and individual ship training were conducted in October and November.
In early 1914, Friedrich der Grosse participated in additional ship and unit training. The annual spring maneuvers were conducted in the North Sea at the end of March. Further fleet exercises followed in April and May in the Baltic and North Seas. The ship again went to Kiel Week that year. Despite the rising international tensions following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June, the High Seas Fleet began its summer cruise to Norway on 13 July. During the last peacetime cruise of the Imperial Navy, the fleet conducted drills off Skagen before proceeding to the Norwegian fjords on 25 July. The following day the fleet began to steam back to Germany, as a result of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia. On the 27th, the entire fleet assembled off Cape Skudenes before returning to port, where they remained at a heightened state of readiness. War between Austria-Hungary and Serbia broke out the following day, and in the span of a week all of the major European powers had joined the conflict.
### World War I
The High Seas Fleet, including Friedrich der Grosse, conducted a number of sweeps and advances into the North Sea. The first occurred on 2–3 November 1914, though no British forces were encountered. Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, the commander of the High Seas Fleet, adopted a strategy in which the battlecruisers of Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's I Scouting Group raided British coastal towns to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet where they could be destroyed by the High Seas Fleet. The raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914 was the first such operation. On the evening of 15 December, the German battle fleet of some twelve dreadnoughts—including Friedrich der Grosse and her four sisters—and eight pre-dreadnoughts came to within 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. Skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens in the darkness convinced Ingenohl that he was faced with the entire Grand Fleet. Under orders from Kaiser Wilhelm II to avoid risking the fleet unnecessarily, Ingenohl broke off the engagement and turned the battle fleet back toward Germany.
Following the loss of SMS Blücher at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, the Kaiser removed Ingenohl from his post on 2 February. Admiral Hugo von Pohl replaced him as commander of the fleet. Pohl conducted a series of fleet advances in 1915 in which Friedrich der Grosse took part; in the first one on 29–30 March, the fleet steamed out to the north of Terschelling and return without incident. Another followed on 17–18 April, where Friedrich der Grosse and the rest of the fleet covered a mining operation by II Scouting Group. Three days later, on 21–22 April, the High Seas Fleet advanced toward Dogger Bank, though again failed to meet any British forces.
II Scouting Group performed another minelaying operation on 17–18 May, and Friedrich der Grosse and the rest of the fleet steamed out in support. Less than two weeks later on 29–30 May, the fleet attempted to conduct a sweep in the North Sea, but inclement weather forced Pohl to cancel the operation some 50 nmi (93 km; 58 mi) off Schiermonnikoog. The fleet remained in port until 10 August, when it sortied to Helgoland to cover the return of the auxiliary cruiser Möwe. A month later, on 11–12 September, the fleet covered another mine-laying operation off the Swarte Bank. The last operation of the year, conducted on 23–24 October, was an advance without result in the direction of Horns Reef.
On 11 January 1916, Admiral Reinhard Scheer replaced Pohl, who was suffering from liver cancer. A week later on the 18th, Scheer hoisted his flag aboard Friedrich der Grosse. Scheer proposed a more aggressive policy designed to force a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet; he received approval from the Kaiser in February. The first of Scheer's operations was conducted the following month, on 5–7 March, with an uneventful sweep of the Hoofden. On 25–26 March, Scheer attempted to attack British forces that had raided Tondern, but failed to locate them. Another advance to Horns Reef followed on 21–22 April.
On 24 April, the battlecruisers of Hipper's I Scouting Group conducted a raid on the English coast. Friedrich der Grosse and the rest of the fleet sailed in distant support. The battlecruiser Seydlitz struck a mine while en route to the target, and had to withdraw. The other battlecruisers bombarded the town of Lowestoft unopposed but, during the approach to Yarmouth, they encountered the British cruisers of the Harwich Force. A short artillery duel ensued before the Harwich Force withdrew. Reports of British submarines in the area prompted the retreat of I Scouting Group. At this point, Scheer, who had been warned of the sortie of the Grand Fleet from its base in Scapa Flow, also withdrew to safer German waters.
#### Battle of Jutland
Soon after the Lowestoft raid, Scheer began planning another foray into the North Sea. He had initially intended to launch the operation in mid-May, by which time the mine damage to Seydlitz was scheduled to be repaired—Scheer was unwilling to embark on a major raid without his battlecruiser forces at full strength. On 9 May, several battleships developed problems with their engines, which delayed the operation further, to 23 May. By 22 May, Seydlitz was still not fully repaired and the operation was again postponed, to 29 May. At noon on 29 May, the repairs to Seydlitz were finally completed, and the ship returned to I Scouting Group. The plan called for Hipper's battlecruisers to steam north to the Skagerrak, with the intention of luring out a portion of the British fleet so it could be destroyed by Scheer's waiting battleships.
Friedrich der Grosse was the eighth ship in the German line; the four König-class ships of the V Division, III Battle Squadron, led the line, followed by four Kaiser-class ships in the VI Division, III Battle Squadron. Friedrich der Grosse was the last ship in her division, directly astern of Prinzregent Luitpold and ahead of Ostfriesland, the flagship of Vice Admiral Schmidt's I Division, I Battle Squadron. The eight Helgoland- and Nassau-class battleships constituted I Squadron, which was followed by the six elderly pre-dreadnoughts of Rear Admiral Franz Mauve's II Squadron. Hipper's five battlecruisers, the scouting force for the fleet, left the Jade estuary at 02:00 on 31 May; Scheer and the High Seas Fleet followed an hour and a half later.
Shortly before 16:00 the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group encountered the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty. The opposing ships began an artillery duel that saw the destruction of Indefatigable, shortly after 17:00, and Queen Mary, less than half an hour later. By this time, the German battlecruisers were steaming south to draw the British ships toward the main body of the High Seas Fleet. At 17:30, König's crew spotted both I Scouting Group and the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron approaching. The German battlecruisers were steaming to starboard, while the British ships steamed to port. At 17:45, Scheer ordered a two-point turn to port to bring his ships closer to the British battlecruisers and the accompanying fast battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron; a minute later, he gave the order to open fire.
Friedrich der Grosse was still out of range of both the British battlecruisers and the 5th Battle Squadron, and so held her fire initially. Between 17:48 and 17:52, Friedrich der Grosse and ten other battleships engaged the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, though only Nassau managed to score a hit during this period. Shortly after, the German battle line came across the disabled destroyers Nestor and Nomad. Friedrich der Grosse and her three sisters targeted Nomad and quickly sank her. Nestor was similarly dispatched by the I Squadron ships. Shortly after 19:00, a melee between the German line and British cruisers took place. The center of the action was the damaged German cruiser Wiesbaden, which had been disabled by a shell from the British battlecruiser Invincible. Rear Admiral Behncke in König attempted to maneuver III Squadron to cover the stricken cruiser. Simultaneously, the British 3rd and 4th Light Cruiser Squadrons began a torpedo attack on the German line; while advancing to torpedo range, they smothered Wiesbaden with fire from their main guns. The eight III Squadron battleships fired on the British cruisers, but even the sustained fire from the battleships' main guns failed to drive off the British cruisers. The armored cruisers Defence, Warrior, and Black Prince joined in the attack on the crippled Wiesbaden. While most of the III Squadron battleships rained heavy fire upon the attacking armored cruisers, Friedrich der Grosse and the I Squadron ships engaged the battleship Warspite at ranges from 9,600 to 12,500 yd (8,800 to 11,400 m), until Warspite disappeared in the haze. In this period, Warspite was hit by 13 heavy shells, though the ships that fired them are unknown.
After successfully withdrawing from the British, Scheer ordered the fleet to assume night cruising formation, though communication errors between Scheer aboard Friedrich der Grosse and Westfalen, the lead ship, caused delays. The series of reversals in course and confused maneuvers disorganized the fleet and inverted the sequence of ships, but by 23:30 the fleet had reached its cruising formation. Friedrich der Grosse was now the ninth ship in a line of twenty-four, headed by the eight I Squadron ships. Shortly after 01:00, the British cruiser Black Prince stumbled into the German line. Searchlights aboard Thüringen illuminated the target; Friedrich der Grosse, Thüringen, Nassau, and Ostfriesland hammered the cruiser at point-blank range with main and secondary guns. In the span of a few minutes Black Prince exploded and sank, taking her entire crew of 857 with her.
After a series of night engagements between the I Squadron battleships and British destroyers, the High Seas Fleet punched through the British light forces and reached Horns Reef by 04:00 on 1 June. The German fleet reached Wilhelmshaven a few hours later; five of the I Squadron battleships took up defensive positions in the outer roadstead, and Kaiser, Kaiserin, Prinzregent Luitpold, and Kronprinz stood ready just outside the entrance to Wilhelmshaven. The rest of the fleet entered Wilhelmshaven, where Friedrich der Grosse and the other ships still in fighting condition replenished their stocks of coal and ammunition. In the course of the battle, Friedrich der Grosse had fired 72 main battery shells and 151 rounds from her secondary guns. She emerged from the battle completely undamaged.
#### Subsequent North Sea operations
On 18 August 1916, Friedrich der Grosse took part in an operation to bombard Sunderland. Admiral Scheer attempted a repeat of the original 31 May plan: the two serviceable German battlecruisers, Moltke and Von der Tann, augmented by three faster dreadnoughts, were to bombard the coastal town of Sunderland in an attempt to draw out and destroy Beatty's battlecruisers. Scheer, in Friedrich der Grosse, would trail behind with the rest of the fleet and provide support. During the action of 19 August 1916, Scheer turned north after receiving a false report from a zeppelin about a British unit in the area. As a result, the bombardment was not carried out, and by 14:35, Scheer had been warned of the Grand Fleet's approach and so turned his forces around and retreated to German ports.
Another fleet operation took place on 18–19 October, though it ended without encountering any British units. The fleet was reorganized on 1 December; the four König-class battleships remained in III Squadron, along with the newly commissioned Bayern, while the five Kaiser-class ships, including Friedrich der Grosse, were transferred to IV Squadron. In March 1917 the new battleship Baden, built to serve as fleet flagship, entered service; on the 17th, Scheer hauled down his flag from Friedrich der Grosse and transferred it to Baden. On 4–5 July, crewmen aboard Friedrich der Grosse staged a hunger strike in protest over the poor quality and insufficient quantity of the food they were given. The ship's officers relented, fed the crew a meal of groat soup and agreed to form a Menagekommission, a council that gave the enlisted men a voice in their ration selection and preparation. Further insubordination on several vessels followed on 11 July, and the ringleaders were arrested and put on trial. Max Reichpietsch, a stoker from Friedrich der Grosse was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on 5 September in Cologne.
#### Operation Albion
In early September 1917, following the German conquest of the Russian port of Riga, the German navy decided to eliminate the Russian naval forces that still held the Gulf of Riga. The Admiralstab (Navy High Command) planned an operation to seize the Baltic island of Ösel, and specifically the Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula. The Admiralstab issued orders on 18 September for a joint operation with the army to capture Ösel and Moon Islands; the primary naval component was to comprise the flagship, Moltke, and III and IV Battle Squadrons of the High Seas Fleet. Along with nine light cruisers, three torpedo boat flotillas, and dozens of mine warfare ships, the entire force numbered some 300 ships, supported by over 100 aircraft and six zeppelins. The invasion force amounted to approximately 24,600 officers and enlisted men. Opposing the Germans were the old Russian pre-dreadnoughts Slava and Tsesarevich, the armored cruisers Bayan, Admiral Makarov, and Diana, 26 destroyers, and several torpedo boats and gunboats. The garrison on Ösel numbered some 14,000 men.
The operation began on the morning of 12 October, when Moltke and the III Squadron ships engaged Russian positions in Tagga Bay while Friedrich der Grosse and the rest of IV Squadron shelled Russian gun batteries on the Sworbe Peninsula on Ösel. The coastal artillery in both locations were quickly silenced by the battleships' heavy guns. On the morning of the 14th, Friedrich der Grosse, Kaiserin, and König Albert were detached to support German troops advancing toward Anseküll. The three ships fired on the battery at Zerel for an hour, which prompted most of the Russian gun crews to flee their posts.
By 20 October, the fighting on the islands was winding down; Moon, Ösel, and Dagö were in German possession. The previous day, the Admiralstab had ordered the cessation of naval actions and the return of the dreadnoughts to the High Seas Fleet as soon as possible. On 27 October, Friedrich der Grosse was detached from the Baltic and returned to the North Sea. Upon her return, she resumed guard duties. The ship participated in the fruitless advance to Norway on 23–25 April 1918. Afterward, she went into drydock for extensive maintenance, which lasted from 26 July to 28 September.
### Fate
Friedrich der Grosse and her four sisters were to have taken part in a final fleet action at the end of October 1918, days before the Armistice was to take effect. The bulk of the High Seas Fleet was to have sortied from their base in Wilhelmshaven to engage the British Grand Fleet; Scheer—by now the Grossadmiral (Grand Admiral) of the fleet—intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to ensure a better bargaining position for Germany, despite the expected casualties. However, many of the war-weary sailors felt the operation would disrupt the peace process and prolong the war. On the morning of 29 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven the following day. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on Thüringen and then on several other battleships mutinied. On the 30th, crewmen aboard Friedrich der Grosse engaged in forms of passive resistance, including a "go-slow" while replenishing the ship's coal stock. The unrest ultimately forced Hipper and Scheer to cancel the operation. Informed of the situation, the Kaiser stated "I no longer have a navy."
Following the capitulation of Germany in November 1918, most of the High Seas Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, were interned in the British naval base in Scapa Flow. Prior to the departure of the German fleet, Admiral Adolf von Trotha made clear to Reuter that he could not allow the Allies to seize the ships, under any conditions. The fleet rendezvoused with the British light cruiser Cardiff, which led the ships to the Allied fleet that was to escort the Germans to Scapa Flow. The massive flotilla consisted of some 370 British, American, and French warships. Once the ships were interned, their guns were disabled through the removal of their breech blocks, and their crews were reduced to 200 officers and enlisted men.
The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the Treaty of Versailles. Reuter believed that the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June 1919, which was the deadline for Germany to sign the peace treaty. Unaware that the deadline had been extended to the 23rd, Reuter ordered the ships to be sunk at the next opportunity. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers, and at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships. Friedrich der Grosse capsized and sank at 12:16. In 1936, the ship was raised and broken up for scrap; the work was completed by 29 April 1937. On 30 August 1965, Britain returned the ship's bell to Germany via the frigate Scheer; it now resides at the Fleet Headquarters of the German Navy in Glücksburg.
|
571,374 |
SMS Baden
| 1,172,955,186 |
Battleship of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"1915 ships",
"Bayern-class battleships",
"Maritime incidents in 1919",
"Maritime incidents in 1921",
"Ships built by Schichau",
"Ships built in Danzig",
"Ships sunk as targets",
"Shipwrecks in the English Channel",
"World War I battleships of Germany",
"World War I warships scuttled at Scapa Flow"
] |
SMS Baden was a Bayern-class dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy built during World War I. Launched in October 1915 and completed in March 1917, she was the last battleship completed for use in the war; two of her sisters—Sachsen and Württemberg—were incomplete when the war ended. The ship mounted eight 38-centimeter (15 in) guns in four twin turrets, displaced 32,200 metric tons (31,700 long tons; 35,500 short tons) at full combat load, and had a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Along with her sister Bayern, Baden was the largest and most powerfully armed battleship built by the Imperial Navy.
Upon commissioning into the High Seas Fleet, Baden was made the fleet flagship, replacing Friedrich der Grosse. Baden saw little action during her short career; the only major sortie in April 1918 ended without any combat. Following the German collapse in November 1918, Baden was interned with the majority of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow by the British Royal Navy. On 21 June 1919, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the scuttling of the fleet. However, British sailors in the harbor managed to board Baden and beach her to prevent her sinking. The ship was refloated, thoroughly examined, and eventually sunk in extensive gunnery testing by the Royal Navy in 1921.
## Design
Design work on the Bayern class began in 1910 in the context of the Anglo-German naval arms race, with initial discussions focused on the caliber of the main battery; previous German battleships had carried 30.5 cm (12 in) guns, but as foreign navies adopted 34 cm (13.5 in) and 35.6 cm (14 in) weapons, the German naval command felt the need to respond with larger guns of their own. They considered 32 cm (12.6 in), 38 cm (15 in), and 40 cm (15.7 in) guns. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Naval Office), was able to use public outcry over the Agadir Crisis to pressure the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) into appropriating additional funds for the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) to offset the additional cost of the larger weapons. The design staff settled on the 38 cm caliber since the 40 cm was significantly more expensive and the 38 cm gun marked a significant improvement over existing German guns.
Baden was 179.4 m (588 ft 7 in) long at the waterline, and 180 m (590 ft 7 in) long overall. She had a draft of between 9.3–9.4 m (30 ft 6 in – 30 ft 10 in). Baden displaced 28,530 metric tons (28,080 long tons) at her designed displacement, which did not include a full load of combat supplies, fuel, and other operational necessities; at full combat load, she displaced up to 32,200 metric tons (31,700 long tons). Baden's displacement was more than 3,000 t (3,000 long tons) greater than that of the preceding König-class ships, making her the largest battleship built by the Imperial Navy. Baden was powered by three sets of Schichau steam turbines, with steam provided by fourteen water-tube boilers, of which eleven were coal-fired and three were oil burning. The propulsion system was rated at 35,000 metric horsepower (35,000 shp) and produced a maximum of 56,275 metric horsepower (55,505 shp) on trials. Her design speed was 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), but Baden achieved a maximum speed of 22.1 knots (40.9 km/h; 25.4 mph). Upon commissioning, she carried a crew of 42 officers and 1,129 enlisted men.
The ship was the first German warship armed with eight 38 cm (15 in) SK L/45 guns. The main battery guns were arranged in four twin gun turrets: two superfiring turrets each fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns, four 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns and five 60 cm (23.6 in) underwater torpedo tubes, one in the bow and two on each beam. The ship had an armored belt that was 170–350 mm (6.7–13.8 in) thick and an armored deck that was 60–100 mm (2.4–3.9 in) thick. Her forward conning tower had 400 mm (15.7 in) sides, and the main battery turrets had 350 mm thick sides and 200 mm (7.9 in) thick roofs.
## Service history
Baden was ordered under the provisional name Ersatz Wörth in 1912, under the fourth and final Naval Law, which was passed that year. Construction began at the Schichau-Werke dockyard in Danzig under construction number 913. The ship was laid down on 20 December 1913 and launched on 30 October 1915. Work was delayed considerably by the start of World War I, first by the Russian advance into East Prussia that threatened the shipyards in Danzig and was checked at the Battle of Tannenberg. Once work in the yards resumed, resources were diverted to complete the battlecruiser Lützow and the ex-Russian light cruisers Elbing and Pillau. Work on the ship resumed in earnest after those projects were completed, and Baden was ready for sea trials by 19 October 1916; the tests were conducted between December and January 1917 and the ship was commissioned into service on 14 March. Baden's two sister ships, Sachsen and Württemberg, both lay incomplete at the end of World War I and were subsequently scrapped, leaving Baden the last battleship built for the Imperial Navy. Most of her crew, including her captain, Victor Harder, came directly from Lützow, which had been sunk at the Battle of Jutland in June 1916.
After her commissioning into the High Seas Fleet, Baden was placed in the role of flagship for the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper, a position she held until the end of the war. At the end of August 1917, Baden took Kaiser Wilhelm II to visit the fortified island of Helgoland; the ship was escorted by the battlecruiser Derfflinger and the light cruisers Emden and Karlsruhe. After the conclusion of the visit, Baden returned the Kaiser to Cuxhaven. The ship struck the sea bottom outside Cuxhaven, though no major damage was done. The ship saw little activity for the rest of the year, as significant elements of the fleet were detached for Operation Albion, the assault on the Gulf of Riga; with the fleet divided, it could not take any offensive action in the North Sea, and so Baden remained idle until the fleet reassembled.
### Advance of 23 April 1918
In late 1917, light forces of the High Seas Fleet began interdicting British convoys to Norway. On 17 October the light cruisers Brummer and Bremse intercepted one of the convoys, sinking nine of the twelve cargo ships and the two escorting destroyers before turning back to Germany. On 12 December, four German destroyers ambushed a second British convoy of five cargo vessels and two British destroyers. All five transports were sunk, as was one of the destroyers. Following these two raids, Admiral David Beatty, the commander of the Grand Fleet, detached battleships from the battle fleet to protect the convoys. The German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) was now presented with an opportunity for which it had been waiting the entire war: a portion of the numerically stronger Grand Fleet was separated and could be isolated and destroyed. Hipper planned the operation: the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group, along with light cruisers and destroyers, would attack one of the large convoys, while the rest of the High Seas Fleet would stand by, ready to attack the British dreadnought battleship squadron.
At 05:00 on 23 April 1918, the German fleet departed from the Schillig roadstead. Hipper, aboard Baden, ordered wireless transmissions be kept to a minimum, to prevent radio intercepts by British intelligence. At 06:10 the German battlecruisers had reached a position approximately 60 kilometers (37 mi) southwest of Bergen when the battlecruiser Moltke lost her inner starboard propeller, which severely damaged the ship's engines. The crew effected temporary repairs that allowed the ship to steam at 4 kn (7.4 km/h), but it was decided to take the ship under tow. Despite this setback, Hipper continued northward. By 14:00, Hipper's force had crossed the convoy route several times but had found nothing. At 14:10, Hipper turned his ships southward. By 18:37, the German fleet had made it back to the defensive minefields surrounding their bases. It was later discovered that the convoy had left port a day later than expected by the German planning staff.
On 24 May, Baden again steamed to Helgoland, this time to take the commander in chief of the fleet, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, and Grand Duke Friedrich von Baden to visit the island. Only Karlsruhe joined the ship on this voyage. In August, Baden was dry docked for maintenance, and on the 7th of the month, Hipper replaced Scheer as the fleet commander. Baden was refloated on 24 August in preparation for what was to be the last major training exercise of the fleet, conducted on 6 September.
### Mutiny and Scapa Flow
As the fleet flagship, Baden was to have taken part in a final fleet action days before the Armistice, an operation which envisioned the bulk of the High Seas Fleet sortieing from their base in Wilhelmshaven to engage the British Grand Fleet. In order to obtain a better bargaining position for Germany, Admirals Hipper and Scheer intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, whatever the cost to the fleet. Consequently, on 29 October 1918, the order was given to depart from Wilhelmshaven to consolidate the fleet in the Jade roadstead, with the intention of departing the following morning. However, starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on Thüringen mutinied. Early on the 30th, the crew of Helgoland, which was directly behind Thüringen, joined in the mutiny. Both ships surrendered after two torpedo boats arrived and threatened to open fire, and the battleships' crews were taken ashore and incarcerated. The mood of Baden's crew was reported as "dangerous". The rebellion then spread ashore; on 3 November, an estimated 20,000 sailors, dock workers, and civilians fought a battle against the authorities in Kiel in an attempt to secure the release of the jailed mutineers. Meanwhile, on 9 November, the Socialists' red flag was hoisted aboard Baden, which finally convinced Hipper and Scheer to abandon the plan.
Baden was not originally intended to be surrendered under the terms of the Armistice, but was substituted for the battlecruiser Mackensen, which lay incomplete and could not put to sea. As a result, instead of joining the High Seas Fleet when it departed for Scapa Flow on 21 November 1918, Baden left Germany on 7 January 1919, and after arriving, most of her crew were taken off the by the light cruiser Regensburg to be returned to Germany. The Royal Navy inspected the ship on 9 January, but many of the technical instruments, including gunnery equipment, had been removed before the ship left Germany. The fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations in Versailles that ultimately produced the treaty that ended the war. A copy of The Times informed Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter that the Armistice was to expire at noon on 21 June 1919, the deadline by which Germany was to have signed the peace treaty. Reuter came to the conclusion that the British intended to seize the German ships after the Armistice expired. To prevent this, he decided to scuttle his ships at the first opportunity. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers; at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships.
Many of the men aboard Baden had been selected to help unload a supply ship that morning, and so were unavailable to open the seacocks, leaving the remaining crewmen insufficient for the task. As a result, Baden was the last major warship to begin the scuttling process, and British forces in the harbor managed to secure the ship, cut her anchor chains, and run her aground before she could sink in deeper water. Then-Lieutenant Commander Bruce Fraser led the British sailors who boarded Baden. Baden was the only capital ship not successfully sunk in the scuttling. The ship was refloated on 19 July, after which she was towed to the British naval base at Invergordon.
### British service
After the ship arrived in Invergordon, Baden was carefully examined by Royal Navy technicians. Naval engineers inspected the hull, including the screws, bilge keels, and rudders, to determine the water resistance of the hull form. The ship was found to have been approximately as efficient as the British Revenge-class battleships. The ship's armor system was extensively investigated; the British team concluded that the ship had not been modified to incorporate the lessons from the Battle of Jutland of 31 May – 1 June 1916.
The main battery turrets and ammunition magazines were also the subject of intense scrutiny; among the tests conducted was a trial to see how fast the magazines could be flooded—the result was 12 minutes. The gunnery school HMS Excellent ran loading trials on the main battery guns. It was found that the guns could be prepared to fire in 23 seconds, 13 seconds faster than in the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. The ship's watertight bulkhead and underwater protection systems also particularly interested the inspection team; they paid close attention to the ship's pumping and counter-flooding equipment. Early in the inspection, a dockyard worker was killed and several others injured after a candle ignited fumes in the hull, causing an explosion. Edmund Abbott, a Royal Navy lieutenant, was awarded the Albert Medal for his attempts to rescue the injured.
After the inspection was concluded, it was determined to expend Baden as a gunnery target. In January 1921 the first round of gunnery tests was ordered. The gunners at HMS Excellent fired the new armor-piercing (AP) shells that had been introduced after the Battle of Jutland. This round of tests was used to determine the most efficient ratio of explosives in the detonator caps; the shells fired at Jutland had a tendency to fragment when striking heavy armor rather than penetrate. The monitor HMS Terror moored some 500 yd (460 m) away from Baden to fire her 15 in (38 cm) guns from point-blank range. Baden was made to list to starboard by the removal of coal and armor from the port side, to simulate the effect of a shell striking armor from a plunging angle. The forward-most gun turret had by this time been removed. Terror fired 17 shells of various types into the ship. The Royal Navy concluded after these tests that the new shells were sufficiently powerful to penetrate heavy armor, and were much more effective than the previous versions that had been employed at Jutland. Following the tests, heavy seas caused the ship to sink in the shallow water; after three months she was again raised and docked for repairs. The ship was readied for a second round of testing by August 1921.
The second series of tests was scheduled for 16 August 1921. The monitor HMS Erebus fired a mix of shell types into Baden with her 15 in guns. This time, the shells did not perform as well against Baden's heavy armor; one of the AP shells failed to explode and two semi-AP shells appear to have broken up on impact. Six aerial bombs were also detonated on the ship, though they had been placed on board and were detonated remotely. The bombs did not perform as well as had been expected. Immediately following the second round of gunnery trials, Baden was scuttled. The ship sank in Hurd Deep in a depth of approximately 180 m (600 ft).
The most important finding of the trials on Baden was that the 7-inch (18 cm) thick medium armor was completely useless against large-caliber shells. As a result, the British navy adopted the "all or nothing" armor pioneered by the United States Navy. The "all or nothing" armor theory consisted of protecting the ship's vitals with extremely heavy armor, while leaving the rest of the ship completely unprotected. This system was used on Britain's first post-war class of battleships, the Nelson class.
|
2,113,994 |
William S. Sadler
| 1,142,302,951 |
Psychiatrist and author (1875–1969)
|
[
"1875 births",
"1969 deaths",
"American Evangelical and Reformed Church members",
"American evangelists",
"American non-fiction writers",
"American psychiatrists",
"American psychoanalysts",
"American surgeons",
"Former Seventh-day Adventists",
"Illinois State University alumni",
"People from Battle Creek, Michigan",
"People from Spencer, Indiana",
"The Urantia Book",
"University of Chicago faculty"
] |
William Samuel Sadler (June 24, 1875 – April 26, 1969) was an American surgeon, self-trained psychiatrist, and author who helped publish The Urantia Book. The book is said to have resulted from Sadler's relationship with a man through whom he believed celestial beings spoke at night. It drew a following of people who studied its teachings.
A native of Indiana, Sadler moved to Michigan as a teenager to work at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. There he met the physician and health-food promoter John Harvey Kellogg, co-inventor of corn flakes breakfast cereal, who became his mentor. Sadler married Kellogg's niece, Lena Celestia Kellogg, in 1897. He worked for several Christian organizations and attended medical school, graduating in 1906. Sadler practiced medicine in Chicago with his wife, who was also a physician. He joined several medical associations and taught at the McCormick Theological Seminary. Although he was a committed member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for almost twenty years, he left the denomination after it disfellowshipped his wife's uncle, John Harvey Kellogg, in 1907. Sadler and his wife became speakers on the Chautauqua adult education circuit in 1907, and he became a highly paid, popular orator. He eventually wrote over 40 books on a variety of medical and spiritual topics advocating a holistic approach to health. Sadler extolled the value of prayer and religion but was skeptical of mediums, assisting debunker Howard Thurston, and embraced the scientific consensus on evolution.
In 1910, Sadler went to Europe and studied psychiatry for a year under Sigmund Freud. Sometime between 1906 and 1911, Sadler attempted to treat a patient with an unusual sleep condition. While the patient was sleeping he spoke to Sadler and claimed to be an extraterrestrial. Sadler spent years observing the sleeping man in an effort to explain the phenomenon, and eventually decided the man had no mental illness and that his words were genuine. The man's identity was never publicized, but speculation has focused on Sadler's brother-in-law, Wilfred Kellogg. Over the course of several years, Sadler and his assistants visited the man while he slept, conversing with him about spirituality, history, and cosmology, and asking him questions. A larger number of interested people met at Sadler's home to discuss the man's responses and to suggest additional questions. The man's words were eventually published in The Urantia Book, and the Urantia Foundation was created to assist Sadler in spreading the book's message. It is not known who wrote and edited the book, but several commentators have speculated that Sadler played a guiding role in its publication. Although it never became the basis of an organized religion, the book attracted followers who devoted themselves to its study, and the movement continued after Sadler's death.
## Early life and education
Sadler was born June 24, 1875, in Spencer, Indiana. Of English and Irish descent, he was raised in Wabash, Indiana. Samuel did not enroll his son in public schools. Despite his lack of formal education, Sadler read many books about history as a child and became a skilled public speaker at a young age. Samuel was a convert to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and William was baptized into the denomination in 1888 and became devoutly religious.
In 1889, William Sadler moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, to work at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where he served as a bellhop and helped in the kitchen. He also attended Battle Creek College for one year when he was 16. Both institutions had strong ties to his church and Sadler was mentored by local Adventist businessman John Harvey Kellogg, who heavily influenced Sadler's views. Sadler's early writings about health are similar to ideas advanced by John Kellogg, including the concept of autointoxication, and the idea that caffeine has negative health effects. He similarly condemned the consumption of tobacco, meat, and alcohol. Although Sadler did drink later in his life.
Sadler graduated from Battle Creek College in 1894 and subsequently worked for John Kellogg's brother, William K. Kellogg as a health-food salesman. Sadler, a skilled salesman, persuaded William Kellogg to market his products through demonstrations in retail stores. In 1894, he oversaw the establishment of Life Boat Mission, a mission that Kellogg founded on State Street in Chicago. Sadler operated the mission and published Life Boat Magazine; its sales were intended to provide funds for Kellogg's Chicago Medical Mission. Sadler also contributed articles to other Adventist publications, including the Review and Herald. Around 1895, Sadler attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois, where he trained to be an evangelist, ultimately becoming an ordained minister in 1901.
In 1897, Sadler married John Kellogg's niece, Lena Celestia Kellogg, a nurse whom he had met four years previously. Their first child, William, called Willis, born in 1899, died a ten months later. Their second child, William S. Sadler Jr., was born in 1907. The couple had been interested in medicine for several years, but the loss of their child inspired them to pursue medical careers. In 1901, they moved to San Francisco to attend medical school at Cooper Medical College. In San Francisco, he served as the "superintendent of young people's work" for the church's California conference and the president of a local Medical Missionary society. The couple also operated a home for Christian medical students. In 1904, they returned to the Midwest, where they attended medical school, each earning a Doctor of Medicine degree two years later. Sadler was an early adopter of Freudian psychoanalysis, and believed that experiences individuals have as infants play a key role in their minds as adults, although he did not accept many of Freud's ideas about sexuality or religion.
Although Sadler was a committed Adventist for much of his early life, he stayed less involved after John Kellogg was excommunicated in 1907 in the wake of a conflict with Ellen G. White, the church's founder. The Sadlers became disenchanted with the church and subsequently criticized it. Sadler rejected some Adventist teachings, such as White's status as a prophetess and the importance of Saturday as Sabbath. He retained a positive view of White and rejected allegations that she was a charlatan.
## Career
By 1912, Sadler and his wife, both doctors by then, operated a joint practice in Chicago that catered to children's and women's health issues. Sadler initially focused on surgery, performing surgeries with his wife, but widened his practice to include psychiatric counseling in 1930 and became a consulting psychiatrist at Columbus Hospital. As a psychiatrist, Sadler advocated an eclectic mix of techniques, applying the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Adolf Meyer. Sadler believed that religious faith was beneficial to mental health, and specifically promoted prayer, which he believed to be most effective in the context of Christian faith. However, he thought that religious beliefs were deleterious to mental health if based on fear.
Sadler and his wife moved into an Art Nouveau-style house—the first steel-frame residence in Chicago—on Diversey Parkway in 1912. The couple operated their medical practice in the building. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of medical associations including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Pathological Society, and the American College of Surgeons. Sadler was also a member of the faculty of McCormick Theological Seminary, and taught pastoral psychology. He argued that pastors should be educated in basic psychiatry so they could recognize symptoms of mental illness in congregants. His students later recalled him as an engaging and humorous public speaker.
Sadler wrote about many topics. In 1909, he published his first book, an evangelical work, titled Self-Winning Texts, or Bible Helps for Personal Work. In the 1910s, he regularly worked all night on his writing projects. In addition to 42 books, most of which were about personal health issues, he wrote magazine articles. Many of Sadler's books focused on popular self-help topics; historian Jonathan Spiro deems Sadler's The Elements of Pep a "quintessential book of the 1920s". In 1936, Sadler published Theory and Practice of Psychiatry, a 1,200-page work in which he attempted to provide a comprehensive outline of psychiatry.
Sadler also wrote about race: he had an interest in eugenics, likely owing to Kellogg's interest in the concept, and Madison Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race. Sadler wrote several works about eugenics, endorsing and heavily borrowing from Grant's views, which posited that the "Nordic race" was superior to others. In his writings, Sadler contended that some races were at a lower stage of evolution—closer to Neanderthals than were other races—and were consequently less civilized and more aggressive. Sadler argued that alcoholism and "feeblemindedness, insanity, and delinquency" were hereditary traits and that those who possessed them were breeding at a much faster rate than "superior human beings". He feared that this issue could threaten the "civilization we bequeath our descendants". He also believed that the majority of criminals were mentally ill.
In 1907, Sadler began giving lectures on the Chautauqua adult-education circuit, which featured itinerant speakers discussing self-help and morality. Sadler often spoke about attaining physical and mental health without drugs. He also promoted hydrotherapy and discussed moral issues that related to men. Sadler, his wife, her sister, and a friend, formed a four-member lecture company that gave two- or three-day engagements, sometimes accompanied by an orchestra. Newspapers published favorable reviews of the productions. The lectures proved to be a lucrative endeavor: it was rumored that he became one of the best-paid Chautauqua speakers.
Sadler believed that mediums were a source of false comfort and, after World War I ended, fought against the increased popularity of communication with the dead. In the 1910s and 1920s, attempting to expose purported clairvoyants became one of Sadler's favorite pastimes and he regularly worked with a Northwestern University psychologist and Howard Thurston, then a prominent magician, while investigating psychics. Sadler may have met the magician Harry Houdini (who was also a skeptic) around this time.
## Urantia revelation
According to the origin story of The Urantia Book, sometime between 1906 and 1911, a woman consulted Sadler about her husband's deep sleeping, prompting Sadler to observe him while he slept. He noticed that the sleeping man made unusual movements; the man then purportedly spoke to Sadler in an unusual voice and claimed to be a "visitor ... from another planet". Observers related that the man later claimed to carry messages from several celestial beings. Sadler suspected that the man's words were drawn from his mind and sought a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. Although he examined the man for psychiatric problems, he was unable to make a satisfactory diagnosis. Sadler and five others subsequently visited the man on a regular basis, speaking with him as he slept. In 1925, a large handwritten document was discovered in the patient's house; papers were said to appear in the house for years afterwards. Sadler brought the papers to his house and did not allow anyone to take them away, although some were allowed to read them on site. Sadler presumed that the documents were the product of automatic handwriting from the man's subconscious, but changed his mind after further analysis. He made no public statements about their authenticity for years.
In 1924, Sadler began hosting Sunday tea gatherings at his home, which could accommodate fifty guests. Many attendees worked in the medical establishment, and typically adhered to a progressive ideology. The group often held a forum to discuss the patient with the sleep issue and devise questions for him. The observers withheld the man's name from the group, but relayed some of his statements. In 1925, the forum, which then had thirty members, closed their meetings to visitors and began to require a pledge of secrecy. Sadler instructed forum members not to publicize what they learned, telling them that they had an incomplete picture of what was occurring. He also feared that the patient would face criticism if his identity were known. His identity has never been confirmed; Joscelyn Godwin, of Colgate University, and skeptic Martin Gardner posit that the sleeping man was Wilfred Kellogg, the husband of Lena's sister Anna.
In 1935, Sadler concluded that the papers found in the sleeping patient's house were not a hoax, citing their "genuineness and insight", and arguing that the sleeping man was not a medium for the dead, but was used by living beings to communicate. Papers ceased appearing in the sleeping man's house in the 1930s; Sadler then took a clear role as leader of the discussion group. The forum discontinued their discussion meetings in 1942, and The Urantia Book was published in 1955; it purportedly contained information from the celestial beings who had spoken through the sleeping man. The Urantia Book presents itself as the fifth "epochal" revelation God has given to humanity, and states that its purpose is to help humanity evolve to a higher form of life. It has four sections. The first section covers the nature of God and the universe, the second describes the portions of the universe nearest to Earth and Lucifer's rebellion, the third details the history of Earth and human religions, and the fourth provides an account of Jesus's life and accompanying doctrines. Sadler maintained that the teachings of the book were "essentially Christian" and "entirely harmonious with ... known scientific facts". Although Sadler had left the Adventist church by the time The Urantia Book was published, its teachings are broadly consistent with some aspects of Adventist theology, such as soul sleep and annihilationism. Journalist Brook Wilensky-Lanford argues in her 2011 profile of the Urantia movement that Sadler's departure from the Adventist church gave him the desire to build a new religious movement, citing the emphasis that Sadler placed on the discussion of the Garden of Eden in The Urantia Book as evidence of his desire to start anew. Sadler hoped that the content of the revelation would convince people of its worth, and did not attempt to win supporters by emphasizing its author. Wilensky-Lanford argues that Sadler attempted to avoid placing an individual at the center of his beliefs owing to his disappointment in Ellen White; however, Gardner believes that Sadler placed his faith in Wilfred Kellogg as he had in White.
Until her death in 1939, Sadler's wife Lena was a regular forum participant. One member subsequently objected to Sadler's leadership, alleging that he became hungry for power after his wife's death. In the early 1950s, the Urantia Foundation was established to publish The Urantia Book. Hubert Wilkins, a friend of Sadler who had a keen interest in the book, contributed the initial funding for publication costs. Rather than create an organized religion, the foundation's leadership opted for what they called "slow growth"; early adherents sought to educate people about the book's teachings rather than found a church-like organization. Sadler also disavowed proselytizing and publicity, although he wrote several works about the content of The Urantia Book. In 1958, Sadler published a defense of the book, citing his experience exposing frauds and maintaining that the book was free of contradictions. Since his death, several reading groups, seminars, and churches have been established to study the book and to spread its message.
The authorship of the Urantia papers is disputed. Journalist Brad Gooch argues in his 2002 profile of the Urantia movement that Sadler was the author of The Urantia Book, citing similarities between some of its passages and contents of Sadler's earlier writings. Gardner believes that Sadler wrote part of the papers, but heavily edited and revised most of them. He also contends that Sadler refused to include some material provided to him for inclusion in the book, and that he plagiarized from other works. Ken Glasziou, a supporter of the Urantia Foundation, contends that statistical evidence of the text and Sadler's other works indicates that he did not write, or extensively edit, The Urantia Book.
## Final years
In 1952, Sadler's final book, Courtship and Love, was published by Macmillan Publishers. He wrote another title, A Doctor Talks With His Patient, but after it was rejected by a publisher, he decided to stop writing. In March 1957, Sadler was appointed as the superintendent of Barboursville State Hospital in Barboursville, West Virginia, where he stayed until July 1958.
As he grew older, Sadler generally remained in good health, with the exception of a condition that led to the removal of an eye. He died on April 26, 1969, at 93 years of age. Christensen recalls that Sadler was visited by friends and family while on his deathbed; he spoke to them of his confidence in a joyful life after death. He received a full-column obituary in the Chicago Tribune, which discussed his success as a doctor but not his association with The Urantia Book.
## Reception
By the time of his death, Sadler was acclaimed for his accurate prediction of the advent of organ transplantation decades before the practice became commonplace. Members of the Urantia movement have also held high opinions of Sadler, sometimes idolizing him. In her 2003 profile of the Urantia movement, Lewis states that descriptions of Sadler by members of the movement could suggest that he possessed charismatic authority and is revered as "the chosen". Gooch deems Sadler the "Moses of the Urantia movement" and casts him as "one of America's homegrown religious leaders, an original along the lines of Joseph Smith". He also applauds Sadler's writings about mediums, describing Sadler's book The Truth About Spiritualism as "one of the strongest attacks ever written on fraudulent mediums and their methods".
Gooch believes there is a contradiction between Sadler's advocacy of science and reason and his support of the avant-garde theological, "inter-planetary" contents of The Urantia Book. Gardner describes Sadler's life story as "riveting" and summarizes him as an "intelligent, gifted" person who proved to be "gullible" about alleged supernatural revelations. He contends that Sadler eventually developed megalomania that was unrecognized by those around him and argues that Sadler succumbed to hubris and began to believe that he was a prophet, divinely chosen as the founder and leader of a new religion. Lewis disputes this characterization, maintaining that Sadler and those around him sought only to clarify and explain the teachings of the Bible.
## Selected works
|
49,105,257 |
Oxenfree
| 1,166,964,216 |
Graphic adventure video game
|
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"Android (operating system) games",
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"Video games developed in the United States",
"Video games featuring female protagonists",
"Video games set in Washington (state)",
"Video games set on fictional islands",
"Windows games",
"Xbox One games"
] |
Oxenfree is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Night School Studio. It was released for OS X, Windows, and Xbox One in January 2016. PlayStation 4 and Linux versions were released later in 2016, followed by iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch versions in 2017. In Oxenfree, players assume the role of the teenage girl Alex on a weekend trip to a local island. After seemingly supernatural events occur, Alex and her friends must unravel the secrets of the island.
The game is Night School Studio's debut. Influenced by classic teen films and coming-of-age shows, the developers wanted to create a story-driven game without cutscenes, allowing players to roam the environment freely. Oxenfree's visual presentation marries dark, organic, and analog elements with bright, geometric, and digital ones. Musician scntfc composed the game's soundtrack, which features digital music production techniques alongside the use of vintage analog tape recorders and receivers.
Oxenfree's release was accompanied by development documentaries, an alternate reality game, and a collector's edition, and was met with generally positive reviews, with critics praising the presentation and characters, although some of them were left wanting more. The game was nominated for multiple awards including "Best Narrative" at The Game Awards 2016 and "Outstanding Achievement in Story" at the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. A sequel, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, was released on July 12, 2023. A television series adaptation is also in development.
## Gameplay
Oxenfree is a graphic adventure played from a 2.5D perspective, with three-dimensional characters navigating two-dimensional environments. The player controls Alex, a teenager visiting a local island with a group of friends. After accidentally unleashing a paranormal force on the island, Alex and company must figure out what the force is and how to stop it.
Gameplay is built around the "walk and talk" mechanic: instead of dialogue occurring during cutscenes, speech bubbles appear over Alex's head, giving the player a choice between two or three dialogue options. At the same time, Alex remains free to move around and navigate the game world. Players can select dialogue options at any time during conversations, choosing to wait for other characters to finish, to interrupt, or to remain silent. Certain dialogue options cause a thought bubble with Alex inside it to appear over characters' heads, suggesting that the player's choice had an effect on the characters' relationship.
Objects that can be interacted with in the game world display a small circle next to them. Puzzles in the game are solved by finding the correct frequency on Alex's handheld radio, which can perform actions such as unlocking doors or communicating with ghosts, or by winding up tape recorders at the correct speed. Oxenfree does not have any "game over" loss conditions; the player's choices and relationships with the characters determine which of several possible endings the player receives.
## Plot
Alex (Erin Yvette), a teenager, is on the last ferry heading to the fictional Edwards Island for a weekend party. She is accompanied by Ren (Aaron Kuban), her stoner friend, and Jonas (Gavin Hammon), her new stepbrother. On the island, Alex and company meet Clarissa (Avital Ash), the ex-girlfriend of Alex's deceased brother Michael, and Nona (Brittani Johnson), Clarissa's best friend and Ren's love interest. Ren explains the island was once a military base and that the island's only permanent resident, Maggie Adler, has recently died. After camping on the beach, Alex, Ren, and Jonas explore the nearby caves, where it is rumored certain radio frequencies cause supernatural events. In a small cavern, Alex tunes her radio to a floating shape and unexpectedly forms a dimensional rift. A voice answers and the teens experience visions before passing out. Jonas and Alex awake in front of a communications tower elsewhere on the island. Ren calls, having passed out in the woods, while Clarissa calls from the decommissioned military fort on the island.
In the woods, Jonas and Alex encounter supernatural events, including Alex's reflection in the water communicating with her, objects moving on their own, and time looping repeatedly. Time corrects when Alex plays a reel-to-reel tape. They spot Nona, who claims she saw an alternate Jonas and Alex. Alex and Jonas find Ren, but after another time loop, they find him possessed by a "ghost". Using the radio, Alex creates another rift which returns Ren to normal. Ren and Nona return to the tower.
At the military fort, Alex's reflection appears in a mirror, giving Alex advice. A ghost questions them and possesses Jonas, revealing that the ghosts are the crew of the submarine USS Kanaloa, thought lost at sea. Alex creates another rift that revives Jonas. They find Clarissa, but time loops to her jumping to her death before disappearing. Nona, Alex, Jonas, and Ren regroup at Harden Tower. Unable to send a radio transmission off the island, Ren suggests finding the key to Maggie Adler's estate, where she kept a boat. At Adler's estate, a possessed Clarissa talks with Alex; her conversations and scattered letters left behind by Maggie Adler reveal that Adler mistakenly interpreted scrambled messages from Kanaloa as an enemy transmission, and the submarine was sunk by friendly fire. The crew was not killed, but transported to another dimension due to the sub's experimental nuclear reactor. Adler and her friend Anna had attempted to communicate with the Kanaloa crew via a radio, but Anna was absorbed through the rift. The Kanaloa crew intend on using Alex and her friends' bodies to escape the dimension, keeping them on the island long enough for their possession attempts to be successful.
Alex and the group discover Maggie Adler's plan to fix the rifts—crossing to the other side of them and tuning the radio within. Alex repeatedly loops back to the past, mainly to times she talked with Michael. A ghost possesses Jonas and attempts to bargain with Alex, offering to spare her and the rest of her friends if they leave Clarissa behind. Returning to the caves, Alex tunes into a rift that sends her into a void. Encountering the possessed Clarissa, the ghosts warn Alex that she will die if the rift is closed, and Clarissa will be kept by the ghosts if Alex leaves through the rift. Alex can choose to leave, erasing Clarissa from existence; close the rift herself, trapping her with the ghosts; or, if she has found enough letters from Maggie Adler, Alex can appeal to the crew members directly, convincing them to let Clarissa and her go. The reflection of Alex giving her advice is revealed to be Alex from the future. She loops back to a conversation with Michael, who admits that he and Clarissa are planning to move away from town and asks for Alex's advice. Time then corrects.
Alex wakes up with the others on the ferry back home; Jonas informs her that whatever she did fixed the rift and that everything is normal. Everyone reveals that, for a limited period, they revisited past memories. They then swear to not tell anyone about their experiences. Nona takes a final group picture.
### Endings
In an epilogue, Alex reveals the fate of the characters, with Nona's picture of the group shown and the outcomes dependent on actions made during the game:
- Clarissa's friendship with Alex and Michael can be either preserved or destroyed. Clarissa can also be sacrificed to the rift, with no one remembering Clarissa except Alex herself. If she is saved, she will either drop out of school or continue her studies.
- Ren and Nona may or may not be in a long-distance relationship depending on Alex's actions.
- Jonas's relationship with Alex can be either preserved or destroyed.
- Michael can be revived if Alex encourages him not to move away in the time loop. If so, Jonas and Alex will cease to be step-siblings. The player's actions can either destroy or preserve Michael's relationship with Clarissa.
Alex also describes her own plans; she may go to college, either in or out of her hometown, or take time off. Thereafter, the screen flickers and Alex tells the player she is going to Edwards Island and is meeting Jonas for the first time, revealing that time is still looping.
If the player starts another game with the same save file (New Game Plus), Alex has the chance to send herself a message from the island. After the epilogue, a new scene plays of Alex, Jonas, and Ren at a supermarket waiting to buy alcohol before getting on the ferry. Tuning her radio, Alex receives the message her future self sent from the island. Depending on the message sent and how the player responds, Alex, Jonas, and Ren can decide not to go to Edwards Island at all, preventing the loop.
## Development
Cousins Sean Krankel and Adam Hines founded Night School Studio in 2014, having long wanted to collaborate on a video game together. Hines had worked on Telltale Games's story-focused games like Wolf Among Us, while Krankel had met or worked with many future Night School members at Disney. Hines and Krankel were interested in creating a game that told its story in a unique way.
Krankel and Hines looked at other story-focused games, and felt that they either were linear stories driven by set pieces, or branching, player choice-influenced stories told through cut scenes. "We thought, why not let you move freely while communicating, interacting, and exploring a branching narrative?" Krankel recalled. They wanted to make communication a key mechanic of the game, but allow more freedom than previous story-focused games. "At its core, we wanted to never have a cut scene in the game, where you could walk and move freely and communicate with your friends, and even communicate with other beings and other kind of strange things." Rather than developing the gameplay and attaching a story to it, Night School focused on developing gameplay that would support the story they wanted to tell. Because Night School was a small team, Hines and Krankel had to outline a scope for the game that would be manageable. This meant making sure branching dialogue trees of possible conversation options never became too sprawling.
In developing the story, Krankel and Hines first looked at influences and other media that inspired them. They wanted the story to have scary and supernatural elements, without verging on horror. Krankel said, "We wanted to do something a little bit more ... Spielberg-ian, and sort of give it a sense of wonder and have it, for awhile, just be actually interacting with these supernatural creatures where it's almost a little bit fun, and hopefully, gives you butterflies in your stomach before it gets pretty crazy." The developers were influenced by other coming-of-age stories such as the film Stand by Me when developing the characters and story; Krankel cited the character of Lindsay Weir from the television series Freaks and Geeks as the biggest outside influence on the character of Alex.
Night School set up a casting call for voice actors on the magazine Backstage. The team produced placeholder subtitles in the game prior to casting actors and recording lines. Lead engineer Bryant Cannon recalled that without the voices, he was unsure whether the game would be fun to play; after the voices were added, he could see the characters as believable people having conversations. Hines directed recording sessions, allowing him to change dialogue immediately if he felt material did not work when voiced by the actors. All of the actors voiced their lines separately and out of order, their conversations in-game being stitched together in post-production.
Oxenfree was developed primarily using the Unity game engine, Adobe Photoshop, and Autodesk Maya. The game's artwork was made by Heather Gross, who drew inspiration from her own upbringing—Alex's outfit is made of clothing Gross wore as a child. The team wanted to show multiple characters, dialogue bubbles, and places to explore in the environment on the screen simultaneously. This directly influenced the game's two-dimensional look and distance from the player characters on screen. Working with these requirements, Gross created parallaxing, painterly backgrounds. The dark, organic elements of the setting were designed in contrast to the supernatural elements, which are bright and geometric. The animation, art, and effects required for the game's major plot developments ended up taking more time than Hines and Krankel expected, but they found that it helped organize their story in the process.
### Audio
American music composer and sound designer Andrew Rohrmann, known under his alias scntfc, created Oxenfree's audio. Krankel knew Rohrmann through a friend of a friend and had not known of his game music pedigree. Initially, Night School Studio was unsure about what they wanted the game's music to sound like. Hines mentioned that they gave Rohrmann "random" suggestions for the sound, including "John Carpenter meets Boards of Canada", but were impressed with the music they got in response.
Krankel said the goal was for the music to feel simultaneously analog and digital, "so that it's nostalgic without being set in a specific time in the past". Rohrmann combined digital recording techniques and plugins with analog ones, running some sounds through old cassette decks and reel-to-reel tape. The shortwave radio Alex uses in the game was created by recording sounds through a World War II-era radio set. Much of the music was not scored to specific scenes, but for certain moods; Rohrmann estimated 90% of the songs in the completed game were identical to his original demo recordings. The soundtrack was released on January 15, 2016, to accompany the game, with a limited edition vinyl shipping later.
## Promotion and release
Night School posted a teaser for the game on March 1, 2015, followed by a full announcement four days later at the Game Developers Conference. In October 2015, it was announced that the game would be released in January 2016; this announcement coincided with a second teaser from the game. After release, Skybound Entertainment approached Night School to help develop additional media for the game. In January 2016, Skybound released multiple episodes as part of their Creator Series about the creation of Oxenfree, detailing the story, art, mechanics, and voice acting. Night School partnered with iam8bit to create a collector's edition of the game, which featured items such as a cassette tape demo of Ren's band in the game, a map of the island, poster, and code for the game.
The PlayStation 4 (PS4) version of the game was announced on April 27 and released May 31. The PS4 version of the game added the New Game+ mode as well as platform-specific tweaks, like using the DualShock 4 controller to adjust the game's radio. An iOS version of the game was released on the Apple App Store on March 16, 2017. The game was added to Netflix's mobile gaming app in September 2022.
The game also has an alternate reality game (ARG) counterpart. Within the game are radio frequencies that provide hints to a real phone number. This phone number led players to the Twitter account @xray9169363733. The account posted various cryptic, coded messages, all of which seemed to point to a real world location. On May 7, 2016, YouTuber Jesse Cox posted a video similar to the PS4 Oxenfree trailer, but with several letters highlighted in red. This led players to edwardsisland.com. Several messages were found, but most important was "MILNER IS WARD", confirming that a special object would be hidden at Fort Ward, Washington. On June 11, 2016, fans playing the ARG discovered the object was a box with letters by Alex from all the possible timelines from the game, and a manually operated tape player with two paper music tapes of songs from the game soundtrack.
## Reception
Oxenfree was positively reviewed by critics, each version of the game receiving "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic. Wired wrote that "Oxenfree shows some smart thinking about the relationship between games and players", and that as Night School's first game, it was an "auspicious debut". Destructoid praised the game for taking inspiration from old movies but still being "anything but generic", writing: "It dials into its own style and mood, tapping into something very heartfelt and special. It might just be the best 'horror' game I've played in years.” Polygon's reviewer offered a less enthusiastic take, writing that despite offering many promising attributes, "I finished Oxenfree with my mouth agape, feeling wholly unsatisfied."
The game's audiovisual presentation was commonly considered a strength of the game. Destructoid called the game's watercolor art style "gorgeous". Electronic Gaming Monthly favorably contrasted Oxenfree's traditional media style with the much more common retro pixel styling of indie games. The magazine and others also favorably highlighted the contrast between the watercolor look of the environment and the sharp, digital effects of the paranormal; Electronic Gaming Monthly called it a "massive success" while Destructoid noted the usual softness of the visuals made the intrusion of digital elements feel more unnerving.
Reviewers felt that the naturalistic dialogue of Oxenfree was a strength. Polygon credited Oxenfree for not relying on lazy or clichéd speech, and GameSpot highlighted the interplay between characters that deepened as the game progressed. IGN in contrast felt that characters such as Ren had grating or stilted dialogue. GamesTM and The A.V. Club credited the game with delivering organic dialogue options that lacked any clear good or bad associations. Reviewers such as VideoGamer.com's Tom Orry felt the script sometimes failed to convey realistic panic or distress of the characters in their exceptional circumstances. IGN's reviewer noted that despite her efforts, some dialogue choices unavoidably hurt relationships in the game. "It's an important reminder that you can't "win" social situations, and that kept Oxenfree's supernatural plot points grounded in reality", she wrote. Game Informer considered the opaque results of choices an occasional hindrance, with the opposite reactions of expected actions feeling "wrong". In contrast, GameSpot appreciated that some consequences of dialogue choices did not become clear until much later in the game, encouraging repeat playthroughs to try different approaches.
Polygon named the game among the decade's best.
### Accolades
## Sequel
In 2021, Night School announced that a sequel, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, would be released on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, as well on Android and iOS as Netflix Games exclusive. The sequel takes place five years after Oxenfree, with a new character, an environmental researcher named Riley, who is returning to her hometown of Camena to investigate strange radio transmissions. Night School Studio updated Oxenfree's radio transmissions to tie into the sequel's release. The game has been delayed to 2023. In April 2023, it was announced during an Indie World presentation that the sequel is due out in July.
## Television series adaptation
In 2016, writer Robert Kirkman was reported to be planning to help adapt Oxenfree into a film via Skybound. Krankel said the film fell through because of the complicated Hollywood studio system, and in 2021 reported that the project was moving forward as a television series.
|
52,720 |
Final Fantasy Tactics
| 1,165,274,436 |
1997 video game
|
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"1997 video games",
"Final Fantasy Tactics",
"Final Fantasy video games",
"Hitoshi Sakimoto albums",
"PlayStation (console) games",
"PlayStation Network games",
"Role-playing video games",
"Single-player video games",
"Sony Interactive Entertainment games",
"Tactical role-playing video games",
"Video games developed in Japan",
"Video games scored by Hitoshi Sakimoto",
"Video games scored by Masaharu Iwata",
"Video games with isometric graphics"
] |
is a 1997 tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. Released in Japan in June 1997 and in the United States in January 1998 by Sony Computer Entertainment, it is the first game of the Tactics series within the Final Fantasy franchise, and the first entry set in the fictional world later known as Ivalice. The story follows Ramza Beoulve, a highborn cadet placed in the middle of a military conflict known as The Lion War, where two opposing noble factions are coveting the throne of the kingdom.
Production began in 1995 by Yasumi Matsuno, a newcomer who had created the Ogre Battle series at Quest Corporation. Matsuno's wish was for an accessible tactical game with a storyline focusing on class-based conflict and the rewriting of history. Matsuno acted as director and writer, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was producer, and the battles were designed by Hiroyuki Ito. Multiple other staff members were veterans of the Ogre Battle series, including artists Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, and composers Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.
The game received critical acclaim from gaming magazines and websites and has become a cult classic since its release. It sold about 1.24 million units in Japan during 1997, and over 2.4 million worldwide by August 2011. It has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. The world of Ivalice saw the setting for multiple other titles, including other Tactics games and the 2006 mainline entry Final Fantasy XII. An enhanced port of Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, was released in 2007 as part of the Ivalice Alliance project.
## Gameplay
Final Fantasy Tactics is a tactical role-playing game in which players follow the story of protagonist Ramza Beoulve. The game features two modes of play: battles and the world map. Battles take place on three-dimensional, isometric fields. Characters move on a battlefield composed of square tiles; movement and action ranges are determined by the character's statistics and job class. The battlefield also factors in elements such as terrain and weather to determine strategic advantages and disadvantages during clashes. Battles are turn-based; a unit may act when its Charge Time (CT) reaches 100 and increased once every CT unit (a measure of time in battles) by an amount equal to the unit's speed statistic. During battle, whenever a unit performs an action successfully, it gains experience points (EXP) and job points (JP). Actions can include magical attacks, physical attacks, or using an item. Hit points (HP) of enemy units are also visible to the player (except in the case of certain bosses), allowing the player to know how much damage they still have to inflict on a particular unit.
In the world map, the player moves on predefined paths connecting the towns and battle points. When the character icon is over a town, a menu can be opened with several options: "Bar" for taking sidequest job offers, "Shop" for buying supplies and equipment, and "Soldier Office" for recruiting new characters. Later in the game, some towns contain "Fur Shops" for obtaining items by way of poaching monsters. Random battles happen in pre-set locations on the map, marked in green. Passing over one of these spots may result in a random encounter.
Tactics features a character class system, which allows players to customize characters into various roles. The game makes extensive use of most of the original character classes seen in earlier Final Fantasy games, including Summoners, Wizards (Black Mages), Priests (White Mages), Monks, Lancers (Dragoons), and Thieves. New recruits start out as either a Squire or a Chemist, the base classes for warrior and magician jobs, respectively. The game features twenty jobs accessible by normal characters.
The JP rewarded in battle are used to learn new abilities within each job class. Accumulating enough JP results in a job level up; new jobs are unlocked by attaining a certain level in the current job class (for instance, to become a Priest or Wizard, the unit must first attain Job Level 2 as a Chemist), which also allows the character to gain more JP in that class in battles. Once all the abilities of a job class have been learned, the class is "Mastered". A soldier in a specific Job always has its innate skill equipped (Wizards always have "Black Magic", Knights always have "Battle Skill") but a second job-skill slot and several other ability slots (Reaction, Support, and Movement) can be filled with any skill the particular soldier has learned.
## Plot
### Setting
The story takes place in the kingdom of Ivalice, inspired by the Middle Ages. The kingdom is located in a peninsula surrounded by sea on the north, west and south, with a headland south of the landmass. It is heavily populated by human beings, although intelligent monsters can be found living in less populated areas. Magic is predominant in the land, although ruins and artifacts indicated that the past populace had relied on machinery, such as airships and robots. Ivalice's neighbors are the kingdom of Ordalia in the east and Romanda, a military nation to the north. While the three nations share common royal bloodlines, major wars have taken place between them. An influential religious institution known as the Glabados Church heads the dominant faith, centering around a religious figure known as Saint Ajora.
The story takes place after Ivalice ended its war with the two nations in what is known as the Fifty Years War, and is facing economic problems and political strife. The king of Ivalice has recently died and his heir is an infant, so a regent is needed to rule in place of the prince. The kingdom is split between two candidates named Prince Goltana, represented by the Black Lion, and Prince Larg, symbolized by the White Lion. The conflict leads to what is known in the game as the Lion War. Behind this backdrop is a revelation by the game's historian Alazlam J. Durai, who seeks to reveal the story of an unknown character whose role in the Lion War was major but was covered up by the kingdom's church.
### Characters
Most of the game's plot is portrayed from Ramza's perspective, who is the player character of the story. He is introduced to various factions of the Lion War; the most prominent are those of Prince Goltana and Prince Larg, who both want to become the guardian of Ivalice's monarch and are engaged in a war with each other. The story progresses to include characters from the Glabados Church, which has been controlling Ivalice silently and engineering the war in question.
As the game progresses, players are able to recruit generic player characters and customize them using the Job system of the Final Fantasy series. Several battles also feature characters controlled via the game's A.I., which may be recruited later in the game according to the story proper. The characters were designed by Akihiko Yoshida, who was also in charge of the illustration and character designs of games such as Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy XII, and Vagrant Story.
### Story
Ivalice is recovering from the Fifty Year War against Ordalia. After the death of its ruler, Princess Ovelia and Prince Orinas are both candidates for the throne. The former is supported by Prince Goltana of the Black Lion, and the latter by Queen Ruvelia and her brother, Prince Larg of the White Lion. The two groups engage in battles in the Lion War.
Nobles and commoners regard each other negatively and many commoners joined the Corpse Brigade to fight against the nobles' soldiers. Ramza, part of the noble Beoulve family of knights, and Delita, his childhood friend who was an ordinary commoner, witness the murder of Delita's sister during an uprising. This causes Delita and Ramza to abandon their ties to the nobility. Ramza joins a mercenary group, led by Gafgarion, who protects Princess Ovelia from being hunted by both sides of the Lion War. Delita joins Goltana's forces. They are reunited when Gafgarion attempts to take Ovelia to Prince Larg. Agrias suggests visiting Cardinal Delacroix of the Glabados Church to protect Ovelia. Along the way, Ramza meets Mustadio, a machinist in possession of a holy relic called the Zodiac Stone. Hunted by a trading company for the power it contains, Mustadio also seeks Delacroix's intervention.
Ramza discovers that High Confessor Marcel Funebris and the church used the legend of the holy Zodiac Braves to gather the Zodiac Stones and instigated the Lion War. To prevent Ramza's interference, Delacroix uses the stone to transform into a Lucavi demon and Ramza defeats him. Ramza is regarded as a heretic by the church and he is chased by the Knights Templar, the soldiers of the church who are hunting the Zodiac Stones. He acquires proof of the Church's lies about Saint Ajora, a central figure in the religion, and attempts to use it along with the Zodiac Stone to reveal the organization's plot.
The two sides in the Lion War face off in a major battle that results in the deaths of Larg and Goltana. Ramza stops the battle and rescues the general, Count Cidolfus Orlandeau, though the Church eliminates the two leaders to secure its control over Ivalice. Ramza discovers that the Knights Templar are possessed by the Lucavi, who are seeking to resurrect their leader Ultima, and they needed bloodshed and a suitable body to complete the resurrection. Alma, Ramza's sister, is to serve as the host for Ultima's incarnation. Ultima is resurrected and Ramza and his allies succeed in destroying her and escape Ivalice.
In the epilogue, Delita marries Ovelia and becomes the King of Ivalice. He fails to find true satisfaction as even Ovelia distrusts him, leading her to stab Delita. Ovelia is stabbed by Delita in return, with her fate left ambiguous in the game. Delita then cries out to Ramza, asking what Ramza gained in return for his actions, compared to Delita. Orran attempts to reveal the Church's evil plot with the "Durai Report" but his papers are confiscated and he is burned at the stake for heresy. Many centuries later a historian tries to describe the story of the Lion War.
## Development
Tactics was conceived in 1993 by Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, who is a fan of the tactical role-playing genre. Due to his heavy involvement with the mainline series, he was unable to realize it at the time. Production finally began at the end of 1995 under Yasumi Matsuno, who until that year had worked at Quest Corporation on the Ogre Battle series, resigning once work was completed on Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and bringing several of its staff over to Square. During this period, Square had broken its long-standing development partnership with Nintendo and moved their game projects over to Sony's PlayStation. Matsuno acted as director and lead scenario writer. Sakaguchi was the game's producer. The lead programmer was Taku Murata, who had previously worked on the Mana series. Matsuno described the working environment at Square as more democratic than at Quest, with a greater ability for the whole staff to contribute design ideas. The art design was a collaborative effort led by Tactics Ogre veterans Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, with additional character designs and artwork by Hideo Minaba and Eiichiro Nakatsu. Contrasting against the polished CGI aesthetic of Final Fantasy VII, the team wanted a hand-drawn artstyle. The opening and closing cinematics were created by Western company Animatek International.
Matsuno was originally aiming for a tactical RPG that would be accessible, something he originally aimed for with the Ogre Battle titles and later felt he had failed to accomplish with Tactics. When deciding how to differentiate Tactics from his earlier title, he placed a focus on individual character growth similar to the main series, contrasting against the army-based simulation of Tactics Ogre while keeping its chess-inspired gameplay. While Matsuno designed most of the rest of the game systems, due to staff shortages and needing to focus on the scenario the battle system was designed by Hiroyuki Ito. Ito disliked tactical RPGs of the time, growing bored with their mechanics, so designed the battle system to be engaging and feel fast and exciting. Matsuno had to push against Ito's wish to simplify the class system. The level design, which used compact diorama-style levels, was chosen to allow the intended 60 frames per second, carrying over the smooth gameplay experience gamers expected from the genre. The small scale of battles also reinforced the personal nature of the game's narrative conflicts. Level design and mastering continued until a week before the game shipped.
Under Matsuno's direction, the game's design strayed significantly from Sakaguchi's original concept, particularly in its narrative tone. Matsuno at the time described his wish for the narrative to emulate "a sense of swashbuckling heroism". His aim was to create a Final Fantasy-themed morality tale. Matsuno stated that the game's thematic use of class-based society was derived from his experiences within game production companies, observing their hierarchy and how senior designers were treated as royalty. The story premise of a long-suppressed account of ancient history was inspired by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the story of The Name of the Rose. For Tactics, Matsuno created an entire new world dubbed Ivalice, which he would use in multiple later projects. Ivalice was designed as a complex setting with a deep historical background. He described it as a blank canvas on which he and later others could create narratives. While some aspects of the ending were left ambiguous, Matsuno considered the narrative complete on its own.
### Music
During its preplanning phase, the music was going to be in an upbeat style in line with the mainline Final Fantasy series. Due to its portrayal of people fighting each other rather than fighting monsters, Matsuno felt upbeat music was wrong. The original score was written by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, both veterans of the Ogre Battle series. Sakimoto, who was brought on board the project by Matsuno, was advised by both Matsuno and established Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu not to worry about keeping to the style of the main Final Fantasy series. Iwata described the game as a "giant project" to work on, and he received a lot of help from other staff members at Square. Several tracks were inspired by the game's storyline and concept art, with some track names being chosen by Sakimoto based on first impressions of relevant characters. Sakimoto described his music for the game as "bright and cheerful tunes", carrying themes of hope and love. Sakimoto and Iwata worked separately on their own tracks. The album was first released on two compact discs by DigiCube on June 21, 1997, and was re-released by Square Enix on March 24, 2006.
## Versions and re-releases
Tactics was first released in Japan on June 20, 1997. It came bundled with a demo disc for SaGa Frontier. The English localization was partly outsourced, with the other part of translation and localization being handled by Square USA's Michael Baskett. Baskett started writing the script in a style close to Old English, but this was beginning to impact the game's understandability and make characters sound alike, so it was toned down in the final script. It was released in North America on January 28, 1998, by Sony, which then acted as Square's Western publisher for the platform. It was re-released as part of the Square's Millennium Collection. This series of games was released only in Japan, and each title is bought with a set of related merchandise. Final Fantasy Tactics was sold on June 29, 2000, along with titles such as Saga Frontier, Saga Frontier 2, Brave Fencer Musashi, Front Mission 3, Ehrgeiz and Legend of Mana.
Four years after its release in 1997 Final Fantasy Tactics was selected as part of the Sony Greatest Hits line of re-releases. Final Fantasy Tactics also became part of Ultimate Hits, Square Enix's main budget range available in Japan.
A PlayStation Portable version of Final Fantasy Tactics, entitled Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions was released on May 10, 2007, in Japan, and later across all regions. It is the second game announced as part of the Ivalice Alliance. The game features an updated version of Final Fantasy Tactics, along with new features including in-game cutscenes, new characters, and multiplayer capability. The updated mechanics contain a 16:9 widescreen support, new items, new jobs, and cel-shaded full motion videos. The English version contains full voice acting during the cinematic cut scenes, whereas the Japanese version does not.
## Reception
Final Fantasy Tactics sold nearly 825,000 copies in Japan in the first half of 1997, and ended the year at almost 1.24 million copies sold. By 2007 the game had sold approximately 1.35 million copies in Japan. As of August 2011, the game had sold over 2.4 million copies worldwide.
Final Fantasy Tactics received critical acclaim upon its release. Some reviews lauded the battle sequences as challenging, requiring more strategic planning than ordinary RPGs and utilising many gameplay mechanics in later battle sequences. The visuals were also lauded, particularly the spell effects, 3D battlegrounds, and camera that can be rotated and zoomed. Other reviewers disagreed and considered these elements a problem because it necessitated that the battles consist of fewer characters. John Ricciardi, in his review for Electronic Gaming Monthly, argued that the game should have been done in 2D style so that the PlayStation's processors could handle larger battlefields. Nob Ogasawara, when writing for GamePro, was also concerned with the small scale of the battles, saying that as a result the game "isn't so much Tactics Ogre with a Final Fantasy flavor as it is FF with a TO flavor". A reviewer at RPGFan criticized the game's difficulty as inconsistent, in part due to abilities unique to certain characters which unfairly sway the tide of battle either in favor of or against the player.
Critics praised the story's depth and plot twists but some remarked that the large number of similar-looking characters made it hard to distinguish between characters to develop an emotional attachment. RPGFan criticized the English localization as rife with grammatical mistakes. The game's soundtrack was also praised.
IGN awarded the game the Editor's Choice Award in 1998, praising the in-game graphics as "amazing" and the battle environments with its extra details as being "extremely well designed". GameSpot named Final Fantasy Tactics as one of "the greatest games of all time" in 2007. The game placed 84th in the "Top 100 Favorite Games of All Time" poll by Japanese magazine Famitsu in March 2006, 45th in Game Informer's list of top 100 games, 43rd in Electronic Gaming Monthly's list, and 38th in IGN's rankings of greatest games.
## Legacy
The world of Final Fantasy Tactics has been featured in several other Square video games. After the game's release, the development staff developed Vagrant Story, which featured several subtle references to Final Fantasy Tactics. In an interview, Matsuno said both titles are set in the same fictional world of Ivalice. During the development of Vagrant Story, Matsuno and Sakaguchi initiated a sequel to Tactics, which would have used 2D graphics due to issues with 3D development at the time. The project was outsourced to an unspecified developer because of the team's commitment to Vagrant Story and was later cancelled for unspecified reasons. In 2006, Final Fantasy XII was released, also set in the world of Ivalice. Square Enix announced at the end of the same year the Ivalice Alliance, a new series of games set in the world of Ivalice, during a Tokyo press conference. The first title released was Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.
Square released Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance in 2003. The game setting and engine are similar to the ones of its predecessor, but the cast of characters is considerably smaller and the plot is simpler. An indirect sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, titled Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, was released in Japan in 2007 and in the rest of the world in 2008. It is also one of the titles released under the Ivalice Alliance game series, and takes place in the Ivalice universe.
Ramza and Agrias appeared in online trading card game Lord of Vermilion III in 2014. Ramza also appears as a playable character in the fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. In 2017, the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn portrayed an alternate version of Final Fantasy Tactics in which Ramza and his companions died at the end of Tactics. Matsuno said that the inspiration to depict this plot came from the number of players that misunderstood the ending of Tactics. Final Fantasy Tactics is featured in the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, with Ramza, Delita, Agrias, and other characters appearing in Opus I (Roman Numeral). Tactics has made additional appearances in Opus III, IV, V, VII, X, and XIII.
A remixed version of the song "Ovelia & Delita" was nominated for "Best Game Music Cover/Remix" at the 16th Annual Game Audio Network Guild Awards.
|
2,399,998 |
HMS Speedy (1782)
| 1,168,969,797 |
Speedy-class brig of the British Royal Navy
|
[
"1782 ships",
"Brigs of the French Navy",
"Brigs of the Royal Navy",
"Captured ships",
"Ships built in Kent",
"Ships of the Papal Navy"
] |
HMS Speedy was a 14-gun Speedy-class brig of the British Royal Navy. Built during the last years of the American War of Independence, she served with distinction during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Built at Dover, Kent, Speedy spent most of the interwar years serving off the British coast. Transferred to the Mediterranean after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, she spent the rest of her career there under a number of notable commanders, winning fame for herself in various engagements and often against heavy odds. Her first commander in the Mediterranean, Charles Cunningham, served with distinction with several squadrons, assisting in the capture of several war prizes, such as the French frigates Modeste and Impérieuse. His successor, George Cockburn, impressed his superiors with his dogged devotion to duty. Speedy's next commander, George Eyre, had the misfortune to lose her to a superior French force on 9 June 1794.
She was soon retaken, and re-entered service under Hugh Downman, who captured a number of privateers between 1795 and 1799 and fought off an attack by the large French privateer Papillon on 3 February 1798. His successor, Jahleel Brenton, fought a number of actions against Spanish forces off Gibraltar. Her last captain, Lord Cochrane, forced the surrender of the much larger Spanish frigate El Gamo. A powerful French squadron captured her again in 1801 and Napoleon donated her to the Papal Navy the following year. She spent five years with the Papal Navy under the name San Paolo; she was struck around 1806.
## Design and construction
Speedy was one of two brig-sloops built to the same design by Thomas King of Dover, Kent. She and her sister ship HMS Flirt were constructed to provide small, fast escort vessels with hulls shaped like a cutter, rather than the more seaworthy but slower ship-sloop. King had for some time specialised in these types of vessels, and the design capitalised on that experience. Speedy was so named to symbolise this new approach. Ordered on 23 March 1781, she was laid down at King's yard in June that year and launched on 29 June 1782. She moved to Deptford, Kent, to be fitted-out and have her hull covered with copper plates between 16 July and 25 October 1782; at her completion she had cost £4,200 7s 3d to build.
## Early career
Speedy was commissioned under Commander Josias Rogers in May 1783 and was assigned to serve in the North Sea, operating out of the Humber estuary. After four years on this station she was paid off (placed in reserve) in January 1787 and began a refit at Woolwich in April that year. This work was completed by July at a cost of £1,801, and she was recommissioned in May that year under Commander John Maude, still on the Humber station.
From November 1790 she was under Commander Richard Lane, who was her captain until she was paid off in October 1791. Speedy then underwent another refit, this time at Deptford between June and December 1792, at a cost of £3,000, and was recommissioned in November 1792 under Commander Charles Cunningham.
## French Revolutionary Wars
Cunningham had previously been serving in the East Indies in command of the 16-gun sloop HMS Ariel. By the time he returned to take up his new command the French Revolutionary Wars had broken out and he was sent to join Lord Hood's fleet in the Mediterranean, arriving there in April 1793. He was largely employed in carrying despatches and maintaining communications with other ships scattered throughout the Mediterranean ports. On 5 October 1793 Speedy accompanied HMS Bedford and HMS Captain into Genoa, where they captured a French frigate, Modeste, and two armed tartanes in the Raid on Genoa. In this action, Speedy sent two boats to board the tartanes while Bedford bombarded Modeste. The French crews of the tartanes attempted to resist and two of their crewmembers were wounded, but the British did not suffer any casualties. Captain and Speedy then sailed to the Gulf of Spezia where they caught another French frigate, Imperieuse, at anchor. Imperieuse was scuttled by her crew, but was subsequently salvaged and recommissioned as HMS Imperieuse. Cunningham was promoted to captain and given command of the prize, with his commission backdated to the day of the capture, 12 October 1793.
Cunningham was replaced by Commander George Cockburn in the command of Speedy, which remained in the Mediterranean. His first duties were limited to carrying despatches and passengers between Toulon and Genoa, after which he was ordered to join Captain Sutherland of HMS Diadem, who was commanding a squadron blockading Genoa. The small fleet was caught in winter storms and several ships were badly damaged, forcing Sutherland and his squadron to seek shelter in nearby ports and to make repairs, with the exception of Speedy, which remained on station. Sutherland put into Hyères Bay and reported the dispersal of his squadron to Lord Hood, also noting that nothing had been heard of Speedy since the gales. Once Diadem had been repaired Sutherland returned to Genoa, and was surprised to discover Speedy still there patrolling the port, not once having left her task. While single-handedly maintaining the blockade, she had managed to capture several vessels. Sutherland ordered Speedy, which was by now running desperately short of water, to Hyères to refit. At the same time, Sutherland sent a complimentary report of Cockburn to Lord Hood. On 20 January 1794, Cockburn was rewarded with an acting commission as post-captain of the frigate HMS Inconstant, followed a month later by a permanent command of the frigate HMS Meleager.
Commander George Eyre took over command of Speedy in February 1794. Speedy supported the siege and capture of Bastia, after which Eyre was ordered to join Diadem off Nice. While making his way there on 9 June, he ran into a French fleet under Rear-Admiral Pierre Martin, which had sailed from Toulon several days earlier. Eyre attempted to escape, but the wind and sea favoured the larger vessels, and Speedy was chased down and captured. Eyre was brought aboard Admiral Martin's flagship and was told that the National Convention had recently ordered that no quarter should be given to the English or Hanoverians, and that had Martin's ship been first alongside, he would have sunk Speedy. The sudden appearance of a British fleet curtailed the interview, and the French hurried back to Gourjean roadstead outside Toulon, taking Speedy and the captured British crew with them.
## Recapture
Speedy spent only a brief time sailing under the French flag. On 25 March 1795 her captain mistook Captain Thomas Fremantle's Inconstant for a French ship and she was recaptured and taken back into British service.
In early March the following year, Speedy, under the command of Thomas Elphinstone, joined a squadron cruising off Oneglia, Italy, under Commodore Horatio Nelson, consisting of the 64-gun ships HMS Agamemnon and HMS Diadem, the 32-gun frigates HMS Meleager and HMS Blanche and the ship-sloop HMS Peterel. On 25 April the squadron steered for Laöna bay, the commodore having received intelligence that a large convoy, laden with stores for the French army, had anchored off the town of Finale. When the squadron arrived, however, they found only four vessels moored under the guns of some batteries. The shore batteries opened fire on Peterel as she led the boats of the squadron to the attack. Despite the fire, the British were able to capture the four vessels and suffered only three men wounded.
In an action on 31 May the squadron chased the French ketch Genie, a gunboat of one gun, and five merchant ships, which took refuge near the guns of a shore battery. At 3p.m. Agamemnon, Blanche, Peterel and Speedy approached them and anchored in 4 fathoms (7.3 m) of water. The four British ships fired their cannons, which disabled the shore battery, and then sent in several boats under heavy fire from the guns of Genie and the gunboat; the British successfully boarded and captured both ships. In the meantime, the merchant ships had beached themselves to avoid capture. Under heavy musket fire from the beach, the British captured and re-floated the four merchant vessels, and destroyed one. Among the British, one man was killed and three were wounded in the operation.
## Downman and Brenton
Elphinstone was succeeded in August 1797 by Commander Hugh Downman, who made several cruises with Speedy.
During his time in command of Speedy, Downman captured five privateers, altogether mounting 17 guns and 28 swivels, and carrying 162 men.
These five were:
- Domine Lucas, captured 1 August;
- Palma, captured 13 September;
- Pilgrim (Peregrino), captured 21 December;
- Virgen de los Remedios (alias Olivia), captured 1 January 1798; and,
- San Jose (San José; alias Garalin), captured 15 March.
Head money was finally paid in June 1829.
On 3 February 1798 Speedy encountered the large privateer Papillon, mounting 18 guns and carrying 160 men, while sailing off Vigo. Papillon attacked Speedy, which had a reduced crew; her master Mr Marshall and 12 men were aboard a Spanish prize Speedy had taken earlier. The two ships fought each other for two days; by the second day Downman had exhausted his supply of shot, and resorted to firing nails and pieces of iron hoop at his opponent. Having observed his captain's predicament, Marshall secured the Spanish crew below deck and took the prize crew off in a small boat to go to Downman's assistance. After a fierce fight Speedy succeeded in driving off Papillon; Speedy suffered losses of five killed and four wounded. Downman then recaptured his prize and returned to Lisbon to carry out repairs.
For his efforts in protecting British trade out of Oporto, the merchants there presented him with a letter of thanks, and a piece of plate valued at £50. As a reward for his good service, Downman was advanced to post-captain on 26 December 1798 and appointed commander of the 32-gun HMS Santa Dorothea, a frigate that had recently been captured from the Spanish in the action of 15 July 1798.
Downman was succeeded in January of the following year by Commander Jahleel Brenton, who was based at Gibraltar. While sailing off Gibraltar in company with the British privateer Defender on 9 August 1799, Brenton came across three small Spanish warships, mounting twenty 6-pounders in total. The Spanish ran into a small sandy bay and anchored in a line so as to bring their guns to bear simultaneously on the British ships. Speedy and Defender sailed up and down for two hours firing broadsides, but without much effect. Defender only had 22 men on board and decided to sail further out to sea to meet one of her boats. Brenton thought the effort of keeping under sail was aiding the enemy, and anchored Speedy within 30 yards (27 m) of the middle ship. The two exchanged a fierce cannonade for three-quarters of an hour, after which the Spanish abandoned their ships and made for the shore. Two of the ships ran ashore and the third was immediately captured. Speedy launched her boats to recover the other two, coming under musket fire from the Spanish on the hillside as they did so. The British got both vessels off and took them into Gibraltar, along with two men wounded during the operation.
On 3 October Speedy, while sailing once again off Gibraltar, spotted ten small ships coming out of Algeciras, gunboats apparently attempting to attack a British convoy that was then passing. Brenton identified the ships as merchantmen, attempting to evade the British at Gibraltar in the bad weather. On Speedy's approach, they scattered, four sheltering under a fort. Speedy approached and fired on them, causing their crews to abandon their ships. They were driven ashore by the wind, and despite sending boats out, it was impossible to get them off, so they were left to be reduced to wrecks. Three days later, Speedy was standing off Europa Point when twelve gunboats were sighted coming out of Algeciras to attack two merchant ships making their way past Gibraltar. One, the Unity, was carrying wine and spirits for the fleet. Their combined firepower far outweighed that of Speedy, but Brenton turned his ship towards them, covering the escape of one of the merchantmen with his fire. The gunboats were attempting to catch the Unity when Brenton took his ship through the flotilla, close enough to break many of their oars, maintaining a constant fire from his guns and with every spare member of the crew firing muskets. The Spanish flotilla broke and fled. Speedy suffered two men killed and one wounded, and sustained considerable damage to her rigging and below her waterline. She was unable to return to Gibraltar in the rising wind, and was forced to run along the coast to Tétouan Bay, where her shot-holes were plugged to allow her to make her way back. During the engagement with the gunboats, the guns in the fortress of Gibraltar had not fired in support of Speedy. When Brenton asked why, the Governor of Gibraltar, General Charles O'Hara, replied that he had arranged with the Governor of Algeciras for the guns never to be fired at the gunboats so as not to annoy the inhabitants of the town.
## Cochrane
Brenton was promoted to post-captain, and in March 1800 Commander Lord Cochrane took over. Cochrane was less than impressed with his new command, declaring that Speedy was "little more than a burlesque of a vessel of war". His cabin had only 5 feet (1.5 m) of headroom; when Cochrane wished to shave he had to open a skylight and set his shaving equipment out on the quarterdeck. On another occasion he walked the quarterdeck with Speedy's entire broadside, seven pieces of four-pounder shot, in his pockets. In an attempt to increase the firepower of his new command he asked for and was given two 12-pounder long guns to use as bow and stern chasers, but the scantlings could not support them and they had to be removed. He then requested his 4-pounders be upgraded to 6-pounders, but his gunports were not big enough. He had better luck with his mast, taking a spar from HMS Genereux that was considered too large for Speedy, but which Cochrane felt improved her speed.
In early May Cochrane was escorting a convoy from Cagliari to Leghorn. On 11 May a ship which turned out to be the 6-gun privateer Intrépide was spotted capturing one of the merchant ships in the convoy, at which point Cochrane chased the Intrépide and forced her to surrender. Three days later, as the convoy passed the island of Montecristo, five rowing boats emerged from one of the island's coves and captured two of the rearmost merchant ships. Cochrane immediately gave chase, and recaptured them early the next morning. He was then given a free hand to raid enemy shipping in the area, and captured seven or eight vessels that June and July, including the 10-gun privateer Asuncion off Bastia on 25 June and the privateer Constitution off Caprea on 19 July. On 22 September he captured a large Neapolitan vessel and, on bringing her into Port Mahon, discovered that the Spanish had taken notice of his depredations and were preparing a frigate to capture Speedy.
Cochrane prepared for an encounter with this Spanish vessel by painting Speedy to resemble the Danish brig Clomer, then in the Mediterranean. He also appointed a Dane as quartermaster and found him a Danish naval officer's uniform. While cruising off Alicante on 21 December, Speedy encountered an enemy frigate, but tricked her into thinking she was a neutral vessel. Cochrane again used this false flag technique to his advantage; on 22 January he was sailing with a convoy of Danish merchantmen under a Danish flag, pretending to escort them. When a 10-gun French ship and 8-gun Spanish brig approached, Cochrane hoisted British colours and attacked, capturing both of them.
Then on 24 February Cochrane captured the French naval brig Caroline, of four guns, which had been carrying ordnance stores from Genoa to Alexandria.
### Speedy and Gamo
Speedy was cruising off Barcelona at dawn on 6 May 1801 when she sighted a large enemy frigate. The frigate, a xebec-rigged vessel named El Gamo, carrying 319 men, was armed with 8- and 12-pounder guns and 24-pounder carronades. This amounted to a total broadside of 190 pounds, more than seven times that of Speedy. Furthermore, Cochrane had only 54 men on board; the rest were serving as prize crews. Instead of evading the frigate, Cochrane closed on her, and at 9:30 a.m. Gamo fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. In return Cochrane hoisted American colours. The Spanish hesitated, allowing Cochrane to get closer, hoist British colours, and evade the first broadside. Gamo fired another, which Cochrane again evaded, holding fire until Speedy ran alongside and locked her yards in Gamo's rigging. Gamo attempted to fire upon her smaller opponent, but her guns were mounted too high and could not be depressed sufficiently, causing their shot to pass through Speedy's sails and rigging. Cochrane on the other hand had mounted the front of his guns on blocks so they could fire upward through Gamo's sides. Cochrane then opened fire with his 4-pounders double- and treble-shotted, their shots passing up through the sides and decks; the first broadside killed the Spanish captain and boatswain.
Seeing their disadvantage the Spanish second-in-command assembled a boarding party, at which Cochrane drew off and pounded their massed ranks with shot and musket fire before drawing in close again. After having their attempts to board frustrated three times, the Spanish returned to their guns. Cochrane then decided to board the Gamo, and assembled his entire crew into two parties, leaving only the ship's doctor aboard. The British rushed Gamo, some boarding from the bow with faces blackened to look like pirates, the rest boarding from the waist. There was a hard-fought battle between the two crews, until Cochrane called down to the doctor, at the time the only person on Speedy, ordering him to send another 50 men over. At the same time he ordered the Spanish colours to be torn down. Thinking that their officers had surrendered the ship, the remaining Spanish seamen stopped fighting. The British had lost three men killed and nine wounded, while the Spanish had lost 14 killed and 41 wounded, a casualty list exceeding Speedy's entire complement. The British then secured the Spanish prisoners below deck and made their way back to Port Mahon. Stung that he had been beaten by such an inferior foe, the Spanish second-in-command asked Cochrane for a certificate assuring him that he had done all he could to defend his ship. Cochrane obliged, with the equivocal wording that he had "conducted himself like a true Spaniard". Cochrane was amused to learn that this certificate had later secured the Spanish officer further advancement. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Speedy 6 May 1801" to all surviving claimants from the action.
### Later actions and capture
Cochrane returned to the coast off Barcelona in June 1801, and joined the 16-gun HMS Kangaroo in attacking a Spanish convoy of 12 merchant ships and five armed vessels anchored under the guns of a large tower. After a sharp action fought between the afternoon of 9 June and the morning of 10 June, the two ships sank or drove ashore all of the ships with the exception of three brigs, which they captured. Three weeks later he was cruising off Alicante when he encountered several merchant vessels, which ran ashore. Rather than wasting time trying to get them off, he burnt them, but in doing so attracted the attention of a foe vastly more powerful than the Gamo.
A formidable French squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois had left Toulon bound for Cadiz to collect reinforcements for Napoleon's army in Egypt. On 3 July they sighted and chased Speedy, and Cochrane ordered the guns, boats, and provisions thrown overboard to lighten the ship. The French caught up nonetheless, and after narrowly avoiding the broadside of Desaix, Cochrane struck his colours. He was taken aboard Desaix, where her captain, Christy-Pallière, recognised Cochrane's accomplishments by refusing to accept his sword. Cochrane was taken along with the fleet and watched the Battle of Algeciras Bay from Desaix. He and the crew of Speedy were later exchanged after the battle. On returning to Gibraltar he was court-martialled for the loss of his ship, and honourably acquitted.
## French and Papal career
The French took Speedy to Toulon with the fleet, where she became a pawn in Napoleon's efforts at diplomacy with Pope Pius VII, whose presence he wanted at his coronation as emperor. Speedy, by now named Saint Paul and inscribed with the words "Donné par le premier consul Bonaparte au Pape Pie VII" ("Given by the First Consul Bonaparte to Pope Pius VII") in gilt letters on her poop cabin, sailed with an escort from Toulon on 14 December 1802 bound for Civitavecchia as a present to the Pope. She arrived there on 16 December where the Papal Navy took her into service under the name San Paulo. She remained there until being struck c.1806.
## HMS Sophie
Some of Speedy's later exploits under Cochrane were used in the plot of the novel Master and Commander, the first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series, though the ship described by O'Brian matches only Speedy's spar dimensions and armament, and is named HMS Sophie. Cochrane is replaced in the book by the fictional Jack Aubrey, who repeats many of Cochrane's real-life exploits including the defence of a convoy and the recapture of one of its merchants from a privateer, and the capture of a large Spanish frigate, based on the Gamo, but renamed Cacafuego for the novel.
## See also
- Papal Navy
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HMS Emerald (1795)
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Frigate of the Royal Navy, in service 1795-1836
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[
"1795 ships",
"Fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy",
"Ships built in Kent"
] |
HMS Emerald was a 36-gun Amazon-class fifth rate frigate that Sir William Rule (Surveyor of the Navy) designed in 1794 for the Royal Navy. The Admiralty ordered her construction towards the end of May 1794 and work began the following month at Northfleet dockyard. She was completed on 12 October 1795 and joined Admiral John Jervis's fleet in the Mediterranean.
In 1797, Emerald was one of several vessels sent to hunt down and capture the crippled Santisima Trinidad, which had escaped from the British at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Emerald was supposed to have been present at the Battle of the Nile but in May 1798 a storm separated her from Horatio Nelson's squadron and she arrived in Aboukir Bay nine days too late. She was part of Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth's squadron during the action of 7 April 1800 off Cádiz.
Emerald served in the Caribbean throughout 1803 in Samuel Hood's fleet, then took part in the invasion of St Lucia in July, and of Surinam the following spring. Returning to home waters for repairs in 1806, she served in the Western Approaches before joining a fleet under Admiral James Gambier in 1809, and taking part in the Battle of the Basque Roads. In November 1811 she sailed to Portsmouth where she was laid up in ordinary. Fitted out as a receiving ship in 1822, she was eventually broken up in January 1836.
## Construction
Emerald was a 36-gun, 18-pound, Amazon-class frigate built to William Rule's design. She and her sister ship, Amazon, were ordered on 24 May 1794 and were built to the same dimensions: 143 feet 2+1⁄2 inches (43.6 m) along the gun deck, 119 feet 5+1⁄2 inches (36.4 m) at the keel, with a beam of 38 feet 4 inches (11.7 m) and a depth in the hold of 13 feet 6 inches (4.1 m). They measured 933 67⁄94 tons burthen.
Emerald was completed at Thomas Pitcher's dockyard in Northfleet at a cost of £14,419 and launched on 31 July 1795, twenty-seven days after Amazon. Her coppering at Woolwich was finished on 12 October 1795, and she was fitted-out at a further cost of £9,390. The Admiralty ordered a second pair of Amazon-class ships on 24 January 1795. They were marginally smaller at 92587⁄94 tons (bm) and were built from pitch pine.
## Service
### Mediterranean
Emerald was first commissioned in August 1795, under Captain Velters Cornewall Berkeley and in January 1797, she sailed for the Mediterranean. Spain had become allied to France and declared war on Britain in October 1796. Early in 1797, a Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line was at Cartagena with orders to join the French fleet at Brest. A storm blew the Spanish fleet off course, enabling Admiral John Jervis's fleet of 15 ships of the line to intercept it off Cape St Vincent on 14 February. Although attached to Jervis' fleet at the time, as a frigate Emerald was too lightly built to take part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent; instead she anchored in nearby Lagos Bay with other vessels.
On 16 February, the victorious British fleet and its prizes entered the bay. Jervis ordered the three frigates—Emerald, Minerve and Niger, of 40 and 32 guns, respectively—to search for the disabled flagship, Santisima Trinidad, which had been towed from the battle. Two smaller craft—Bonne-Citoyenne, a corvette of 20 guns, and the 14-gun sloop Raven—joined the frigates. The British squadron on 20 February sighted Santisima Trinidad under tow by a large frigate and in the company of a brig. Berkeley, considering the small squadron under his command insufficient, declined to engage and eventually the Spanish ships sailed from sight.
#### Action of 26 April 1797
Following the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the British pursued the remainder of the Spanish fleet to Cádiz, where Jervis began a long-running blockade of the port. On 26 April, while cruising in the company of the 74-gun Irresistible, Emerald helped to capture a 34-gun Spanish ship and to destroy another. The Spanish vessels were close to the coast when Jervis's fleet sighted them. Sent to investigate, Emerald and Irresistible, under Captain George Martin, discovered the ships were the frigates Santa Elena and Ninfa—the Spanish ships had been carrying silver from Havana to Cádiz, but had transferred their cargo the previous night to a fishing boat that had warned them of the proximity of the British fleet.
The Spanish ships sought shelter from the British north of Trafalgar in Conil Bay, the entrance to which was protected by a large rocky ledge. Irresistible and Emerald negotiated this obstacle at around 14:30 and engaged the Spanish ships, which were anchored in the Bay. The Spanish ships surrendered at approximately 16:00. Eighteen Spaniards were killed and 30 wounded during the fighting; one Briton was killed and one wounded. The remaining crew of Santa Elena avoided capture by cutting her cables and drifting her on shore so they could flee on foot. The British managed to drag Santa Elena off the beach but, badly damaged, she sank at sea.
The British took Ninfa into service as HMS Hamadryad, a 36-gun frigate with a main battery of 12-pounders, but were unable to retrieve the cargo of silver, which later arrived safely in Cádiz.
#### Second bombardment of Cádiz
Captain Thomas Waller took command of Emerald in mid-1797, and was stationed with Admiral Jervis's fleet off Cádiz. On 3 July, Jervis attempted to end the protracted blockade by ordering a bombardment of the town. A first attempt resulted in the capture of two Spanish mortar boats but achieved little else. During a second bombardment on the night of 5 July, Emerald, in the company of Terpsichore and the 74-gun Theseus, provided a protective escort for three bomb vessels, Thunder, Terror and Strombolo. This attack caused considerable damage; the next morning, the Spanish hurriedly moved ten of their line-of-battle ships out of range. The British cancelled a third bombardment, planned for 8 July, when the weather became unfavourable.
#### Attack on Santa Cruz
Later in July 1797, Emerald took part in an unsuccessful attack on Santa Cruz. A planned attack in April, proposed by Admiral Nelson, had been aborted as the troops required to execute it were unavailable. When Jervis was subsequently advised that the Spanish treasure fleet was anchored there, he revived Nelson's idea.
For the new attack, Nelson was to take three ships of the line, three frigates, including Emerald, and 200 marines, for an amphibious landing outside the Spanish stronghold. The frigates would then engage the batteries to the north-east of Santa Cruz while the marines stormed the town. However, a combination of strong currents and heavy Spanish fire forced the British to abandon the attack. Several further attempts were made between 22 and 25 July; although the British were able to land troops, Spanish resistance was too strong and the British had to ask for an honourable withdrawal.
After the attack, Nelson sent Emerald with his report to Jervis, who in turn sent her on to England with dispatches. Waller arrived at the Admiralty on 1 September, with the news of the failed attacks.
#### Alexandria
While serving with Jervis on the Lisbon station in December 1797, Emerald, under the temporary command of Lord William Proby, captured the 8-gun privateer, Chasseur Basque. Waller returned as captain in April 1798. In May, Jervis dispatched a squadron of five ships, including Emerald and commanded by Nelson in the 74-gun Vanguard, to locate a large invasion fleet that had left Toulon. After receiving intelligence on 22 May, Nelson correctly predicted the French fleet's destination and set course for Alexandria where the British captured or destroyed all but two of the French ships at the Battle of the Nile, which occurred between 1–3 August 1798. Emerald missed the battle; having previously become separated from the rest of the squadron in a storm on 21 May, she arrived at Aboukir Bay on 12 August.
When Nelson left for Naples on 19 August 1798, he left behind a squadron—comprising three 74s Zealous, Goliath, Swiftsure, three frigates Emerald, Seahorse and Alcmene, and the corvette Bonne Citoyenne—under Samuel Hood to patrol the waters around the port and along the coast. On 2 September, it encountered and destroyed the French aviso Anémone.
Emerald and Seahorse chased Anemone inshore, where she anchored in shallow water out of their reach. When they launched their boats to cut-out Anėmone, her crew cut the anchor cable and their ship drifted on to the shore; as the Frenchmen were attempting to escape along the coast, hostile Arabs captured them and stripped them of their clothes, shooting those who resisted. A heavy surf prevented the British boats from landing, so a midshipman from Emerald, the young Francis Fane, swam ashore with a line and empty cask to rescue the commander and seven others who had escaped naked to the beach. Anėmone had a crew of 60 men under the command of Enseigne de Vaisseau (Ensign) Garibou, and was also carrying General Camin and Citoyen Valette, aide-de-camp to General Napoleon Bonaparte, with dispatches from Toulon. Camin and Valette were among those the Arabs killed. Emerald remained stationed off Alexandria for the rest of the year.
#### Action on 18 June 1799
Emerald and Minerve, while cruising together on 2 June, took Caroline, a 16-gun French privateer, off the south-east coast of Sardinia. Later, Emerald assisted in the capture of Junon, Alceste, Courageuse, Salamine and Alerte in the action of 18 June 1799. The British fleet under George Elphinstone was some 69 miles off Cape Sicié when three French frigates and two brigs were spotted. Elphinstone engaged them with three seventy-fours, Centaur, Bellona and Captain, and two frigates, Emerald and Santa Teresa. The next evening, after a 28-hour chase, the French ships were forced into an action. The French squadron had scattered, enabling the British to attack it piecemeal. Bellona fired the first shots at 19:00 as she, Captain, and the two frigates closed with Junon and Alceste, both of which struck their colours immediately. Bellona then joined Centaur in chasing Courageuse. Faced with overwhelming odds, Courageuse also surrendered. Emerald then overhauled Salamine, and Captain took Alerte at around 23:30.
#### Action on 7 April 1800
Emerald returned to blockade duty at Cádiz in April 1800, joining a squadron under Rear-Admiral John Thomas Duckworth that included the 74-gun ships Leviathan and Swiftsure, and the fire ship Incendiary. The squadron sighted a Spanish convoy on 5 April, which comprised 13 merchant vessels and three accompanying frigates, and at once gave chase. At 03:00 the following day, Emerald managed to overhaul and cross the bow of a 10-gun merchantman, which, having nowhere to go, immediately surrendered. By daybreak, the remainder of the Spanish convoy had scattered and the only ship visible was a 14-gun brig, Los Anglese. The absence of wind prevented the becalmed British vessels approaching her. Instead, Leviathan and Emerald lowered boats that rowed towards the brig, which they captured after a short exchange of fire.
Other sails were now spotted in the east, west and south, forcing the British to divide their force: Swiftsure went south, Emerald east, and Leviathan west. At midday, Emerald signalled that there were six vessels to the north-east, and Leviathan wore round to pursue. By dusk, the two British ships had nine Spanish craft in sight. Three ships were seen at midnight to the north-north-west, and by 02:00 the following morning, two had been identified as the enemy frigates Carmen and Florentina. Duckworth ordered Emerald to take a parallel course to the enemy frigates in anticipation of a dawn attack, and at first light, the British closed with their opponents.
The Spaniards had assumed the approaching vessels were part of their convoy, but by daybreak they had realised their error and vainly set more sail to escape. Being close enough to hail the Spanish crews, Duckworth ordered them to surrender. When the Spaniards ignored the demand, he ordered Leviathan and Emerald to open fire on the rigging of the Spanish vessels in order to disable them. Both Spanish frigates quickly surrendered. Carmen had had 11 men killed and 16 wounded; Florentina 12 killed and 10 wounded, including her first and second captains. The two Spanish frigates were each carrying 1,500 quintals of mercury.
A third frigate was visible on the horizon. Emerald immediately set off in pursuit but Duckworth recalled her and instead ordered her to locate the merchant ships; she secured four of the largest vessels by nightfall. The need to make the two captured frigates ready to sail delayed Leviathan, and by the time this was completed the third frigate had made her escape. Leviathan then returned to rendezvous with Emerald, managing to take a further enemy brig before night fell. The following day, both British vessels sailed for Gibraltar with their prizes. On arrival, they encountered Incendiary, which had made port the previous day with two captured vessels of its own. The small British squadron managed to secure nine merchant vessels and two frigates in total.
### Caribbean
Britain declared war on France in May 1803 following the short-lived Peace of Amiens and by June, Emerald, under the command of Captain James O'Bryen, had joined Samuel Hood's squadron in the Leeward Islands. Prior to the British invasion of St Lucia on 21 June, she harassed enemy shipping, disrupting the island's resupply.
The invasion force left Barbados on 20 June. It comprised Hood's 74-gun flagship Centaur, the 74-gun Courageux, the frigates Argo and Chichester, and the sloops Hornet and Cyane. The following morning, Emerald and the 18-gun sloop Osprey had joined them. By 11:00, the squadron was anchored in Choc Bay. The troops were landed by 17:00 and half an hour later the town of Castries was in British hands. In the island's main fortress, Morne-Fortunée, the French troops refused to surrender; the British stormed it at 04:00 on 22 June, and by 04:30 St Lucia was in British hands. Following this easy victory, the British sent a force to Tobago, which capitulated on 1 July.
Emerald was between St Lucia and Martinique on 24 June, when she captured the 16-gun French privateer Enfant Prodigue after a 72-hour chase. The French vessel was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Victor Lefbru and was carrying dispatches for Martinique. The Royal Navy took Enfant Prodigue into service as HMS St Lucia.
While in the company of the 22-gun brig HMS Heureux, Emerald intercepted and captured a Dutch merchant vessel travelling between Surinam and Amsterdam on 10 August. On 5 September, she captured two French schooners, and later that month took part in attacks on Berbice, Essequibo and Demarara.
#### Fort Diamond
Emerald's first lieutenant, Thomas Forest, commanded the 6-gun cutter Fort Diamond on 13 March 1804 when, with 30 of Emerald's crew aboard, she captured a French privateer off Saint-Pierre, Martinique. Contrary winds prevented the privateer, Mosambique, from entering St Pierre and she had sought shelter beneath the batteries at Seron. Because Emerald was too far downwind, Captain O'Bryen used boats and crew from Emerald to create a diversion and draw fire from the battery while Fort Diamond approached from the opposite direction, rounded Pearl Rock (some two miles off the coast), and bore down on Mosambique. Forest put the cutter alongside, with such force that a chain securing the privateer to the shore snapped. The 60-man French crew abandoned their vessel and swam ashore. The Royal Navy took Mosambique into service.
#### Capture of Surinam
In the spring of 1804, Emerald and her crew took part in an invasion of Surinam. The invasion force consisted of Hood's flagship Centaur, Emerald, the 44-gun heavy frigates Pandour and Serapis, the 28-gun sixth-rate Alligator, the 12-gun schooner Unique, the 12-gun corvette Hippomenes, and the 8-gun Drake, together with 2,000 troops under Brigadier-General Sir Charles Green. The force arrived from Barbados on 25 April after a twenty-two-day journey. The sloop Hippomenes, a transport and a further three armed vessels, landed Brigadier-General Frederick Maitland and 700 troops at Warapee Creek on the night of 30 April. The following night, O'Bryen was ordered to assist Brigadier-General Hughes in the taking of Braam's Point. A sandbar initially prevented Emerald from entering the Surinam River but O'Bryen forced her across on the rising tide, with Pandour and Drake following. Anchoring close by, the three British ships quickly put the Dutch battery of 18-pounders out of action and captured the fort without loss of life.
Emerald, Pandour, and Drake then pushed up the river, sometimes in less water than the frigates required to float properly, until on 5 May they arrived close to the forts Leyden and Frederici. The British landed a detachment of troops under Hughes some distance away, which marching under the cover of the forests and swamps, launched an attack that resulted in the swift capture of the two forts. By this time, most of the squadron had managed to work its way up the river as far as Frederici, Maitland was advancing along the Commewine River, and with troops poised to attack the fort of New Amsterdam, the Batavian commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel Batenburg, duly surrendered.
Emerald captured the vessel Augusta, which was under American colours, on 22 August and sent her into Antigua with the cargo of wine that she had been carrying from Leghorn to Guadeloupe. Emerald left Tortola on 26 October as escort to a convoy of 50 vessels for England but having parted from them in a storm, she put into Madeira in distress on 11 December.
### Service on the Home Station
Between February and June 1806, Emerald underwent repairs at Deptford dockyard and was recommissioned under Captain John Armour; Frederick Lewis Maitland assumed command in the first quarter of 1807. While in the Basque Roads in April, Emerald captured the 14-gun privateer Austerlitz, a brig from Nantes under the command of Captain Gatien Lafont. Emerald, while escorting a Spanish polacca that she had taken, spotted and captured the privateer on 14 April after a ten-hour chase. Austerlitz had been out of port two days but had made no captures; the polacca was the Spanish ship Prince of Asturias, which had sailed from La Guayra with a cargo of cocoa, bark and indigo. Emerald sent both prizes into Plymouth, where they arrived on 22 April. Emerald herself set off in pursuit of another vessel from La Guayra.
Emerald recaptured Zulema, which a French privateer had taken and plundered as she sailed from Philadelphia to Liverpool. Zulema arrived in Plymouth under her master, Mr Howard, on 4 May. During December, Plymouth received more of Emerald's captures. At the beginning of the month, Young Elias was detained. Her master, Monsieur Delance, had been sailing from Philadelphia to Bordeaux. On 26 December, Mr Seaton's vessel, Friendship was caught returning from France.
#### Apropos
Emerald's boats participated in a cutting-out expedition in Viveiro harbour on 13 March 1808. While cruising inshore at around 17:00, Emerald spotted a large French schooner, Apropos, of 250 tons (bm), anchored in the bay. Apropos was armed with twelve 8-pounder guns, though pierced for 16, and had a crew of more than 70 men under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Lagary.
The crews of the schooner and of the two batteries guarding the harbour had seen Emerald but Maitland still made plans to attack Apropos. He soon discovered it was not possible to place Emerald so as to engage both enemy batteries simultaneously, and instead sent landing parties to silence the guns, which had been firing on his ship since 17:30. The first landing party, led by Lieutenant Bertram and accompanied by two marine lieutenants and two master mates, stormed the outer fort. Maitland then positioned Emerald close to the second battery while a boat under the command of his third lieutenant, Smith, landed about a mile along the shore. This second landing party encountered Spanish soldiers, but drove them off and pursued them inland. By the time Smith's party returned to the beach, Emerald had already silenced the battery. In the darkness, Smith subsequently failed to locate the fort.
The crew of Apropos had run her ashore soon after Emerald had entered the harbour. The harbour batteries having been destroyed, Captain Maitland sent a further force under Midshipman Baird to secure and refloat the French ship. The original landing party under Lieutenant Bertram, which had already encountered and dispersed 60 members of the schooner's crew, met Baird's party on the beach. The British made several unsuccessful attempts to re-float the schooner before being forced to set her afire and depart. British casualties were heavy. Emerald had nine men killed, and 16 wounded, including Lieutenant Bertram. Maitland estimated that French casualties too had been heavy.
In 1847 the Admiralty issued the clasp "Emerald 13 March 1808" to the Naval General Service Medal to the ten surviving claimants from the action.
#### Back in the Basque Roads
A French schooner Amadea arrived in Plymouth on 15 December 1808 having previously been captured and sent in by Emerald. Back in the Basque Roads on 23 February 1809, Emerald was this time part of a squadron under Robert Stopford. Stopford's flagship, the 80-gun Caesar, was also accompanied by the seventy-fours Defiance and Donegal, and the 36-gun frigates Amethyst and Naiad. At 20:00, Stopford's squadron was anchored off the Chassiron Lighthouse, to the north-west of Ile d'Oléron, when the sighting of several rockets prompted him to investigate. About an hour later, sails were seen to the east which the British followed until daylight the following morning. The sails belonged to a French squadron that Stopford deduced to be out of Brest and which heaved to in the Pertuis d'Antioche.
The French force comprised eight ships of the line and two frigates, and Stopford immediately sent Naiad to apprise Admiral James Gambier of the situation. Naiad had not gone too far however when she signalled that there were three other vessels to the north-west. Stopford ordered Amethyst and Emerald to remain while he and the rest of the squadron set off in pursuit. The British frigate Amelia and the sloop Doterel also joined the chase. Caesar, Donegal, Defiance, and Amelia eventually drove the three French frigates ashore and destroyed them.
Emerald and Amethyst had more success in the spring of 1809 when on 23 March they captured the brigs Caroline and Serpent. In April, Emerald assisted Amethyst in the chase of a large 44-gun frigate off Ushant. Emerald sighted Niemen, with a main battery of 18-pounders and under the command of Captain Dupoter, at 11:00 on 5 April and immediately signalled Amethyst for assistance. Amethyst caught a glimpse of the French forty-four just as she turned away to the south-east and gave chase but by 19:20 had lost sight of both Niemen and Emerald. Amethyst fell in with Niemen again at around 21:30 and engaged her. Niemen was forced to strike when a second British frigate, Arethusa came into view and fired a broadside. The Royal Navy took Niemen into service under her existing name.
On 26 March, Enfant de Patria arrived at Plymouth. Patria, of 500 tons (bm), 10 guns, and 60 men, had sailed from France for Île de France when Emerald and Amethyst captured her. Two days later Emerald captured a second letter of marque, the 4-gun Aventurier, bound for the relief of Guadeloupe. She had a crew of 30 men.
#### Battle of the Basque Roads
Emerald was part of the fleet under Admiral Lord Gambier that fought the Battle of the Basque Roads in April 1809. The French ships were anchored under the protection of the powerful batteries on the Isle d'Aix when on 11 April Lord Cochrane attacked them with fireships and explosive vessels. Emerald provided a diversion to the east of the island with the brigs Beagle, Doterel, Conflict, and Growler. The fireships met with only partial success; the French, having anticipated such an attack, had rigged a boom across the channel. One of the explosive vessels breached the boom, leading the French to cut their cables and drift on to the shoals.
The following day, after much delay, Gambier ordered a battle squadron to reinforce Cochrane in the Basque Roads. The British ships anchored, with springs, in a crescent around some of the stranded French ships, and exchanged fire. Emerald took up position ahead of Indefatigable and behind Aigle and Unicorn, and directed her fire mainly towards the French ships of the line, Varsovie and Aquilon, both of which struck at around 17:30.
At 20:00, Emerald, along with the other British frigates and brigs, weighed and anchored with the 74-gun HMS Revenge in the Maumusson passage to the south of Oléron while a second fireship attack was under preparation. Although the fireships were ready in the early hours on the 13th, contrary winds prevented their deployment. The British instead set Varsovie and Aquilon alight just after 03:00, on the orders of Captain John Bligh, after removing their crews. Emerald, and the other vessels moored with her, were recalled at 05:00 but owing to the lack of water, only the brigs were able to pass further up the river. Emerald therefore took no further part in the attack, which continued until 29 April when the last French ship was able to free herself from the mud and escape up the river to Rochefort.
### Later service
Emerald took two French sloops in July 1809. Deux Freres, en route for Guadeloupe from Rochelle when captured, arrived in Plymouth on 26 July. A week later, Emerald captured the French schooner Balance, which had been sailing to France from Guadeloupe. Both captures carried letters of marque. The first, of four guns, was carrying a small reinforcement for Guadeloupe's garrison. The second, also of four guns, was carrying a cargo of coffee and other colonial produce.
While off the coast of Ireland on 8 October, Emerald rescued a British brig by capturing Incomparable, an 8-gun French privateer. The Frenchman was about to take the British vessel when Emerald intervened. Incomparable had a crew of 63 men and was four days out of Saint-Malo, but had not yet captured any other vessel. Still in Irish waters on 6 November, Emerald took the 16-gun French brig Fanfaron, two days out of Brest and bound for Guadeloupe. After an all-night chase, Emerald caught up. Capitaine de fregate Croquet Deschateurs of Fanfaron resisted, firing several broadsides and a final double-shotted broadside. Unable to escape, Deschateurs prepared to board but Emerald evaded the manoeuvre and fired a broadside that dismasted Fanfaron, leaving Deschateurs no option but to surrender his vessel. The subsequent French court-martial not only absolved Deschateurs of any liability for the loss but also commended him for his conduct. Four days later Emerald arrived at Cork with Fanfaron and Luna. Fanfaron, with a crew of 113, had been carrying a cargo of flour, salt and other provisions, as well as iron, lead and nails, all for Guadeloupe.
At the beginning of February 1810, Emerald captured and sent into Plymouth, Commerce, Hanson, master, which had been sailing from Drontheim to Bordeaux. Then on 22 March, Emerald captured the 350-ton (bm) Belle Etoile in the Bay of Biscay. Caught after a twelve-hour chase during which she jettisoned much of her cargo; Belle Etoile, out of Bayonne, was pierced for 20 guns but only carried eight. Carrying a cargo of wine, flour, oil, and other merchandise to Île de France, she was sent into Cork with her 56-man crew. Emerald captured an American ship, Wasp, in July 1810. Wasp was carrying 91 passengers from New York to Bordeaux; they arrived at Plymouth on 30 July.
Emerald was still serving on the Home Station on 11 April 1811 when she sent into Cork a French privateer. This was the 18-gun Auguste (or Augusta), which had been taken on 6 April. Nearly a month later, on 5 July, Emerald left Madeira in the company of five East Indiamen and was still on convoy duties later that month when a transport ship spotted her escorting thirteen vessels off the coast of West Africa on 18 July.
## Fate
In November 1811, Emerald sailed to Portsmouth and was laid up in ordinary. She was fitted out as a receiving ship in 1822. She was eventually broken up in January 1836.
## See also
|
247,552 |
HMS Hermes (95)
| 1,172,949,283 |
1924 unique aircraft carrier
|
[
"1919 ships",
"Aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy",
"Aircraft carriers sunk by aircraft",
"Maritime incidents in April 1942",
"Maritime incidents in July 1940",
"Ships built by Armstrong Whitworth",
"Ships built on the River Tyne",
"Ships sunk by Japanese aircraft",
"World War II aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom",
"World War II shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean",
"Wreck diving sites"
] |
HMS Hermes was a British aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy and was the world's first ship to be designed as an aircraft carrier, although the Imperial Japanese Navy's Hōshō was the first to be commissioned. The ship's construction began during the First World War, but she was not completed until after the end of the war, having been delayed by multiple changes in her design after she was laid down. After she was launched, the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard which built her closed, and her fitting out was suspended. Most of the changes made were to optimise her design, in light of the results of experiments with operational carriers.
Finally commissioned in 1924, Hermes served briefly with the Atlantic Fleet before spending the bulk of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and the China Station. In the Mediterranean, she worked with other carriers developing multi-carrier tactics. While showing the flag at the China Station, she helped to suppress piracy in Chinese waters. Hermes returned home in 1937 and was placed in reserve before becoming a training ship in 1938.
When the Second World War began in September 1939, the ship was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet and conducted anti-submarine patrols in the Western Approaches. She was transferred to Dakar in October to cooperate with the French Navy in hunting down German commerce raiders and blockade runners. Aside from a brief refit, Hermes remained there until the fall of France and the establishment of Vichy France at the end of June 1940. Supported by several cruisers, the ship then blockaded Dakar and attempted to sink the French battleship Richelieu by exploding depth charges underneath her stern, as well as sending Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to attack her at night. While returning from this mission, Hermes rammed a British armed merchant cruiser in a storm and required several months of repairs in South Africa, then resumed patrolling for Axis shipping in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
In February 1941, the ship supported Commonwealth forces in Italian Somaliland during the East African Campaign and did much the same two months later in the Persian Gulf during the Anglo-Iraqi War. After that campaign, Hermes spent most of the rest of the year patrolling the Indian Ocean. She was refitted in South Africa between November 1941 and February 1942 and then joined the Eastern Fleet at Ceylon.
Hermes was berthed in Trincomalee on 8 April when a warning of an Indian Ocean raid by the Japanese fleet was received, and she sailed that day for the Maldives with no aircraft on board. On 9 April a Japanese scout plane spotted her near Batticaloa, and she was attacked by several dozen dive bombers shortly afterwards. With no air cover, the carrier was quickly sunk by the Japanese aircraft. Most of the survivors were rescued by a nearby hospital ship, although 307 men from Hermes were lost in the sinking.
The wreck of the ship was discovered in the Bay of Bengal some sixty years after she was sunk roughly 45 mile northwest of Batticaloa. Hermes is shallow enough to be visited by recreational divers and is frequently visited by tourists.
## Development
Like Hōshō, Hermes was based on a cruiser-type hull and she was initially designed to carry both wheeled aircraft and seaplanes. The ship's design was derived from a 1916 seaplane carrier design by Gerard Holmes and Sir John Biles, but was considerably enlarged by Sir Eustace d'Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction (DNC), in his April 1917 sketch design. Her most notable feature was the seaplane slipway that comprised three sections. The seaplanes would taxi onto the rigid submerged portion aft and dock with a trolley that would carry the aircraft into the hangar. A flexible submerged portion separated the rear section from the rigid forward portion of the slipway to prevent the submerged part from rolling with the ship's motion. The entire slipway could be retracted into the ship, and a gantry crane ran the length of the slipway to help recover the seaplanes. The design showed two islands with the full-length flight deck running between them. Each island contained one funnel; a large net could be strung between them to stop out-of-control aircraft. Aircraft were transported between the hangar and the flight deck by two aircraft lifts (elevators); the forward lift measured 30 by 30 feet (9.1 by 9.1 m) and the rear 60 by 18 feet (18.3 by 5.5 m). This design displaced 9,000 long tons (9,100 t) and accommodated six large Short Type 184 seaplanes and six smaller Sopwith Baby seaplanes. The ship's armament consisted of six 4-inch (102 mm) guns.
The DNC produced a detailed design in January 1918 that made some changes to his original sketch, including the addition of a rotating bow catapult to allow the ship to launch aircraft regardless of wind direction, and the ship was laid down that month to the revised design. Progress was slow, as most of the resources of the shipyard were being used to finish the conversion of Eagle from a battleship to an aircraft carrier. The leisurely pace of construction allowed for more time with which to rework the ship's design. By mid-June the slipway had been deleted from the design and the ship's armament had been revised to consist of eleven 6-inch (152 mm) guns and only a single anti-aircraft gun. By this time, the uncertainty about the best configuration for an aircraft carrier had increased to the point that the Admiralty forbade the builder from working above the hangar deck without express permission. Later that year the ship's design was revised again to incorporate a single island, her lifts were changed to a uniform size of 44 by 20 feet (13.4 by 6.1 m), and her armament was altered to ten 6-inch guns and four 4-inch anti-aircraft guns. These changes increased her displacement to 10,110 long tons (10,270 t).
Construction was suspended after Hermes was launched in September 1919 as the Admiralty awaited the results of flight trials with Eagle and Argus. Her design was modified in March 1920 with an island superstructure and funnel to starboard, and the forward catapult was removed. The logic behind placing the island to starboard was that pilots generally preferred to turn to port when recovering from an aborted landing. A prominent tripod mast was added to house the fire-control systems for her guns.
The last revisions were made to the ship's design in May 1921, after the trials with Argus and Eagle. The lifts were moved further apart to allow for more space for the arresting gear and they were enlarged to allow the wings of her aircraft to be spread in the hangar. Her anti-ship armament was reduced to six 5.5-inch (140 mm) guns and her flight deck was faired into the bow.
### Description
Hermes had an overall length of 600 feet (182.9 m), a beam of 70 feet 3 inches (21.4 m), and a draught of 23 feet 3 inches (7.1 m) at deep load. She displaced 10,850 long tons (11,020 t) at standard load. Each of the ship's two sets of Parsons geared steam turbines drove one propeller shaft at a speed of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph). Steam was supplied by six Yarrow boilers operating at a pressure of 235 psi (1,620 kPa; 17 kgf/cm<sup>2</sup>). The turbines were designed for a total of 40,000 shaft horsepower (30,000 kW), but they produced 41,318 shp (30,811 kW) during her sea trials, giving Hermes a speed of 26.2 knots (48.5 km/h; 30.2 mph). The ship carried 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) of fuel oil which gave her a range of 4,480 nautical miles (8,300 km; 5,160 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph).
The ship's flight deck was 570 feet (173.7 m) long and her lifts' dimensions were 36 by 36.6 feet (11.0 by 11.2 m). Her hangar was 400 feet (121.9 m) long, 50 feet (15.2 m) wide and 16 feet (4.9 m) high. Hermes was fitted with longitudinal arresting gear. A large crane was positioned behind the island. Because of her size, the ship was able to carry only about 20 aircraft. Bulk petrol storage consisted of 7,000 imperial gallons (32,000 L; 8,400 US gal). The ship's crew totalled 33 officers and 533 men, exclusive of the air group, in 1939.
For self-defence against enemy warships, Hermes had six BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns, three on each side of the ship. All three of her QF Mk V 4-inch anti-aircraft guns were positioned on the flight deck. The ship's waterline belt armour was 3 inches (76 mm) thick and her flight deck, which was also the ship's strength deck, was 1 inch (25 mm) thick. Hermes had a metacentric height of 2.9 feet (0.9 m) and handled well in heavy weather. However, she had quite a large surface area exposed to the wind and required as much as 25 to 30 degrees of weather helm at low speed when the wind was blowing from the side.
## Service
Hermes was laid down by Sir W. G. Armstrong-Whitworth and Company at Walker on the River Tyne on 15 January 1918 as the world's first purpose-designed aircraft carrier, and was launched on 11 September 1919. She was christened by Mrs. A. Cooper, daughter of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Walter Long. The shipyard was scheduled to close at the end of 1919 and the Admiralty ordered the ship towed to Devonport, where she arrived in January 1920 for completion.
### 1920s
Captain Arthur Stopford was appointed as the ship's commanding officer in February 1923 and the ship began her sea trials in August. After fitting-out, Hermes was commissioned on 19 February 1924 and later assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. She conducted flying trials with the Fairey IIID reconnaissance biplanes for the next several months. Hermes participated in the fleet review conducted by King George V on 26 July in Spithead. Afterwards she was refitted until November and then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet. She arrived at Malta on 22 November and needed some repairs to fix storm damage suffered en route. At this time the ship embarked No. 403 Flight with Fairey Flycatcher fighters and 441 Flight with Fairey IIIDs. Hermes conducted flying exercises with Eagle and the rest of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1925 before she began a seven-week refit in Malta on 27 March, then sailed for Portsmouth where she arrived on 29 May after her aircraft had flown ashore.
Hermes sailed for the China Station on 17 June with 403 and 441 Flights aboard, but made a lengthy pause en route in the Mediterranean during which Captain Stopford was replaced by Captain C. P. Talbot. She arrived at Hong Kong on 10 August 1925. The ship made her first foreign port visit to Amoy in November. Hermes returned to the Mediterranean in early 1926 and was refitted at Malta between April and June. 441 Flight was transferred to Eagle at this time in exchange for 440 Flight which flew aboard in September. 442 Flight also joined the ship at this time; both flights were equipped with Fairey IIIs. The ship exercised with the Mediterranean Fleet after her refit was completed and Captain R. Elliot relieved Captain Talbot on 14 August. Hermes returned to Hong Kong on 11 October and conducted routine training until she sailed to the naval base at Weihaiwei on 27 July 1927 to escape the summer heat. The ship rendezvoused in September with Argus, which was to replace her on the China Station. Before she departed the area, however, both ships attacked the pirate base at Bias Bay and their fleet of junks and sampans. Hermes reached the United Kingdom on 26 October and began a refit at Chatham Dockyard at the beginning of November. One of her 4-inch guns was removed at this time. Sometime after this refit, the ship was provided with two single 1.57-inch (40 mm) 2-pounder "pom-pom" AA guns.
Captain Eliot was relieved by Captain G. Hopwood on 2 December and the ship sailed for the China Station on 21 January 1928. The Fairey IIIDs of 440 Flight had been replaced by IIIFs, and the ship kept the same three flights for this deployment. En route to Hong Kong, Hermes stopped at Bangkok, Siam, in March for four days and was inspected by King Rama VII. She reached Hong Kong on 18 March, relieving Argus. The ship spent a month in the port of Yantai in May and then the following three weeks in Weihaiwei. While visiting Qinhuangdao in July, one of her Fairey IIIF seaplanes made a forced landing outside the port; the Italian destroyer Muggia rescued the pilot and towed the aircraft back to the carrier. During the rest of the year, the ship visited Shanghai, Manila, as well as Kudat and Jesselton in Borneo. She began a refit in Hong Kong in January 1929 and Captain J. D. Campbell assumed command on 28 March. After refit was completed in April, Hermes conducted flying training before sailing up the Yangtze River to visit Nanjing the following month. Afterwards she spent the next four months at Weihaiwei. She made visits to Qingdao and Japan before returning to Hong Kong on 29 October where she remained for the rest of the year.
### 1930s
On 28 January 1930, Hermes transported the British Minister to China, Sir Miles Lampson, to Nanking for talks with the Chinese Government over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and she remained there until she sailed downriver to Shanghai on 2 March. By the end of the month, the carrier was back in Hong Kong and remained there until June when she returned to Wei Hai Wei for her annual summer visit. The ship briefly returned to Hong Kong before departing for Great Britain on 7 August. Hermes reached Portsmouth on 23 September, but remained there only six days before transferring to Sheerness. Captain E. J. G. MacKinnon relieved Captain Campbell there on 2 October. She was given a brief refit at Chatham Dockyard before sailing for the China Station. The ship had aboard only 403 and 440 Flights on this deployment and transported six Blackburn Ripons to deliver to Malta and HMS Eagle. Hermes departed Portsmouth on 12 November and reached Hong Kong on 2 January 1931. En route to her summer refuge at Wei Hai Wei, the ship received a report on 9 June that the submarine Poseidon had been sunk there while on exercise. Captain MacKinnon took command of the rescue effort when Hermes arrived at the accident site an hour afterwards. Eight of the submarine's crewmen managed to escape through the forward torpedo hatch, but only six of those reached the surface where they were picked up and treated in Hermes's sickbay; two of those six subsequently died.
The ship remained at Wei Hai Wei until the end of August when she sailed up the Yangtze River for Hankow. She reached the inland port on 5 September and dispatched armed guards to put down unrest on several British-owned merchant ships. Her primary purpose, though, was to aid the Chinese government's survey of the massive flooding in the area. Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, were also in the city to survey the flooding with their Lockheed Sirius float-plane and they were invited to use the carrier as their base. Unfortunately, their aircraft was flipped on the morning of 2 October by a strong current as it was being hoisted back into the water by Hermes's crane. They were quickly rescued by a boat from the carrier, but their aircraft was damaged. Captain MacKinnon offered to take them and their aircraft to Shanghai where it could be repaired and the ship departed the next day. She remained in Shanghai until 2 November, when she sailed for Hong Kong. Hermes received a distress message on 3 November from a Japanese merchantman, SS Ryinjin Maru, that had run aground on the Tan Rocks near the Chinese mainland at the mouth of the Taiwan Strait. The ship managed to rescue nine crew members before she was relieved by the Japanese destroyer Nashi and could proceed to Hong Kong. She reached the city on 7 November and remained in the area until April 1932.
Captain MacKinnon took sick the next month and he was relieved by Captain W. B. Mackenzie on 25 February. After a short refit, the carrier, escorted by the destroyer Whitehall, made a brief visit to Amoy in late April before sailing for Weihaiwei where she stayed until 17 September. On that day, Hermes sailed for the Japanese city of Nagasaki and then spent four weeks in Shanghai. The ship did not return to Hong Kong until 28 October and spent the next few months there. In January 1933, the carrier visited the Philippines for several weeks before returning to Hong Kong where she was given a brief refit. After short visits to Qingdao and Weihaiwei, Hermes departed Hong Kong in mid-June for Great Britain. She reached Sheerness on 22 July, but the ship was transferred shortly afterwards to Chatham Dockyard and opened to the public during Navy Week in early August. She sailed the next month for Devonport Dockyard for a thorough refit. Transverse arresting gear was fitted and her machinery was thoroughly overhauled. Sometime in 1932, the two single 2-pounders were replaced by two quadruple .50-calibre Mark III machine gun mounts.
Captain the Honourable G. Fraser was appointed on 15 August 1934 as the new commanding officer and the ship began trials of the new equipment in early November. At the same time the nine Fairey Seal torpedo bombers of 824 Squadron joined the ship. Hermes left Portsmouth on 18 November for the China Station and arrived at Hong Kong on 4 January 1935. The Hawker Osprey reconnaissance biplanes of 803 Squadron were transferred aboard from Eagle before that ship left Hong Kong. Pirates captured a British-owned merchant ship, SS Tungchow, with 90 British and American children on board on 29 January and Hermes was ordered to search for the ship when she failed to arrive at Yantai at her scheduled time. Three Seals spotted her in Bias Bay on 1 February and the pirates abandoned the ship when it was found, leaving the passengers unharmed. Hermes remained in the vicinity of Hong Kong until mid-May when she steamed to Weihaiwei. There she remained until 12 September when the Admiralty decided to transfer her to Singapore where she was closer to East Africa in case a military response to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia was deemed necessary. The ship arrived on 19 September and remained in the area for the next five months.
The ship's aircraft were detailed to search for the missing Lady Southern Cross of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith when it failed to arrive at Singapore on 8 November during an attempt to set a new speed record between Britain and Australia. No sign was found of either the aircraft or its crew despite a month-long search. Hermes returned to Hong Kong at the beginning of March 1936 before beginning a tour of Japan on 21 April, escorted by the destroyers Duncan and Delight. She summered at Weihaiwei and did not return to Hong Kong until the end of October. For most of January 1937, the carrier, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Dorsetshire and the destroyers Duncan and Diana, toured the Dutch East Indies. The ship's torpedo bombers practised torpedo attacks on the cruisers Cumberland and Dorsetshire in February, working with the Royal Air Force's torpedo bombers based at RAF Seletar, Singapore. Hermes left Singapore on 17 March, leaving 803 Squadron behind, and reached Plymouth on 3 May 1937. Following the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 20 May for King George VI, she was assigned to the Reserve Fleet. On 16 July 1938, Hermes was transferred from the Reserve Fleet and became a training ship at Devonport.
Plans were made in 1937 to replace Hermes's three single 4-inch guns with two twin 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, one forward and another aft of the island, as well as two octuple 2-pounder mounts. A single High-Angle Control System would have been fitted to control these guns, but the dockyard was overwhelmed with other work and couldn't begin to design the changes until July 1938. They were scheduled to be installed between September and December 1939, but the beginning of the war intervened and nothing was done. The ship's petrol storage was to be increased to 13,000 imperial gallons (59,000 L; 16,000 US gal) in April 1940, but this also does not seem to have occurred.
### World War II
The ship was given a brief refit in early August 1939 and Captain F. E. P. Hutton assumed command on 23 August. She was recommissioned the following day, and 12 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of 814 Squadron flew aboard on 1 September. Hermes conducted anti-submarine patrols in mid-September in an effort to find and destroy U-boats in the Western Approaches. On 18 September, the day after the fleet carrier Courageous was sunk on one such patrol, Hermes located a submarine, but attacks by her escorting destroyers, Isis and Imogen, were ineffective. The carrier was then ordered to return to Devonport where she was fitted with degaussing gear during another brief refit. On 7 October, the ship rendezvoused with the French battleship Strasbourg and they arrived at Dakar in French West Africa on 16 October. Designated as Force X, they began searching for German ships in the Atlantic on 25 October. Hermes performed these patrols with no sightings until the end of December when she escorted a convoy to Britain where she could be refitted from 9 January to 10 February 1940; the ship then returned to Dakar and resumed her patrols for German commerce raiders and blockade runners.
Captain Richard F. J. Onslow relieved Captain Hutton on 25 May and Hermes continued her fruitless patrols. After returning from one such patrol on 29 June, the ship was ordered to leave harbour only nine hours after her arrival and to begin a blockade of Dakar as the Governor of French Senegal had declared the colony's allegiance to the Vichy French regime. On the night of 7/8 July, a boat from Hermes attempted to drop four depth charges underneath the French battleship Richelieu'''s stern in conjunction with a torpedo attack by the Swordfish of 814 Squadron. The boat was successful in reaching the French ship, but the depth charges failed to detonate. The torpedo attack was more successful as one of the battleship's propellers was damaged. French aircraft attacked the British forces several times in retaliation, but without success. While returning to Freetown after the attack, Hermes accidentally rammed the armed merchant cruiser HMS Corfu during a rainstorm in the dark on 10 July. The impact injured three of the carrier's crew, one of whom subsequently died of his injuries, but no one from Corfu's crew was injured. The two ships were locked together so that Corfu's crew could walk from one to the other when Captain Onslow ordered most of her crew to be evacuated onto Hermes. They were pulled apart by a combination of the carrier's turbines at full speed astern and blowing of ballast tanks on board Corfu to lighten that ship forward. Hermes had crumpled the forward 30 feet (9.1 m) of her bow, mostly above water, and was able to proceed to Freetown at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), but Corfu had to be towed stern first to Freetown where she arrived three days later. The carrier joined a convoy to South Africa on 5 August and began repairs at Simonstown 12 days later. The repairs were completed on 2 November and the ship arrived back at Freetown on 29 November after working up.
The ship was joined by the light cruiser Dragon on 2 December to search for German commerce raiders in the South Atlantic. They mostly operated from Saint Helena during the month and were later joined by the armed merchant cruiser Pretoria Castle to search for the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, without success. The force sailed for Simonstown on 31 December and Hermes was dispatched to search off the South African coast for Vichy French blockade runners. One such ship was spotted on 26 January, but she returned to Madagascar. On 4 February, the ship headed north to rendezvous with the heavy cruisers Shropshire and Hawkins to blockade the Somali port of Kismayo which was under siege by Commonwealth forces. Hawkins captured three Italian merchantmen and Hermes captured one on 12 February.
On 22 February, the carrier was one of the ships tasked to search for Admiral Scheer after she was spotted by an aircraft from the light cruiser Glasgow, but the pocket battleship successfully broke contact. Hermes arrived in Colombo, Ceylon, on 4 March and continued to search for Axis shipping. She was sent to the Persian Gulf in April to support British operations in Basra, Iraq, and remained there until mid-June when she returned to patrolling the Indian Ocean between Ceylon and the Seychelles Islands. The ship continued to patrol until 19 November when she arrived in Simonstown for a refit that was not completed until 31 January 1942. Hermes was assigned to the Eastern Fleet and arrived at Colombo on 14 February. She put to sea on 19 February to receive the Swordfish of 814 Squadron and to rendezvous with the destroyer to conduct an anti-submarine patrol. The squadron was disembarked on 25 February after the ships arrived in Trincomalee Harbour. The two ships were ordered to Fremantle, Australia, in mid-March to join the Allied naval forces headquartered there, but they were recalled after three days and assigned to Force B of the Eastern Fleet.
After the raid on Colombo by the Japanese aircraft carriers on 5 April, Hermes and Vampire were sent to Trincomalee to prepare for Operation Ironclad, the British invasion of Madagascar, and 814 Squadron was sent ashore. After advance warning of a Japanese air raid on 9 April 1942, they left Trincomalee and sailed south down the Ceylon coast before it arrived. They were spotted off Batticaloa, however, by a Japanese reconnaissance plane from the battleship Haruna. The British intercepted the spot report and ordered the ships to return to Trincomalee with the utmost dispatch and attempted to provide fighter cover for them. The Japanese launched 85 Aichi D3A dive bombers, escorted by nine Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters, at the two ships. At least 32 attacked them and sank them in quick order despite the arrival of six Fairey Fulmar II fighters of No. 273 Squadron RAF. Another six Fulmars from 803 and 806 Squadrons arrived after Hermes had already sunk. The rest of the Japanese aircraft attacked other ships further north, sinking the RFA Athelstone of 5,571 gross register tonnage (GRT), her escort, the corvette Hollyhock, the oil tanker SS British Sergeant and the Norwegian ship SS Norviken of 2,924 GRT.
Hermes sank at coordinates with the loss of 307 men, including Captain Onslow. Vampire's captain and seven crewmen were also killed. Most of the survivors of the attack were picked up by the hospital ship Vita. Japanese losses to all causes were four D3As lost and five more damaged, while two Fulmars were shot down.
#### Two HMS Hermes
The merchant ship SS Mamari III was converted to resemble Hermes as a decoy ship to confuse the Axis and was redesignated as Fleet Tender C. On 4 June 1941, when she was sailing down the east coast of England to Chatham Dockyard in Kent to be converted back into a cargo ship, the decoy Hermes'' hit a submerged wreck off Norfolk during a German aerial attack. Before she could be refloated, she was crippled by German E-boats and abandoned in place.
|
3,332,585 |
Hurricane Bret
| 1,167,416,027 |
Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 1999
|
[
"1999 Atlantic hurricane season",
"1999 in Mexico",
"1999 in Texas",
"1999 natural disasters in the United States",
"Atlantic hurricanes in Mexico",
"Category 4 Atlantic hurricanes",
"Hurricanes in Texas"
] |
Hurricane Bret was the first of five Category 4 hurricanes that developed during the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season and the first tropical cyclone since Hurricane Jerry in 1989 to make landfall in Texas at hurricane intensity. Forming from a tropical wave on August 18, Bret slowly organized within weak steering currents in the Bay of Campeche. By August 20, the storm began to track northward and underwent rapid intensification on August 21. After this period of strengthening, Bret attained its peak intensity with winds of 145 miles per hour (233 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 944 mbar (hPa; 27.9 inHg). Later that day, the storm weakened to a Category 3 hurricane and made landfall on Padre Island, Texas. Shortly thereafter, the storm weakened further, becoming a tropical depression 24 hours after moving inland. The remnants of the storm eventually dissipated early on August 26 over northern Mexico.
Along the Texas coastline, Bret threatened several cities, prompting 180,000 residents to evacuate. Numerous shelters were opened throughout the region and prisons were evacuated. Several days prior to the storm's arrival, the NHC issued hurricane watches, and later warnings for areas near the Texas–Mexico border. Several major roads leading to barrier island towns were shut down to prevent residents from crossing bridges during the hurricane. In nearby Mexico, roughly 7,000 people left coastal areas in advance of the storm. Officials also set up hundreds of shelters in northern regions of the country in case of major flooding.
Bret made landfall in a sparsely populated region, resulting in relatively little damage in comparison to its intensity. Nevertheless, seven people were killed in relation to the storm, four in Texas and three in Mexico. Most of the deaths were due to car accidents caused by slippery roads. Upon making landfall, the hurricane produced a maximum storm surge of 8.8 ft (2.7 m) at Matagorda Island, Texas. Heavy rains produced by Bret peaked at 13.18 in (335 mm) in Texas and were estimated over 14 in (360 mm) in Mexico. Numerous homes in the affected regions were damaged or destroyed, leaving roughly 150 people homeless. In all, the storm caused \$15 million (1999 USD) in damage.
## Meteorological history
Bret originated from a tropical wave that moved off the west coast of Africa on August 5. The wave tracked generally westward, interacting with an upper-level low on August 15 in the western Caribbean Sea, and spawned a low-pressure area. Convective activity developed around the low, and by August 18 the system was over the Yucatán Peninsula. Later that day, the disturbance emerged into the Bay of Campeche and a Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance mission into the system revealed that it had matured into a tropical depression around 1:00 pm CDT (18:00 UTC), the third of the 1999 season. Initially, moderate wind shear prevented the depression from strengthening as it moved slowly and erratically in response to weak steering currents over the system. By August 19, the wind shear relented, allowing deep convection to develop over the center; later that day, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded the system to a tropical storm, assigning it the name Bret. A small tropical cyclone, Bret gradually strengthened for several days as it tracked towards the north. By the morning of August 20, rainbands began to form.
By the evening of August 20, Bret was designated a hurricane following reports of 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) winds during a Hurricane Hunter mission. At around the same time, Bret established a north-northwest track under the influences of a mid-level ridge. The following day, Bret began to undergo rapid intensification, as a well-defined eye developed. On the morning of August 22, the storm attained its peak intensity as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 145 miles per hour (233 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 944 mbar (hPa; 27.9 inHg). Shortly thereafter, an upper-level trough to the west of the storm began to erode its cloud pattern.
Late on August 22, Bret turned northwestward in response to a mid-tropospheric ridge over the Gulf of Mexico and a mid-tropospheric circulation over the Rio Grande Valley. Several hours before landfall, the hurricane weakened to Category 3 intensity and its forward motion slowed. At around 7:00 pm CDT (00:00 UTC; August 23), Hurricane Bret passed over Padre Island, Texas, with winds of 115 miles per hour (185 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 951 mbar (hPa; 28.1 inHg), which marked its landfall. The hurricane rapidly weakened upon moving inland, and roughly 12 hours after landfall, Bret weakened to a tropical storm. It further degenerated into a tropical depression by the evening of August 23. The remnants of Bret persisted until August 26, at which time they dissipated over the mountains of northern Mexico.
## Preparations
### Texas
On August 21, when Bret was first expected to approach the Texas coastline, the NHC issued a hurricane watch for coastal areas between the border of Mexico and Baffin Bay, Texas. Hours later, the watch was upgraded to a warning as the storm intensified and posed a more direct threat to the area. A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were subsequently posted from Baffin Bay northward to Port Aransas. The following day, the hurricane warning was extended to include locations through Port O'Connor and the advisories were extended to Freeport. As Bret neared landfall, the hurricane watch between Port O'Connor and Freeport was discontinued. The hurricane warning for Port Aransas to Port O'Connor was discontinued hours after Bret made landfall and began to weaken. By late August 23, all watches and warnings in relation to the hurricane were discontinued.
By August 22, city officials in Corpus Christi, Texas, declared a state of emergency as Bret was considered a significant threat to the region. Tens of thousands of residents were urged to evacuate coastal areas and seek refuge in local shelters or with relatives further inland. An estimated 180,000 people in the state left their residences ahead of the storm. The Corpus Christi International Airport closed midday on August 22. Later that day, Texas State Highway 361 and docks in Port Aransas were shut down. Highways throughout the area were congested due to the large-scale evacuations and long lines for gas and emergency items developed. Three schools, two universities and a college were closed on August 23 and remained closed for several days.
Eleven shelters were opened in the San Antonio area, collectively able to accommodate 3,525 people. About 325 prisoners were evacuated from a Nueces County jail as the building they were in was deemed unsafe during hurricane conditions. About 1,000 sailors working in the area were evacuated to the USS Inchon prior to the storm. Originally, the ship was meant to ride out the storm at sea; however, inadequate repair work inhibited the ship from leaving port. The ship reportedly had enough supplies to maintain the sailors for roughly 45 days. By 12:00 pm CDT on August 22, Mustang Island and Padre Island were completely evacuated and officials shut down roads leading in and out of the islands to prevent anyone from re-entering them before the area was deemed safe to enter. A strict order against price gouging was put in place by city officials in Corpus Christi.
### Mexico
In Mexico, officials closed 18 ports on the Gulf of Mexico to small- and medium-sized craft in preparation for the storm. In northern Mexico, more than 500 shelters were opened as thousands of residents were advised to evacuate from low-lying areas. The Mexican Army, Red Cross, and firefighters were put on standby to deal with emergency calls during the storm. On August 22, a state of emergency was declared for Tamaulipas. The following day, at least 120 firefighters were dispatched to Monterrey, Nuevo León, to swiftly respond to emergencies. The Mexican government emphasized the safety of residents in the city, which was anticipated to bear the brunt of the hurricane. Around 7,000 fishermen evacuated coastal regions near the Texas border. In Matamoros an additional 31 shelters were opened. Schools throughout northern Mexico were closed for several days.
## Impact
### Mexico
Prior to developing into a tropical depression, the disturbance produced scattered rainfall across the Yucatán Peninsula, locally exceeding 7 in (180 mm). As the system stalled in the Bay of Campeche, coastal areas received minor rainfall from the outer bands of the system. Although Bret made landfall near the Texas-Mexico border, the small size of the system resulted in limited impacts in Mexico. In Nuevo León, an estimated 14 in (360 mm) of rain fell within a 24-hour span and similar amounts likely fell in nearby Tamaulipas. In Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila, ten villages were isolated by floodwaters that washed out roads. Ten people, all members of one family, were injured during a head-on collision. In Nogales, heavy rains caused water to accumulate on streets, leading to traffic jams; high winds also downed power lines. During the evacuation prior to Bret, one person was trampled to death. Following landfall, a man was electrocuted by downed power lines and another drowned in floodwaters. At least 150 families were left homeless following a flash flood in Cadereyta that inundated most of the town.
### Texas
Upon making landfall, Bret produced a storm surge up to 8.8 ft (2.7 m) on Matagorda Island, Texas. Around Galveston, minor beach erosion was recorded due to large swells produced by the hurricane. Twelve new inlets were created on Padre Island, one of which was large enough to be mistaken as Mansfield Pass. Heavy precipitation, reaching 13.18 in (335 mm) in central Kenedy County, was confined to a small area. The lowest barometric pressure recorded overland was at the Brooks County Airport at 976 mbar (hPa; 28.8 inHg). The Aransas River rapidly reached flood stage due to heavy rains and the Rio Grande produced minor flooding close to the Gulf of Mexico. In beaches near Corpus Christi, upwards of 40 cubic feet (1.1 m<sup>3</sup>) of sand was lost. About 24.7 acres (10.0 ha) of cropland were destroyed by the storm.
A damaged electric tower in Kenedy County resulted in power outages for thousands of people. At the height of the storm, an estimated 64,000 people were without power in south Texas. Portions of U.S. Route 281 were submerged in floodwaters, leaving \$50,000 (1999 USD) in damage. Damage in Corpus Christi were estimated at \$100,000 (1999 USD). In Duval County, 200 homes were damaged by flooding and large areas of agricultural land were flooded. Damage in the county amounted to roughly \$2 million (1999 USD). Five other F0 tornadoes touched down in the state. Damage to homes and businesses in Corpus Christi was estimated up to \$500,000 (1999 USD); agricultural damage reached \$1 million and another \$500,000 (1999 USD) was reported in losses. Slick roads from Bret's heavy rains caused the collision of a truck and a tractor, killing four people. Damage amounted to \$15 million (1999 USD) throughout southern Texas.
## Aftermath
On August 23, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) deployed 717 personnel, mainly from the disaster response team, to the affected regions in the United States. The following day, 564 National Guard troops were deployed in the state. In the days following the storm, many mosquitoes and other insects laid eggs in areas of standing water, causing a large increase in their numbers. Authorities sprayed insecticide to minimize the potential for disease outbreaks. By August 25, all shelters opened prior to Bret were closed as residents were allowed to return home. On August 26, President Bill Clinton added the counties of Brooks, Duval, Jim Wells and Webb to the major disaster declaration area. This allowed residents in those counties to receive federal funding.
Reconstruction of public facilities, roads, and water pipes received increased funding on September 3 to speed up the program. The following day, twelve disaster recovery centers were opened in the affected counties for residents to apply for federal funding. On September 9, two more disaster recovery centers were opened for residents in south Texas. Later that day, \$831,593.28 (1999 USD) in disaster housing grants was distributed to affected residents. On September 15, roughly 10,200 people applied for disaster loans, amounting to \$3.1 million (1999 USD). A total of 167 also received crisis intervention from FEMA. In Corpus Christi, winds and rain covered the city in debris and brush, costing \$200,000 (1999 USD) for cleanup.
## See also
- Other storms of the same name
- List of Texas hurricanes
- List of Category 4 Atlantic hurricanes
- Hurricane Harvey (2017) – Another Category 4 hurricane that caused unprecedented destruction and widespread flooding to Southeast Texas.
- Tropical Storm Beta (2020) - A tropical storm that organized in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico and made landfall in Texas.
- Hurricane Nicholas (2021) - A minimal category 1 hurricane that took a similar track before making landfall in Texas.
|
148,003 |
Big Star
| 1,172,782,550 |
American rock band
|
[
"1971 establishments in Tennessee",
"20th-century American guitarists",
"American hard rock musical groups",
"American musical trios",
"American power pop groups",
"Big Star",
"Musical groups disestablished in 1974",
"Musical groups disestablished in 2010",
"Musical groups established in 1971",
"Musical groups from Memphis, Tennessee",
"Musical groups reestablished in 1993",
"Musical quartets",
"Norton Records artists",
"Rock music groups from Tennessee",
"Rykodisc artists"
] |
Big Star was an American rock band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton (vocals, guitar), Chris Bell (vocals, guitar), Jody Stephens (drums), and Andy Hummel (bass). The group broke up in late 1974, and reorganized with a new lineup 18 years later following a reunion concert at the University of Missouri. In its first era, the band's musical style drew on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Byrds. Big Star produced a style that foreshadowed the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s. Before they broke up, Big Star created a "seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations", in the words of Rolling Stone, as the "quintessential American power pop band", and "one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll". Three of Big Star's studio albums are included in the Rolling Stone's list of the Top 500 Albums of All-Time.
Big Star's debut album, 1972's \#1 Record, was met by enthusiastic reviews, but ineffective marketing by Stax Records and limited distribution stunted its commercial success. Frustration took its toll on band relations: Bell left not long after the first record's commercial progress stalled, and Hummel left to finish his college education after a second album, Radio City, was completed in December 1973. Like \#1 Record, Radio City received excellent reviews, but label issues again thwarted sales—Columbia Records, which had assumed control of the Stax catalog, likewise effectively vetoed its distribution.
After a third album, recorded in the fall of 1974, was deemed commercially unviable and shelved before receiving a title, the band broke up late in 1974. Four years later, the first two Big Star LPs were released together in the UK as a double album. The band's third album was finally issued soon afterward; titled Third/Sister Lovers, it found limited commercial success, but has since become a cult classic. Shortly thereafter, Chris Bell was killed in a car accident at the age of 27.
During the group's hiatus in the 1980s, the Big Star discography drew renewed attention when R.E.M. and the Replacements, as well as other popular bands, cited the group as an influence. In 1992, interest was further stimulated by Rykodisc's reissues of the band's albums, complemented by a collection of Bell's solo work.
In 1993, Chilton and Stephens reformed Big Star with recruits Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, and gave a concert at the University of Missouri. The band remained active, performing tours in Europe and Japan, and released a new studio album, In Space, in 2005. Chilton died in March 2010 after suffering from heart problems. Hummel died of cancer four months later. These deaths left Stephens as the sole surviving founding member. Big Star was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2014.
Since December 2010, several surviving members have appeared in a series of live tribute performances of the album Third/Sister Lovers, under the billing "Big Star's Third". As of 2017, that project has remained active.
## First era: 1971–1974
### Formation of the band
From 1967 to 1970, Chilton was the lead singer for the blue-eyed soul group the Box Tops, who scored a No. 1 hit with the song "The Letter" when he was 16. After leaving the group, he recorded a solo studio album. He was offered the role of lead vocalist for Blood, Sweat & Tears, but turned down the offer as "too commercial". Chilton had known Chris Bell for some time: Both lived in Memphis, each had spent time recording music at Ardent Studios, and each, when aged 13, had been impressed by the music of the Beatles during the band's 1964 debut U.S. tour. A song Chilton wrote nearly six years after he first witnessed a Beatles performance, "Thirteen", referred to the event with the line "rock 'n' roll is here to stay".
Chilton asked Bell to work with him as a duo modeled on Simon & Garfunkel; Bell declined, but invited Chilton to a performance by his own band, Icewater, comprising Bell, drummer Jody Stephens, and bassist Andy Hummel. Attracted by Icewater's music, Chilton showed the three his new song "Watch the Sunrise", and was asked to join the band. Both "Watch the Sunrise" and "Thirteen" were subsequently included on Big Star's first album, \#1 Record.
The now four-piece band adopted the name Big Star when one member was given the idea from a grocery store often visited for snacks during recording sessions. One of many Big Star Markets outlets in the Memphis region at the time, it had a logo consisting of a five-pointed star enclosing the words "Big Star"; as well as the store's name, the band used its logo but without the word "Star" to avoid infringing copyright.
### \#1 Record
Although all four members contributed to songwriting and vocals on the first album, Chilton and Bell dominated as a duo intentionally modeled on John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The album was recorded by Ardent founder John Fry, with Terry Manning contributing occasional backing vocals and keyboards. The title \#1 Record was decided towards the end of the recording sessions and evinced, albeit as a playful hope rather than a serious expectation, the chart position to be achieved by a big star. Although Fry—at the band's insistence—was credited as "executive producer", publicly he insisted that "the band themselves really produced these records". Fry recalled how Ardent, one of the first recording studios to use a sixteen-track tape machine, worked experimentally with the band members: "We started recording the songs with the intent that if it turned out OK we'd put it out [...] I wound up being the one that primarily worked on it: I recorded all the tracks and then they would often come late at night and do overdubs. One by one, they all learned enough engineering."
Describing the mix of musical styles present on \#1 Record, Rolling Stone's Bud Scoppa notes that the album includes "reflective and acoustic" numbers, saying that "even the prettiest tunes have tension and subtle energy to them, and the rockers reverberate with power". Scoppa finds that in each mode, "the guitar sound is sharp-edged and full". \#1 Record was released in June 1972, and quickly received strong reviews. Billboard went as far as to say, "Every cut could be a single". Rolling Stone judged the album "exceptionally good", while Cashbox stated, "This album is one of those red-letter days when everything falls together as a total sound", and called it "an important record that should go to the top with proper handling".
Proper handling, however, was not forthcoming: Stax Records proved unable to either promote or distribute the record with any degree of success, and even when the band's own efforts to get airplay generated interest, fans were unable to buy it as Stax could not make it available in many stores. Stax, in an effort to improve its catalog's availability, signed a deal with Columbia Records, already successful distributors in the U.S., making Columbia responsible for the entire Stax catalog. But Columbia had no interest in dealing with the independent distributors previously used by Stax and removed even the existing copies of \#1 Record from the stores.
### Radio City
The frustration at \#1 Record's obstructed sales contributed to tension within the band. There was physical fighting between members: Bell, after being punched in the face by Hummel, retaliated by smashing Hummel's new bass guitar to pieces against the wall. Hummel took revenge at a later date: Finding Bell's acoustic guitar in the latter's unattended car, he repeatedly punched it with a screwdriver. In November 1972, Bell quit the band. When work continued on songs for a second album, Bell rejoined, but further conflict soon erupted. A master tape of the new songs inexplicably went missing, and Bell, whose heavy drug intake was affecting his judgment, attacked Fry's parked car. In late 1972, struggling with severe depression, Bell quit the band once more, and by the end of the year Big Star disbanded.
After a few months Chilton, Stephens, and Hummel decided to reform Big Star, and the three resumed work on the second album. The title chosen, Radio City, continued the play on the theme of a big star's popularity and success, expressing what biographer Robert Gordon calls the band's "romantic expectation". As Hummel put it:
> This was probably pretty lame, but in those days putting any word in front of the noun "city" to sort of emphasize the totality and pervasiveness of it was just a way of talking people had. If someone suggested going to a store but you had gotten a bad deal there you might say, "Oh no, that place is 'rip off city'." Calling an LP Radio City would be kind of wishful thinking. I mean we hoped it would be played on the radio a lot, making it "radio city". Of course it didn't pan out that way...
Stephens recalled: "Radio City, for me, was just an amazing record. Being a three-piece really opened things up for me in terms of playing drums. Drums take on a different role in a three-piece band, so it was a lot of fun. [...] Radio City was really more spontaneous, and the performances were pretty close to live performances."
Although uncredited, Bell contributed to the writing of some of the album's songs, including "O My Soul" and "Back of a Car". Shortly before the album's release, Hummel left the band: judging that it would not last, and in his final year at college, he elected to concentrate on his studies and live a more normal life. He was replaced by John Lightman for a short tenure prior to the band dissolving.
Rolling Stone's Ken Barnes, describing the musical style of Radio City, opens by noting as a backdrop that the band's debut, \#1 Record, established them as "one of the leading new American bands working in the mid-Sixties pop and rock vein". Radio City, Barnes finds, has "plenty of shimmering pop delights", although "the opening tune, 'O My Soul,' is a foreboding, sprawling funk affair"; Barnes concludes that "Sometimes they sound like the Byrds, sometimes like the early Who, but usually like their own indescribable selves".
Radio City was released in February 1974 and, like \#1 Record, received excellent reviews. Record reported, "The sound is stimulating, the musicianship superb, and the result is tight and rollickingly rhythmic." Billboard judged it "a highly commercial set". Rolling Stone's Bud Scoppa, then with Phonograph Record, affirmed, "Alex Chilton has now emerged as a major talent, and he'll be heard from again". Cashbox called it "a collection of excellent material that hopefully will break this deserving band in a big way". But just as \#1 Record had fallen victim to poor marketing, so too did Radio City. Columbia, now in complete control of the Stax catalog, refused to process it following a disagreement. Without a distributor, sales of Radio City, though far greater than those of \#1 Record, were minimal at only around 20,000 copies.
### Third/Sister Lovers
In September 1974, eight months after the release of Radio City, Chilton and Stephens returned to Ardent Studios to work on a third album. They were assisted by producer Jim Dickinson and an assortment of musicians (including drummer Richard Rosebrough) and Lesa Aldridge, Chilton's girlfriend, who contributed on vocals. The sessions and mixing were completed in early 1975, and 250 copies of the album were pressed with plain labels for promotional use.
Parke Putterbaugh of Rolling Stone described Third/Sister Lovers as "extraordinary". It is, he wrote, "Chilton's untidy masterpiece. [...] beautiful and disturbing"; "vehemently original"; of "haunting brilliance":
> To listen to it is to be "plunged into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Songs are drenched in strings and sweet sentiment one minute, starkly played and downcast the next. No pop song has ever bottomed out more than "Holocaust", an anguished plaint sung at a snail's pace over discordant slide-guitar fragments and moaning cello [...] On the up side, there's the delicious pop minuet "Stroke It Noel", the anticipatory magic of "Nightime" ("Caught a glance in your eyes and fell through the skies," Chilton rhapsodizes) [...] Big Star's baroque, guitar-driven pop reaches its apotheosis on songs like "Kizza Me", "Thank You Friends" and "O, Dana". [...] Without question, Third is one of the most idiosyncratic, deeply felt and fully realized albums in the pop idiom.
Fry and Dickinson flew to New York with promotional copies and met employees of a number of record labels, but could not generate interest in the album. When a similar promotion attempt failed in California, the album was shelved as it was considered not commercial enough for release. Fry recalled, "We'd go in and play it and these guys would look at us like we were crazy". In late 1974, before the album was even named, the band broke up, bringing Big Star's first era to its end. Dickinson later said that he was "nailed for indulging Alex on Big Star Third, but I think it is important that the artist is enabled to perform with integrity. What I did for Alex was literally remove the yoke of oppressive production that he had been under since the first time he ever uttered a word into a microphone, for good or ill."
Since quitting the band in 1972, Bell had spent time in several different countries trying to develop his solo career. In 1978, after his return to Memphis, the first two Big Star albums were released together in the U.K. as a double album, drawing enthusiastic reviews and interest from fans. Soon afterward, Big Star's recognition grew further when, four years after its completion, the third album too was released in both the U.S. and the U.K. By now, the hitherto untitled Third/Sister Lovers had become known by several unofficial names, including Third (reflecting its position in the discography), Beale Street Green (acknowledging the legendary site nearby, once a focal point for Memphis blues musicians), and Sister Lovers (because during the album's recording sessions, Chilton and Stephens were dating sisters Lesa and Holliday Aldridge).
Not long after the release of Third/Sister Lovers, Bell died in a car accident. He apparently lost control of his car while driving alone and was killed when he struck a lamp post after hitting the curb a hundred feet before. A blood test found that he was not drunk at the time, and no drugs were found on him other than a bottle of vitamins. Bell is believed to have either fallen asleep at the wheel or become distracted.
## Second era: 1993–2010
Big Star returned in 1993 with a new lineup when guitarist Jon Auer and bassist Ken Stringfellow joined Chilton and Stephens. Auer and Stringfellow remained members of the Posies, founded by the pair in 1986. Stringfellow is also known for his work with R.E.M. and the Minus 5. Hummel elected not to participate. First-era material dominated Big Star's performances, with the occasional addition of a song from the 2005 album In Space.
Stringfellow recalled that during the 1990s, "We were working out the set list and we went to this little cafe. Little did I know we'd be playing that set for the next ten years". The resurrected band made its debut at the 1993 University of Missouri spring music festival. A recording of the performance was issued on CD by Zoo Records as Columbia: Live at Missouri University. The concert was followed by tours of Europe and Japan, as well as an appearance on The Tonight Show.
Big Star's first post-reunion studio recording was the song "Hot Thing", recorded in the mid-1990s for the Big Star tribute album Big Star, Small World. As with their prior studio release, however, the tribute album was delayed for years due to its record company going under. Originally scheduled for a 1998 release on Ignition Records, the album was eventually released in 2006 on Koch Records.
In Space was released on September 27, 2005, on the Rykodisc label. Recorded during 2004, the album consisted of new material mostly co-written by Chilton, Stephens, Auer, and Stringfellow. Reviewing In Space, Rolling Stone's David Fricke first pointed out that the context of the release was now "a world expecting that American Beatles ideal all over again" from a band that "achieved its power-pop perfection when no one else was looking." In Fricke's estimation, this seemingly unrealistic expectation was met in part: "It's here – in the jangly longing and ice-wall harmonies of 'Lady Sweet'" — however, Fricke found that the successful songs were interleaved with "the eccentric R&B and demo-quality glam rock that have made Chilton's solo records a mixed blessing," and that "'A Whole New Thing' starts out like old T.Rex, then goes nowhere special." Warming nevertheless to "the rough sunshine" of "Best Chance", Fricke concluded, "In Space is no \#1 Record, but at its brightest, it is Big Star in every way."
The band appeared at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium on October 20, 2007. San Francisco-based band Oranger performed as opening act. Big Star performed at the 2008 Rhythm Festival, staged from August 29–31 in Bedfordshire, U.K. On June 16, 2009, the \#1 Record/Radio City double album was reissued in remastered form. The same month, it was announced that a film of Big Star's history, based on biographer Rob Jovanovic's book Big Star: The Story of Rock's Forgotten Band, was in pre-production. On July 1, 2009, Big Star performed at a concert in Hyde Park, London, U.K. On September 15, 2009, Rhino Records issued a four-CD box set containing 98 recordings made between 1968 and 1975. Keep an Eye on the Sky included live and demo versions of Big Star songs, solo work, and material from Bell's earlier bands Rock City and Icewater. On November 18, 2009, the band performed at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple in New York City.
## Post-Chilton releases and tributes
### Alex Chilton memorial shows
On March 17, 2010, Chilton suffered a fatal heart attack. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. Big Star had been scheduled to play at SXSW Music Festival that same week. The remaining members, joined by special guests original bassist Andy Hummel, M. Ward, Evan Dando, R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, and Chris Stamey, staged the concert as a tribute to him.
### "Big Star's Third" shows
Four months after Chilton's death, Hummel died of cancer on July 19, 2010. Asked about the band's plans after the death of Chilton and Hummel, Stephens told Billboard, "It's music we all really love to play, and we love to play it together, so we're trying to figure out a way forward where we can keep doing it." In a Rolling Stone interview, Stephens said that the May 2010 tribute performance would be the group's final show as Big Star, although not his last show with Auer and Stringfellow, stating, "I can't see us going out as Big Star ... But I would hate to compound the loss of Alex by saying,'That's it' for Ken and Jon, too. I can't imagine not playing with them. There's so much fun—but an emotional bond there too."
In December 2010, under the billing "Big Star's Third", Stephens teamed with Mitch Easter, Stamey, and Mills, along with a string section, to perform a live tribute performance of Big Star's album Third/Sister Lovers in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Joined by additional performers such as Matthew Sweet, Big Star's Third was performed in a similar tribute concert in New York City on March 26, 2011, and at the Barbican in London on May 28, 2012. The project continued with concerts in Chicago and New York in 2013, a January 2014 concert in Sydney, Australia, and a series of U.S. shows that included Seattle's Bumbershoot festival on August 31, 2014. In November 2014, Auer and Stringfellow rejoined Stephens, Easter, Stamey, and Mills for a free benefit performance in Athens, Georgia. As of 2017, Big Star's Third were still performing.
On April 21, 2017, Concord Records released a Big Star's Third live concert documentary on two DVDs, along with a three-CD live album, both titled Thank You, Friends: Big Star's Third Live... and More. The concert was performed in April 2016 at Glendale, California's Alex Theatre.
### Posthumous releases
In June 2011, Ardent Records released the EP Live Tribute to Alex Chilton, and Stephens confirmed on the Ardent blog that the tribute performance in May 2010 was the last performance for Big Star as a band. A documentary titled Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012), directed by Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori, chronicled the group's career and band members' solo efforts. In 2013, the documentary was released in theaters and on DVD, and it had a limited theatrical re-release in England in August 2014. In November 2014, Live in Memphis was released by Omnivore Recordings on CD, vinyl, and as a DVD of Big Star's performance of October 29, 1994, their only known show to be professionally filmed in its entirety. According to Mojo, the DVD documents how Big Star's 1990s lineup defied expectations and endured for another 16 years: "Chilton's musicality is mesmerising as he drives the band. ... Alternating between lead and rhythm, he plays with a mix of laser focus and utter insouciant cool."
## Musical style and influences
Bell took up guitar when 12 or 13, but only on hearing the first Beatles records was he motivated to play the instrument regularly. He acted as lead and rhythm guitarist and vocalist for a sequence of bands, performing songs by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies, and the Animals. Chilton's first awareness of music came at the age of 6 when his brother repeatedly played a record by the Coasters. His father's liking for jazz then exposed him over the next few years to the music of Glenn Miller, Ray Charles, and Dave Brubeck. Chilton's enthusiasm for music took hold when at age 13 he first heard Beatles records; he recalled having known of 1950s rock 'n' roll, but "by 1959 Elvis was syrup and Jerry Lee was pretty much gone, and the rockabilly thing was sort of over so I didn't get really caught up in the rock scene until the Beatles came along".
Chilton took up electric guitar at 13, playing along with Beatles songs, later saying, "I really loved the mid-sixties British pop music [...] all two and a half minutes or three minutes long, really appealing songs. So I've always aspired to that same format, that's what I like. Not to mention the rhythm and blues and the Stax stuff, too". Chilton abandoned his guitar-playing during his time with the Box Tops and then took up the instrument again; he met Roger McGuinn, guitarist for the Byrds, and developed particular interest in electric guitar and acoustic folk. Stephens enjoyed the music of Otis Redding, the Isley Brothers, the Who, the Kinks, and especially the Beatles.
Hummel likewise was a member of more than one band during his early musical years, again influenced by the Beatles and other British Invasion acts. The bassist also played acoustic guitar for personal enjoyment, following the styles of Simon & Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell and using finger-picking techniques to play folk and bluegrass. Most songs on the first three albums are credited to either Bell/Chilton or Chilton, but some credit Hummel, Stephens and others, as either writer or co-writer. At the only seven live performances in the original era, the last of which took place before the second album's release, all four members contributed vocally.
While primarily inspired by the music of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands, acknowledging too the jangle pop and power pop of the period, Big Star also incorporated dark, nihilistic themes to produce a striking blend of musical and lyrical styles. The body of work resulting from the first era was a precursor of the alternative rock of the 1980s and 1990s, at the same time yielding material today considered an outstanding example of power pop. The stylistic range is evident from modern day critiques. Bogdanov et al., commenting on \#1 Record in their All Music Guide to Rock, perceive in "The Ballad of El Goodo" a "luminous, melancholy ballad", whereas John Borack's Ultimate Power Pop Guide singles out Radio City's "September Gurls" as a "glorious, glittering jewel" of power pop.
Borack notes too that Third/Sister Lovers is "slower, darker and a good deal weirder" than the first two albums, identifying "Holocaust" as "Alex Chilton at his haunting best", yet finds "Thank You Friends" exemplifying "left-field gems" also present in which "the hooks are every bit as undeniable" as before. Jovanovic writes that when recording what Peter Buckley in his Rough Guide to Rock terms the "snarling guitar rock" of the first album's "Don't Lie to Me", the band, deeming conventional instruments inadequate for the task, wheeled two Norton Commando motorcycles into the studio and gunned the engines to intensify the song's bridge. Bogdanov et al. reserve "snarl" for a Radio City song, "Mod Lang"; here Buckley writes that "the power of the performance and the erratic mix gave a sense of chaos which only added to the thrill".
## Legacy and influence
Although Big Star's first era came to an end in 1974, the band acquired a cult following in the 1980s when new acts began to acknowledge the early material's significance. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck admitted, "We've sort of flirted with greatness, but we've yet to make a record as good as Revolver or Highway 61 Revisited or Exile on Main Street or Big Star's Third. I don't know what it'll take to push us on to that level, but I think we've got it in us." Chilton, however, told an interviewer in 1992, "I'm constantly surprised that people fall for Big Star the way they do... People say Big Star made some of the best rock 'n roll albums ever. And I say they're wrong."
In 2014, Paul Stanley cited Big Star as an influence to early Kiss moments: "We've always been about verses, choruses, bridges (...) It's called a hook for a reason, because it grabs you. And that's my mentality. Give me the Raspberries. Give me Small Faces. Give me Big Star."
Critics have continued to cite Big Star's first three albums as a profound influence on subsequent musicians. Rolling Stone notes that Big Star "created a seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations of rockers, from the power-pop revivalists of the late 1970s to alternative rockers at the end of the century to the indie rock nation in the new millennium". Jason Ankeny, music critic for AllMusic, identifies Big Star as "one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll", whose "impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic is surpassed only by that of the Velvet Underground". Ankeny describes Big Star's second album, Radio City, as "their masterpiece—ragged and raw guitar-pop infused with remarkable intensity and spontaneity".
In 1992, Rykodisc generated further interest in the band when it reissued Third/Sister Lovers and released a posthumous compilation of Bell's solo material, I Am the Cosmos. In his 2007 book Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide, John Borack ranks the \#1 Record/Radio City double album at No. 2 in his chart "The 200 Greatest Power Pop Albums". Rolling Stone includes \#1 Record, Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers in The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and "September Gurls" and "Thirteen" in The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In addition to R.E.M., artists including Teenage Fanclub, The Replacements, Primal Scream, the Posies, and Bill Lloyd and the dB's cite Big Star as an inspiration, and the band's influence on Game Theory, Matthew Sweet, and Velvet Crush is also acknowledged.
- A cover version of "September Gurls" appeared on the Bangles' 1986 triple platinum album Different Light. "September Gurls", Borack wrote, "was and is the sine qua non of power pop, a glorious, glittering jewel with every facet cut and shined to absolute perfection.... a peerless, aching distillation of love and longing. 'September Gurls' may not actually be the greatest song ever recorded, but for the duration of its 2:47 running time, you can be forgiven for believing it is."
- The 1987 tribute song "Alex Chilton", co-written by three members of the Replacements, was released as a single from the album Pleased to Meet Me and contains the lyric "I never travel far without a little Big Star."
- "I'm in Love with a Girl" from Radio City features in the soundtrack of the 2009 film Adventureland.
- In 1998, an ad hoc, shortened version of \#1 Record's "In the Street" (recorded by Todd Griffin) was used as the theme song for the sitcom That '70s Show, and in 1999, a new version titled "That '70s Song (In the Street)" was recorded by Cheap Trick also specifically for the show. "That '70s Song" and Big Star's own "September Gurls" are included on the 1999 album That '70s Album (Rockin') released by the television program's producers.
- The 2006 tribute album Big Star, Small World includes Big Star covers by the Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms, Wilco, the Afghan Whigs, and Whiskeytown, among others.
- Lucero, a Memphis, Tennessee-based alternative country band, covered "I'm in Love with a Girl" on their 2015 release All a Man Should Do, an album which takes its title from a lyric in the song. Founding member Jody Stephens, and later additions to Big Star, provide backup on the track.
- "Thirteen" from Big Star is featured in the 2020 Disney+ film Stargirl. The song is then sung by the two leads, Grace VanderWaal as Susan "Stargirl" Caraway and Graham Verchere as Leo Borlock.
## Personnel
- Alex Chilton – guitars, piano, vocals (1971–1974, 1993–2010; died 2010)
- Jody Stephens – drums, vocals (1971–1974, 1993–2010)
- Chris Bell – guitars, vocals (1971–1972; died 1978)
- Andy Hummel – bass guitar, vocals (1971–1973, 2010; died 2010)
- John Lightman – bass guitar, backing vocals (1974)
- Jon Auer – guitar, vocals (1993–2010)
- Ken Stringfellow – bass guitar, vocals, keyboards (1993–2010)
### Timeline
## Discography
Studio albums
\*#1 Record (Ardent/Stax, 1972)
- Radio City (Ardent/Stax, 1974)
- Third/Sister Lovers (PVC, 1978)
- In Space (Rykodisc, 2005)
Live albums
- Live (Rykodisc, 1992)
- Columbia: Live at Missouri University 4/25/93 (Zoo, 1993)
- Nobody Can Dance (Norton, 1999) – rehearsals and live recordings
- Live Tribute at the Levitt Shell (Ardent, 2011) – Big Star with John Davis
- Live in Memphis (Omnivore, 2014) – Big Star live on October 29, 1994
- Complete Columbia: Live at University of Missouri University 4/25/93 (Volcano/Legacy, 2016)
- Live at Lafayette's Music Room – Memphis, TN (Omnivore, 2018) – Big Star live in January 1973
- Live On WLIR (Omnivore, 2019) – Remastered and restored performance originally recorded and broadcast in 1974
Compilations
- Biggest (Line Records, 1994) – greatest hits
- The Best of (Big Beat Records, 1999) – greatest hits
- Big Star Story (Rykodisc, 2003) – greatest hits with one new track
- Keep an Eye on the Sky (Rhino, 2009) – box set with a live disc
- Nothing Can Hurt Me (Omnivore Recordings, 2013) – soundtrack to movie
- Playlist (1972–2005) (Legacy Recordings, 2013) – first compilation to cover all eras of band
- Complete Third (Omnivore, 2016) – complete recordings from the Third sessions
- The Best of Big Star (Craft Recordings, 2017) – greatest hits with some rare mixes and edits of songs
Big Star's Third
- Thank You, Friends: Big Star's Third Live... and More (2017, Concord) – Big Star's Third concert, recorded live in April 2016 (3 CDs)
## Videography
Big Star
- Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (Magnolia, DVD, 2012)
- Live in Memphis (Omnivore, DVD, 2014) – Big Star live on October 29, 1994
Big Star's Third
- Thank You, Friends: Big Star's Third Live... and More (2017, Concord) – concert documentary of Big Star's Third live performance in April 2016 (2 DVDs)
|
278,492 |
Moe Berg
| 1,173,878,358 |
American baseball player and spy (1902–1972)
|
[
"1902 births",
"1972 deaths",
"20th-century American Jews",
"Accidental deaths from falls",
"Accidental deaths in New Jersey",
"American spies against the Soviet Union",
"Barringer High School alumni",
"Baseball players from New York City",
"Baseball players from Newark, New Jersey",
"Boston Red Sox coaches",
"Boston Red Sox players",
"Brooklyn Robins players",
"Chicago White Sox players",
"Cleveland Indians players",
"Columbia Law School alumni",
"Jewish American baseball coaches",
"Jewish American baseball players",
"Jewish Major League Baseball players",
"Major League Baseball catchers",
"Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players",
"People of the Office of Strategic Services",
"Princeton Tigers baseball players",
"Reading Keystones players",
"Sportspeople from Manhattan",
"Toledo Mud Hens players",
"Washington Senators (1901–1960) players",
"World War II spies for the United States"
] |
Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball, who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, Berg was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".
A graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read ten newspapers a day. His reputation as an intellectual was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show Information Please, in which he answered questions about the etymology of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences.
As a spy working for the government of the United States, Berg traveled to Yugoslavia to gather intelligence on resistance groups which the U.S. government was considering supporting. He was sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the German nuclear weapons program. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the OSS's successor, the Central Intelligence Agency.
## Early life and education
Berg was the third and youngest child of Bernard Berg, a pharmacist who emigrated from Ukraine, and his wife Rose (née Tashker), a homemaker, both Jewish, who lived in the Harlem section of New York City, a few blocks from the Polo Grounds stadium. When Berg was three and a half, he begged his mother to let him start school.
In 1906, Bernard Berg bought a pharmacy in West Newark and the family moved there. In 1910 the Berg family moved again, to the Roseville section of Newark. Roseville offered Bernard Berg everything he wanted in a neighborhood—good schools, middle-class residents, and few Jews.
Berg began playing baseball at the age of seven for the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church baseball team under the pseudonym "Runt Wolfe". In 1918, at the age of 16, Berg graduated from Barringer High School. During his senior season, the Newark Star-Eagle selected a nine-man "dream team" for 1918 from the city's best prep and public high school baseball players, and Berg was named the team's third baseman. Barringer was the first of a series of institutions where Berg's religion made him unusual at the time. Most of the other students were East Side Italian Catholics or Protestants from the Forest Hill neighborhood. His father had wanted an environment with few Jews.
After graduating from Barringer, Berg enrolled in New York University. He spent two semesters there and also played baseball and basketball. In 1919 he transferred to Princeton University and never again referred to having attended NYU for a year, presenting himself exclusively as a Princeton man. Berg received a B.A., magna cum laude in modern languages. He had studied seven languages: Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskrit, studying with the philologist Harold H. Bender. His Jewish heritage and modest finances combined to keep him on the fringes of Princeton social life, where he never quite fit in.
During his freshman year, Berg played first base on an undefeated team. Beginning in his sophomore year, he was the starting shortstop. He was not a great hitter and was a slow baserunner, but he had a strong, accurate throwing arm and sound baseball instincts. In his senior season, he was captain of the team and had a .337 batting average, batting .611 against Princeton's arch-rivals, Harvard and Yale. Berg and Crossan Cooper, Princeton's second baseman, communicated plays in Latin when there was an opposing player on second base.
On June 26, 1923, Yale defeated Princeton 5–1 at Yankee Stadium to win the Big Three title. Berg had an outstanding day, getting two hits in four at bats (2–4) with a single and a double, and making several marvelous plays at shortstop. Both the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Robins (the team became known as the Brooklyn Dodgers starting in 1932) desired "Jewish blood" on their teams, to appeal to the large Jewish community in New York, and expressed interest in Berg. The Giants were especially interested, but they already had two shortstops, Dave "Beauty" Bancroft and Travis Jackson, who were future Hall of Famers. The Robins were a mediocre team, on which Berg would have a better chance to play. On June 27, 1923, Berg signed his first big league contract for \$5,000 (\$ today) with the Robins.
## Major league career
### Early career (1923–1925)
Berg's first game with the Robins was on June 27, 1923, against the Philadelphia Phillies at the Baker Bowl. Berg came in at the start of the seventh inning, replacing Ivy Olson at shortstop, when the Robins were winning 13–4. Berg handled five chances without an error, and caught a line drive to start a game-ending double play. He got a hit in two at bats, singling up the middle against Clarence Mitchell, and scoring a run. For the season, Berg batted .187 and made 21 errors in 47 games, his only National League experience.
After the season ended, Berg took his first trip abroad, sailing from New York to Paris. He settled in the Latin Quarter in an apartment that overlooked the Sorbonne, where he enrolled in 32 different classes. In Paris he developed a habit he kept for the rest of his life: reading several newspapers daily. Until Berg finished reading a paper, he considered it "alive" and refused to let anyone else touch it. When he was finished with it, he would consider the paper "dead" and anybody could read it. In January 1924, instead of returning to New York and getting into shape for the upcoming baseball season, Berg toured Italy and Switzerland.
During spring training at the Robins facility in Clearwater, Florida, manager Wilbert Robinson could see that Berg's hitting had not improved, and optioned him to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. Berg did not take the demotion well and threatened to quit baseball, but by mid-April he reported to the Millers. Berg did very well once he became the Millers' regular third baseman, hitting close to .330, but in July his average plummeted and he was back on the bench. On August 19, 1924, Berg was lent to the Toledo Mud Hens, a poor team ravaged by injuries. Berg was inserted into the lineup at shortstop when Rabbit Helgeth refused to pay a \$10 (\$ today) fine for poor play and was suspended. Major league scout Mike González sent a telegram to the Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field, no hit." Berg finished the season with a .264 average.
By April 1925, Berg was starting to show promise as a hitter with the Reading Keystones of the International League. Because of his .311 batting average and 124 runs batted in, the Chicago White Sox exercised their option with Reading, paying \$6,000 (\$ today) for him, and moved Berg up to the big leagues the following year.
### Career as a catcher (1926–1934)
The 1926 season began with Berg informing the White Sox that he would skip spring training and the first two months of the season in order to complete his first year at Columbia Law School. He did not join the White Sox until May 28. Bill Hunnefield was signed by the White Sox to take Berg's place at shortstop, and was having a very good year, batting over .300. Berg played in only 41 games, batting .221.
Berg returned to Columbia Law School after the season to continue studying for his law degree. Despite White Sox owner Charles Comiskey offering him more money to come to spring training, Berg declined, and informed the White Sox that he would be reporting late for the 1927 season. Noel Dowling, a professor to whom Berg explained his situation, told Berg to take extra classes in the fall, and said that he would arrange with the dean a leave of absence from law school the following year, 1928.
Because he reported late, Berg spent the first three months of the season on the bench. In August, a series of injuries to catchers Ray Schalk, Harry McCurdy, and Buck Crouse left the White Sox in need of somebody to play the position. Schalk, the White Sox player/manager, selected Berg, who did a fine job filling in. Schalk arranged for former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Frank Bruggy to meet the team at their next game, against the New York Yankees. Bruggy was so fat that pitcher Ted Lyons refused to pitch to him. When Schalk asked Lyons whom he wanted to catch, the pitcher selected Berg.
In Berg's debut as a starting catcher, he had to worry not only about catching Lyons' knuckleball, but also about facing the Yankees' Murderers' Row lineup, which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Earle Combs. Lyons beat the Yankees 6–3, holding Ruth hitless. Berg made the defensive play of the game when he caught a poor throw from the outfield, spun and tagged out Joe Dugan at the plate. He caught eight more times during the final month and a half of the season.
To prepare for the 1928 season, Berg went to work at a lumber camp in New York's Adirondack Mountains three weeks before reporting to the White Sox spring training facility in Shreveport, Louisiana. The hard labor did wonders for him, and he reported to spring training on March 2, 1928, in excellent shape. By the end of the season, Berg had established himself as the starting catcher. In 1928, he led all AL catchers in caught-stealing percentage (60.9), was third in the AL in double plays by a catcher, with 8, and fifth in the American League in assists by a catcher, with 52. At the plate, he batted .246 with a career-high 16 doubles.
At law school, Berg failed Evidence and did not graduate with the class of 1929, but he passed the New York State bar exam. He repeated Evidence the following year, and on February 26, 1930, received his LL.B. On April 6, during an exhibition game against the Little Rock Travelers, his spikes caught in the soil as he tried to change direction, and he tore a knee ligament. In 1929, he was second in the American League in both double plays by a catcher (12) and assists by a catcher (86), caught the third-most attempted base stealers in the league (41), and was fourth in the league in caught-stealing percentage (47.7%). He had perhaps his best season at bat, hitting .287 with 47 RBIs.
He was back in the starting lineup on May 23, 1930, but was prevented from daily play because of his knee. He played in 20 games during the whole season and finished with a .115 batting average. During the winter, he took a job with the respected Wall Street law firm Satterlee and Canfield (now Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke).
The Cleveland Indians picked him up on April 2, 1931, when Chicago put him on waivers, but he played in only 10 games, with 13 at-bats and only 1 hit for the entire season.
The Indians gave him his unconditional release in January 1932. With catchers hard to come by, Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, invited Berg to spring training in Biloxi, Mississippi. He made the team, playing in 75 games while not committing an error, and was second in the AL in double plays by a catcher, with 9, and in caught-stealing percentage, at 54.3%. When starting catcher Roy Spencer went down with an injury, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 baserunners while batting .236.
### First trip to Japan
Retired ballplayer Herb Hunter arranged for three players, Berg, Lefty O'Doul, and Ted Lyons, to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities during the winter of 1932. On October 22, 1932, the group of three players began their circuit of Meiji, Waseda, Rikkyo, Todai (Tokyo Imperial), Hosei, and Keio universities, the members of the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League. When the other Americans returned to the United States after their coaching assignments were over, Berg stayed behind to explore Japan. He then went on to tour Manchuria, Shanghai, and Peking, China; Indochina, Siam, India, Egypt, and Berlin, Germany.
Despite his desire to return to Japan, Berg reported to the Senators training camp on February 26, 1933, in Biloxi. He played in 40 games during the season and batted a disappointing .185. The Senators won the pennant, but lost to the Giants in the World Series. Cliff Bolton, the Senators' starting catcher in 1933, demanded more money in 1934. When the Senators refused to pay him more, he sat out and Berg got the starting job. On April 22, Berg made an error, his first fielding mistake since 1932. He had an American League record of 117 consecutive errorless games. On July 25, the Senators gave Berg his unconditional release. He soon returned to the big leagues, however, after Cleveland Indians catcher Glenn Myatt broke his ankle on August 1. Indians manager Walter Johnson, who had managed Berg in 1932, offered Berg the reserve catching job. Berg played sporadically until Frankie Pytlak, Cleveland's starting catcher, injured himself, and Berg became the starting catcher.
### Second trip to Japan
Herb Hunter arranged for a group of All-Stars, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Gomez, to tour Japan playing exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. Although Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he was invited at the last minute to make the trip. Berg had contracted with Movietone News, a New York City newsreel production company, to film sights from his trip; he took a 16-mm Bell & Howell movie camera and a letter from the company attesting to this. When the team arrived in Japan, Berg gave a welcome speech in Japanese; he also was invited to address the legislature.
On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya, Berg went to Saint Luke's Hospital in Tsukiji, ostensibly to visit the daughter of American Ambassador Joseph Grew. However, when Berg arrived he immediately went to the roof of the hospital which was one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and port with his movie camera. In 1942, Berg provided American intelligence with his photos of the city in case they were of use to plan bombing raids. He never did see the ambassador's daughter. While Berg was in Japan, the Indians notified him of his unconditional release. Berg continued to travel to the Philippines, Korea, and Moscow of the Soviet Union.
### Late career and coaching (1935–1941)
After his return to America, Berg was picked up by the Boston Red Sox. In his five seasons with the Red Sox, Berg averaged fewer than 30 games a season.
On February 21, 1939, Berg made his first of three appearances on the radio quiz show Information, Please. Berg had a dazzling performance. Of his appearance, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis told him, "Berg, in just thirty minutes you did more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner". On his third appearance, Clifton Fadiman, the moderator, started asking Berg what the latter thought were too many personal questions. Berg did not answer any of them and never appeared on the show again. Regular show guest and sportswriter John Kieran later said, "Moe was the most scholarly professional athlete (I) ever knew."
After his playing career ended, Berg worked as a Red Sox coach in 1940 and 1941. Berg punctuated his career in baseball with "Pitchers and Catchers," a widely admired valedictory essay on the meaning and playing of the game, published in the September 1941 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. A 2018 profile of Berg in The New York Times described the essay as "still one of the most insightful works ever penned about the game."
## Post-baseball career
### Spying for the U.S. government
With the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II. To do his part for the war effort, Berg accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) on January 5, 1942. Nine days later, his father, Bernard, died. During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he had shot of Tokyo Bay for intelligence officers of the United States military. (At one time it was thought his film may have helped Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle plan his famous Doolittle Raid, but the raid was conducted well before the summer, on April 18, 1942.)
From August 1942 to February 1943, Berg was on assignment in the Caribbean and South America. His job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of the American troops stationed there. Berg, along with several other OIAA agents, left in June 1943 because they thought South America posed little threat to the United States. They wanted to be assigned to locations where their talents would be put to better use.
On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services Special Operations Branch (SO) for a salary of \$3,800 (\$ today) a year. He was a paramilitary operations officer in the part of the OSS that developed as the present-day CIA Special Activities Division. In September, he was assigned to the OSS Secret Intelligence branch (SI), and given a spot on the OSS SI Balkans desk. In this role, based in Washington, he remotely monitored the situation in Yugoslavia. He assisted and helped prepare Slavic-Americans recruited by the OSS to go on dangerous parachute drop missions into Yugoslavia.
In late 1943, Berg was assigned to Project Larson, an OSS operation set up by OSS Chief of Special Projects John Shaheen. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket and missile specialists in Italy and bring them to the U.S. Another project hidden within Larson was called Project AZUSA, which had the goal of interviewing Italian physicists to learn what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. It was similar in scope and mission to the Alsos project.
From May to mid-December 1944, Berg hopped around Europe, interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in the United States. At the beginning of December, news about Heisenberg giving a lecture in Zürich reached the OSS. Berg was assigned to attend the lecture and determine "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb." If Berg concluded that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. On orders direct from President Franklin Roosevelt, Berg persuaded Antonio Ferri, who had served as the head of the supersonic research program in Italy, to relocate to the United States and take part in supersonic aircraft development here. When Berg returned with Ferri, Roosevelt commented "I see that Moe Berg is still catching very well". During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with physicist Paul Scherrer. Berg resigned from the OSS after the war, in January 1946.
### After World War II
In 1951, Berg begged the CIA (which replaced the OSS) to send him to the recently founded nation of Israel. "A Jew must do this", he wrote in his notebook. The CIA rejected Berg's request. But in 1952 Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to gather information about the Soviet atomic bomb project. For the \$10,000 plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA received nothing. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky".
For the next 20 years, Berg had no real job. He lived off friends and relatives who put up with him because of his charisma. When they asked what he did for a living, he would reply by putting his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy. A lifelong bachelor, he lived with his brother Samuel for 17 years. According to Samuel, Berg became moody and snappish after the war, and did not seem to care for much in life besides his books. Samuel finally grew fed up with the arrangement and asked Moe to leave, even having eviction papers drawn up. Berg next moved in with his sister Ethel in Belleville, New Jersey, where he resided for the rest of his life.
He received a handful of votes in Baseball Hall of Fame voting (four in 1958, and five in 1960). When he was criticized for "wasting" his intellectual talent on the sport he loved, Berg replied, "I'd rather be a ballplayer than a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court".
Berg received many requests to write his memoirs, but turned them down. He almost began work on them in 1960, but he quit after the co-writer assigned to work with him confused him with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges.
## Death
Berg died on May 29, 1972, at the age of 70, from injuries sustained in a fall at home. A nurse at the Belleville, New Jersey, hospital where he died recalled his final words as: "How did the Mets do today?" (They won.) By his request, his remains were cremated and spread over Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel.
## Legacy
- After the war, the OSS was disbanded. Berg was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians during wartime, from President Harry S. Truman for his service. He declined to accept it without any public explanation. The citation read:
> "Mr. Morris Berg, United States Civilian, rendered exceptionally meritorious service of high value to the war effort from April 1944 to January 1946. In a position of responsibility in the European Theater, he exhibited analytical abilities and a keen planning mind. He inspired both respect and constant high level of endeavor on the part of his subordinates which enabled his section to produce studies and analysis vital to the mounting of American operations."
After his death, his sister, Ethel, requested and accepted the award on his behalf, later donating it to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
- In 1996 Berg was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
- In 2000 he was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals.
- His is the only baseball card on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.
## Representation in other media
- In 2017, during the first season of the biographical series Genius, which tells the story of Albert Einstein, Berg is seen in the ninth episode, played by Adam Garcia.
- The biographical film The Catcher Was a Spy (2018) was based on Nicholas Dawidoff's biography, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg (1994). The film was directed by Ben Lewin, and Berg was played by Paul Rudd. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.
- Berg is the subject of the documentary film The Spy Behind Home Plate by Aviva Kempner, released in 2019.
## See also
- Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, 2010 documentary
- List of select Jewish baseball players
- Operation Alsos
|
264,037 |
Pitta
| 1,142,987,946 |
Family of passerine birds
|
[
"Pittas"
] |
Pittas are a family, Pittidae, of passerine birds found in Asia, Australasia and Africa. There are 44 species of pittas, all similar in general appearance and habits. The pittas are Old World suboscines, and their closest relatives among other birds are in the genera Smithornis and Calyptomena. Initially placed in a single genus, as of 2009 they have been split into three genera: Pitta, Erythropitta and Hydrornis. Pittas are medium-sized by passerine standards, at 15 to 25 cm (5.9–9.8 in) in length, and stocky, with strong, longish legs and long feet. They have very short tails and stout, slightly decurved bills. Many have brightly coloured plumage.
Most pitta species are tropical; a few species can be found in temperate climates. They are mostly found in forests, but some live in scrub and mangroves. They are highly terrestrial and mostly solitary, and usually forage on wet forest floors in areas with good ground cover. They eat earthworms, snails, insects and similar invertebrate prey, as well as small vertebrates. Pittas are monogamous and females lay up to six eggs in a large domed nest in a tree or shrub, or sometimes on the ground. Both parents care for the young. Four species of pittas are fully migratory, and several more are partially so, though their migrations are poorly understood.
Four species of pitta are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature; a further nine species are listed as vulnerable and several more are near-threatened. The main threat to pittas is habitat loss in the form of rapid deforestation, but they are also targeted by the cage-bird trade. They are popular with birdwatchers because of their bright plumage and the difficulty in seeing them.
## Taxonomy and systematics
The first pitta to be described scientifically was the Indian pitta, which was described and illustrated by George Edwards in 1764. Carl Linnaeus included the species in his revised 12th edition (1766–1768) of the Systema Naturae based on Edwards' descriptions and illustrations as well as other accounts, placing it with the Corvidae as Corvus brachyurus. Ten years later Statius Müller moved it and three other pittas to the thrush family Turdidae and the genus Turdus, due to similarities of morphology and behaviour. In 1816 Louis Vieillot moved it to the new genus Pitta. The name is derived from the word pitta in the Telugu language of South India meaning "small bird".
The family's closest relatives have for a long time been assumed to be the other suboscine birds (suborder Tyranni), and particularly the Old World suboscines; the broadbills, asities and the New World sapayoa. These arboreal relatives were formerly treated as two families, and are now either combined into a single taxon or split into four. A 2006 study confirmed that these were indeed the closest relatives of the pittas. The clade they form, the Eurylaimides, is one of the two infraorders of suboscines, which is one of three suborders of the passerine birds. With regards to their relationship within the Eurylaimides, another 2006 study placed the pittas as a sister clade to two clades of broadbills and asities. This same study postulated an Asian origin for the Eurylaimides and therefore the pittas.
Two DNA studies, from 2015 and 2016, came to a different conclusion, finding that the Eurylaimides were divided into two clades and that the pittas formed a clade with the broadbills of the genera Smithornis and Calyptomena, with the remaining broadbills and asities in the other clade. The 2016 study also disputed the earlier claims about the origin of the group, and concluded that the most likely ancestral home of the pittas and the Eurylaimides was Africa (the sapayoa having diverged before the core clades had reached Africa). The study found that the pittas diverged from the Smithornis and Calyptomena broadbills 24 to 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene. The pittas diverged and spread through Asia before the oscines (suborder Passeri) reached the Old World from Australia.
The number of pitta genera has varied considerably since Vieillot, ranging from one to as many as nine. In his 1863 work A Monograph of the Pittidae, Daniel Elliot split the pittas into two genera, Pitta for the species with comparatively long tails and (the now abandoned) Brachyurus for the shorter-tailed species. Barely two decades later, in 1880/81, John Gould split the family into nine genera, in which he also included the lesser melampitta (in the genus Melampitta) of New Guinea, where it was kept until 1931 when Ernst Mayr demonstrated that it had the syrinx of an oscine bird. Philip Sclater's Catalogue of the Birds of the British Museum (1888) brought the number back down to four – Anthocincla, Pitta, Eucichla, and Coracopitta. Elliot's 1895 Monograph of the Pittidae included three genera split into subgenera Anthocincla, Pitta (subgenera Calopitta, Leucopitta, Gigantipitta, Hydrornis, Coloburis, Cervinipitta, Purpureipitta, Phaenicocichla, Monilipitta, Erythropitta, Cyanopitta, Galeripitta, Pulchripitta, Iridipitta), and Eucichla (subgenera Ornatipitta, Insignipitta).
Modern treatments of taxa within the family vary as well. A 1975 checklist included six genera, whereas the 2003 volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World, which covered the family, placed all the pittas in a single genus. Writing in 1998, Johannes Erritzoe stated that most contemporary authors considered the family to contain a single genus. Before 2006 the family was not well studied using modern anatomical or phylogenetic techniques; two studies, in 1987 and 1990, each used only four species, and comparisons amongst the family as a whole had relied mostly on external features and appearances.
A 2006 study of the nuclear DNA of the pittas was the first to examine most representatives of the family, and found evidence of three major clades of pitta. Based on the study the pittas were split into three genera. The first clade, using the genus name Erythropitta, included six species that had previously been considered closely related based on external features. They are all generally small species with small tails, extensive amounts of crimson or red on the underparts, and greenish or blueish backs. The second genus, Hydrornis, includes variable Asian species. These species are unified morphologically in exhibiting sexual dimorphism in their plumage, as well as in possessing cryptic juvenile plumage (in all the species thus-far studied). This genus includes the eared pitta, which had often been placed into its own genus, Anthocincla, on account of its apparently primitive characteristics. The third genus, Pitta, is the most widespread. Most species in this genus have green upperparts with a blue wing-patch, dark upperparts and cinnamon-buff underparts. This clade contains all the migratory pitta species, and it is thought that many of the pitta species from islands are derived from migratory species. This division of the pittas into three genera has been adopted by the International Ornithological Congress' (IOC) Birds of the World: Recommended English Names, the Handbook of the Birds of the World'''s HBW Alive checklist, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (which follows the HBW Alive checklist).
As with genera, there has been considerable variation in the number of accepted pitta species. The checklists of Sclater and Elliot at the end of the 19th century contained 48 and 47 species respectively. More recent checklists have had fewer than this, one from 1975 listing just 24 species. Since the 1990s, the figure has been between 30 and 32 species; the 2003 Handbook of the Birds of the World recognised 30. One species not recognised by the handbook is the black-crowned pitta, which it treated as a subspecies of either the garnet pitta or the graceful pitta. Since the publication of the handbook, further splits to pitta species have been made; in 2010 the banded pitta was split into three species, one endemic to Java and Bali, one endemic to Borneo and one found in Sumatra and the Thai-Malay Peninsula. A 2013 study found that the red-bellied pitta, a widespread species found from Sulawesi to Australia, was actually a species complex. The study divided it into 17 new species; some authorities have recognised fewer, for example the IOC have recognised only 10.
## Description
The pittas are small to medium-sized passerines, ranging in size from the blue-banded pitta at 15 cm (5.9 in) to the giant pitta, which can be up to 29 cm (11 in) in length. In weight they range from 42 to 210 g (1.5–7.4 oz). Pittas are stout-bodied birds with long, strong tarsi (lower leg bones) and long feet. The colour of the legs and feet can vary dramatically even within a species. This may be a characteristic used by females in judging the quality of a prospective mate. The wings have ten primaries that are generally rounded and short; those of the four migratory species are more pointed. There are nine secondaries with the tenth being vestigial. Anatomically, pittas have large temporal fossae in the skull unlike typical perching birds. The syrinx is tracheo-bronchial and lacks a pessulus or intrinsic muscles. Pittas are behaviourally reluctant to fly, but are capable and even strong fliers. The tails range from being short to very short, and are composed of twelve feathers.
Unlike most other forest-floor bird species, the plumage of pittas is often bright and colourful. Only one species, the eared pitta, has entirely cryptic colours in the adults of both sexes. In the same genus, Hydrornis, are three further species with drabber than average plumage, the blue-naped pitta, blue-rumped pitta and rusty-naped pitta. Like the other Hydrornis pittas they are sexually dimorphic in their plumage, the females tending towards being drabber and more cryptic than the males. In general the sexes in the family tend to be very similar if not identical. Across most of the family the brighter colours tend to be on the undersides, with patches or areas of bright colours on the rump, wings and uppertail coverts being concealable. Being able to conceal bright colours from above is important as most predators approach from above; four species have brighter upperparts.
## Distribution and habitat
The pittas are generally birds of tropical forests, semi-forests and scrub. Most species need forests with much cover, a rich understory, and leaf litter for feeding, and they are often found near waterways as well. Some species inhabit swamps and bamboo forests, and the mangrove pitta, as its name suggests, is a mangrove specialist. Several species are lowland forest specialists. For example, the rainbow pitta is not found above 400 m (1,300 ft). Other species may occur at much higher elevations, including, for example, the rusty-naped pitta, which has been found up to 2,600 m (8,500 ft). The altitudinal preferences varies in the fairy pitta across its range, it can be found up to 1,300 m (4,300 ft) in Taiwan but stays at lower altitudes in Japan. As well as natural habitats, pittas may use human-altered spaces. For example, migrating blue-winged pittas and hooded pittas use parks and urban gardens in Singapore.
The greatest diversity of pittas is found in South-east Asia. Of the three genera, the large genus Pitta is the most widespread. The two species found in Africa, the African pitta and green-breasted pitta, are from this clade, as is the most northerly species (the fairy pitta) and the most southerly (the noisy pitta, Pitta versicolor). The most remote insular endemics are in this group as well, including the black-faced pitta, which is endemic to the Solomon Islands. The pittas of the clade Erythropitta are mostly found in Asia. with one species, the Papuan pitta, reaching the north of Australia. The Hydrornis pittas are exclusively Asian. Some pittas have large distributions, like the hooded pitta, which ranges from Nepal to New Guinea, while others have much smaller ones, like the superb pitta, which is endemic to the tiny island of Manus in the Admiralty Islands.
The movements of pittas are poorly known and notoriously difficult to study. Bird ringing studies have not shed much light on this. One study in the Philippines ringed 2000 red-bellied pittas but only recaptured ten birds, and only one of these recaptures was more than two months after the initial capture. Only four species of pitta are fully or mostly migratory, all in the genus Pitta: the Indian pitta, the African pitta, the fairy pitta and the blue-winged pitta. As well as these four, the northern subspecies of the hooded pitta is a full migrant. Other species make smaller or more local, and poorly understood, movements across small parts of their range, including the noisy pitta of Australia. The migration of pittas is apparently nocturnal, and pittas migrate in small loose flocks that use the same resting and foraging sites each year.
## Behaviour and ecology
### Sociality and calls
Pittas are diurnal, requiring light to find their often cryptic prey. They are nevertheless often found in darker areas and are highly secretive, though they will respond to imitations of their calls. They are generally found as single birds, even young birds not associating with their parents unless they are being fed. The only exception to their solitary lifestyle is small groups that have been observed forming during migration.
The pittas are strongly territorial, with territories varying in size from 3,000 m<sup>2</sup> (32,000 sq ft) in the African pitta to 10,000 m<sup>2</sup> (110,000 sq ft) in the rainbow pitta. They have also been found to be highly aggressive in captivity, attacking other species and even their own; such behaviour has not been observed in the wild. Pittas will perform territory-defence displays on the edges of their territories; fights between rivals have only been recorded once. One such territorial display is given by the rainbow pitta, which holds its legs straight and bows to a rival on the edge of its territory, while making a purring call. Displays like this are paired with calls made out of sight of potential rivals; these territorial calls are frequent and can account for up to 12% of a bird's daylight activity. Migratory species will defend non-breeding feeding territories as well as their breeding ones.
The vocalisations of pittas are best described as calls, as they are generally short, mono or disyllabic, and often fluting or whirring. They are made by both sexes and throughout the year. One species, the black-and-crimson pitta, was also described making a mechanical noise (sonation) in 2013. The sonation, a clapping sound, was made in flight and is hypothesised to be made by the wings.
### Diet and feeding
Earthworms form the major part of the diet of pittas, followed by snails. Earthworms can become seasonally unavailable in dry conditions when the worms move deeper into the soil, and pittas also take a wide range of other invertebrate prey, including many insects groups such as termites, ants, beetles, true bugs, and lepidopterans. Freshwater crabs, centipedes, millipedes, and spiders are also taken. Some species, such as the fairy pitta and rainbow pitta, have been recorded feeding on small vertebrate prey. This including skinks, frogs, snakes and, in the case of the fairy pitta, shrews. There are also records of some pittas taking plant food, such as the Carpentaria palm fruits or maize seeds.
Pittas feed in a thrush-like fashion, moving aside leaves with a sweeping motion of the bill. They have also been observed to probe the moist soil with their bills to locate earthworms. They have a keen sense of smell, and it has been suggested that they are able to locate earthworms this way. This suggestion was supported by a study which found that the Indian pitta has the largest olfactory bulb of 25 passerines examined. Eight species have been recorded using stones as anvils on which to smash open snails to eat, and the rainbow pitta has been observed using the root of a tree to do so.
### Breeding
Like most birds, pittas are monogamous breeders, and defend breeding territories. Most species are seasonal breeders, timing their breeding to occur at the onset of the rainy season. An exception to this is the superb pitta, which breeds almost year-round, as the island of Manus on which it breeds remains wet all year. The courtship behaviours of the family are poorly known, but the elaborate dance of the African pitta includes jumping into the air with a puffed-out breast and parachuting back down to the perch.
Pittas build a rudimentary nest that is a dome with a side entrance. The structure of the nest is consistent across the whole family. The nest is as large as a rugby ball, and is usually well-camouflaged amongst vines or vegetation of some kind. The nest's appearance is also difficult to distinguish from a heap of leaves pushed together by the wind; a few species create a "doormat" of sticks (sometimes decorated with mammal dung) by the entrance. The nests can either be placed on the ground or in trees. Some species always nest in trees, like both African species, others nest only on the ground, and others show considerable variation. Both sexes help to build the nest, but the male does most of the work. It takes around two to eight days to build a new nest; this probably varies depending on the experience of the birds involved. A new nest is constructed for each nesting attempt, and work on building a nest for a second brood may start while the chicks from the first brood are still being fed.
The clutch size varies by species. Typically three to five eggs are laid, but two is typical for the garnet pitta, whereas six is more common for the blue-winged pitta and the Indian pitta. It is thought that species with higher levels of predation tend to have smaller clutches, as smaller clutches involve fewer provisioning trips that might alert a predator to the presence of a nest, and smaller clutches are easier to replace if lost. Clutch size may vary within a species depending on latitude. A study of noisy pittas found that birds in the tropics had smaller clutch sizes than those in more temperate environments. The eggs of pittas are slightly pointed at one end, and generally smooth (the deeply pitted eggs of the superb pitta being the exception to this). The size of eggs varies by species, smaller-sized species laying smaller eggs. There is also some variation in egg size within a species in species with large ranges. For example, the eggs of noisy pittas are smaller closer to the tropics. Eggs are typically white or creamy, and usually slightly glossy.
Both parents incubate the clutch, the period between laying and hatching being between 14 and 18 days (14 to 16 being more typical). The chicks usually hatch asynchronously, over several days, but in some species the hatching is synchronous. On hatching the Gurney's pitta parents are reported to consume the eggshells. This behaviour ensures that the calcium used to create the eggs is not lost. It is unknown if other species do this, but it is a common behaviour among birds. As with the incubation, both parents are involved in rearing the chicks. The chicks of pittas are entirely altricial, hatching both naked and blind, and dependent upon their parents for warmth, food and nest sanitation. Young chicks are brooded continuously, the female brooding alone in some species and sharing responsibilities with the male in others. The males and females make regular feeding trips to the chicks; one study of Gurney's pittas found a pair made 2300 feeding visits to the nest, traveling an estimated 460 km (290 mi) over the nestling stage. Earthworms are important food items for many species, and the dominant item in the nestling diet of some. 73% of the parental visits of fairy pittas, 63% of rainbow pitta's, up to 79% of Gurney's pitta's visits involved bringing earthworms. Parents can and do carry more than one item in their bills during visits; in a study of breeding fairy pittas, as many as six items were observed being brought in a single visit; less than four was more typical. When the chicks are small, prey may be broken up before being fed to the chicks, and larger prey items like skinks and snakes are only fed to chicks who are old enough to manage them.
## Relationship with humans
The brilliant plumage of many pittas has resulted in considerable interest in pittas from people living within their range, scientists, aviculturists and birdwatchers, and has led to the colloquial name jewel-thrushes. Such is their attractiveness that, in Borneo, even the body of a dead pitta can be a favoured toy for local children. They have proven difficult to maintain and breed in captivity, requiring large amounts of space, humidity and sufficient vegetation of the right kind. Pittas are a very popular group of birds with birdwatchers, due to the dazzling plumage of many species and the relative difficulty of seeing these retiring birds in dark forests. Their desirability as birdwatching targets was the subject of the book The Jewel Hunter (2013), in which the writer Chris Goodie recounted his attempt to see every species of pitta.
### Status and conservation
Pittas are generally forest birds and, as such, are vulnerable to habitat loss caused by rapid deforestation. They can also be difficult birds to survey and are easily overlooked. Four species are assessed to be endangered, and a further nine are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. Eight species are listed as near-threatened, and one, the Louisiade pitta, is too poorly known to be assessed and is listed as data deficient.
The Gurney's pitta was not seen for 34 years between 1952 and 1986, before a small population was discovered in southern Thailand. This small population declined after its rediscovery, and, by 2000, it had reached a low of 10 pairs, and was listed as critically endangered. In 2003, the species was found in Burma for the first time since 1914, and in large numbers, between nine and thirty five thousand pairs. The species was considerably less threatened than thought, but it is still of considerable conservation concern, as deforestation of the habitat in Burma continues. The rapid rate of deforestation in Borneo has pushed the blue-headed pitta, considered common and secure as recently as 1996, into the list of species considered vulnerable.
Pittas have been targeted by poachers for the illegal wild-bird trade. They are not targeted because of their song, as many songbirds are, and may simply be captured as bycatch from collecting other species, and because of their attractive plumage. According to some trappers, they also may end up being eaten for food. On Manus, locals report that predation by snakes, including the brown tree snake, is responsible for the rarity of the endangered superb pitta, but the snake, the introduction of which is responsible for several extinctions of island birds across the Pacific, is native to the island, and is therefore likely a natural threat.
## Species of pitta
There are 44 species of pitta in three genera according to the International Ornithological Congress' (IOC) Birds of the World: Recommended English Names''.
|
4,035,351 |
Birmingham campaign
| 1,169,710,697 |
American civil rights campaign in Alabama (1963)
|
[
"1963 in Alabama",
"1963 in American politics",
"1963 protests",
"African-American history in Birmingham, Alabama",
"April 1963 events in the United States",
"Civil rights movement",
"Civil rights protests in the United States",
"History of Birmingham, Alabama",
"Martin Luther King Jr.",
"May 1963 events in the United States",
"Protest marches",
"Protests in Alabama"
] |
The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.
Led by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Fred Shuttlesworth and others, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws.
In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States, enforced both legally and culturally. Black citizens faced legal and economic disparities, and violent retribution when they attempted to draw attention to their problems. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the most segregated city in the country. Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott led by Shuttlesworth meant to pressure business leaders to open employment to people of all races, and end segregation in public facilities, restaurants, schools, and stores. When local business and governmental leaders resisted the boycott, the SCLC agreed to assist. Organizer Wyatt Tee Walker joined Birmingham activist Shuttlesworth and began what they called Project C, a series of sit-ins and marches intended to provoke mass arrests.
When the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, James Bevel thought of the idea of having students become the main demonstrators in the Birmingham campaign. He then trained and directed high school, college, and elementary school students in nonviolence, and asked them to participate in the demonstrations by taking a peaceful walk 50 at a time from the 16th Street Baptist Church to City Hall in order to talk to the mayor about segregation. This resulted in over a thousand arrests, and, as the jails and holding areas filled with arrested students, the Birmingham Police Department, at the direction of the city Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water hoses and police attack dogs on the children and adult bystanders. Not all of the bystanders were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of SCLC to hold a completely nonviolent walk, but the students held to the nonviolent premise. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC drew both criticism and praise for allowing children to participate and put themselves in harm's way.
The Birmingham campaign was a model of nonviolent direct action protest and, through the media, drew the world's attention to racial segregation in the South. It burnished King's reputation, ousted Connor from his job, forced desegregation in Birmingham, and directly paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services throughout the United States.
## Background
### City of segregation
Birmingham, Alabama was, in 1963, "probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States", according to King. Although the city's population of almost 350,000 was 60% white and 40% black, Birmingham had no black police officers, firefighters, sales clerks in department stores, bus drivers, bank tellers, or store cashiers. Black secretaries could not work for white professionals. Jobs available to black workers were limited to manual labor in Birmingham's steel mills, work in household service and yard maintenance, or work in black neighborhoods. When layoffs were necessary, black employees were often the first to go. The unemployment rate for black people was two and a half times higher than for white people. The average income for black employees in the city was less than half that of white employees. Significantly lower pay scales for black workers at the local steel mills were common. Racial segregation of public and commercial facilities throughout Jefferson County was legally required, covered all aspects of life, and was rigidly enforced. Only 10 percent of the city's black population was registered to vote in 1960.
In addition, Birmingham's economy was stagnating as the city was shifting from blue collar to white collar jobs. According to Time magazine in 1958, the only thing white workers had to gain from desegregation was more competition from black workers. Fifty unsolved racially motivated bombings between 1945 and 1962 had earned the city the nickname "Bombingham". A neighborhood shared by white and black families experienced so many attacks that it was called "Dynamite Hill". Black churches in which civil rights were discussed became specific targets for attack.
Black organizers had worked in Birmingham for about ten years, as it was the headquarters of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). In Birmingham, SNYC experienced both successes and failures, as well as arrests and official violence. SNYC was forced out in 1949, leaving behind a Black population that thus had some experience of civil rights organizing. A few years later, Birmingham's black population began to organize to effect change. After Alabama banned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1956, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) the same year to challenge the city's segregation policies through lawsuits and protests. When the courts overturned the segregation of the city's parks, the city responded by closing them. Shuttlesworth's home was repeatedly bombed, as was Bethel Baptist Church, where he was pastor. After Shuttlesworth was arrested and jailed for violating the city's segregation rules in 1962, he sent a petition to Mayor Art Hanes' office asking that public facilities be desegregated. Hanes responded with a letter informing Shuttlesworth that his petition had been thrown in the garbage. Looking for outside help, Shuttlesworth invited Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC to Birmingham, saying, "If you come to Birmingham, you will not only gain prestige, but really shake the country. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation."
### Campaign goals
King of the SCLC had recently been involved in a campaign to desegregate the city of Albany, Georgia, but did not see the results they had anticipated. Described by historian Henry Hampton as a "morass", the Albany Movement lost momentum and stalled. King's reputation had been hurt by the Albany campaign, and he was eager to improve it. Determined not to make the same mistakes in Birmingham, King and the SCLC changed several of their strategies. In Albany, they concentrated on the desegregation of the city as a whole. In Birmingham, their campaign tactics focused on more narrowly defined goals for the downtown shopping and government district. These goals included the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown stores, fair hiring practices in shops and city employment, the reopening of public parks, and the creation of a bi-racial committee to oversee the desegregation of Birmingham's public schools. King summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign when he said: "The purpose of ... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation".
### Commissioner of Public Safety
A significant factor in the success of the Birmingham campaign was the structure of the city government and the personality of its contentious Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor. Described as an "arch-segregationist" by Time magazine, Connor asserted that the city "ain't gonna segregate no niggers and whites together in this town [sic]". He also claimed that the Civil Rights Movement was a Communist plot, and after the churches were bombed, Connor blamed the violence on local black citizens. Birmingham's government was set up in such a way that it gave Connor powerful influence. In 1958, police arrested ministers organizing a bus boycott. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a probe amid allegations of police misconduct for the arrests, Connor responded that he "[hadn't] got any damn apology to the FBI or anybody else", and predicted, "If the North keeps trying to cram this thing [desegregation] down our throats, there's going to be bloodshed." In 1961, Connor delayed sending police to intervene when Freedom Riders were beaten by local mobs. The police harassed religious leaders and protest organizers by ticketing cars parked at mass meetings and entering the meetings in plainclothes to take notes. The Birmingham Fire Department interrupted such meetings to search for "phantom fire hazards". Connor was so antagonistic towards the Civil Rights Movement that his actions galvanized support for black Americans. President John F. Kennedy later said of him, "The Civil Rights Movement should thank God for Bull Connor. He's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln."
Turmoil in the mayor's office also weakened the Birmingham city government in its opposition to the campaign. Connor, who had run for several elected offices in the months leading up to the campaign, had lost all but the race for Public Safety Commissioner. Because they believed Connor's extreme conservatism slowed progress for the city as a whole, a group of white political moderates worked to defeat him. The Citizens for Progress was backed by the Chamber of Commerce and other white professionals in the city, and their tactics were successful. In November 1962, Connor lost the race for mayor to Albert Boutwell, a less combative segregationist. However, Connor and his colleagues on the City Commission refused to accept the new mayor's authority. They claimed on a technicality that their terms not expire until 1965 instead of in the spring of 1963. So for a brief time, Birmingham had two city governments attempting to conduct business.
## Focus on Birmingham
### Selective buying campaign
Modeled on the Montgomery bus boycott, protest actions in Birmingham began in 1962, when students from local colleges arranged for a year of staggered boycotts. They caused downtown business to decline by as much as 40 percent, which attracted attention from Chamber of Commerce president Sidney Smyer, who commented that the "racial incidents have given us a black eye that we'll be a long time trying to forget". In response to the boycott, the City Commission of Birmingham punished the black community by withdrawing \$45,000 (\$ in 2023) from a surplus-food program used primarily by low-income black families. The result, however, was a black community more motivated to resist.
The SCLC decided that economic pressure on Birmingham businesses would be more effective than pressure on politicians, a lesson learned in Albany as few black citizens were registered to vote in 1962. In the spring of 1963, before Easter, the Birmingham boycott intensified during the second-busiest shopping season of the year. Pastors urged their congregations to avoid shopping in Birmingham stores in the downtown district. For six weeks supporters of the boycott patrolled the downtown area to make sure black shoppers were not patronizing stores that promoted or tolerated segregation. If black shoppers were found in these stores, organizers confronted them and shamed them into participating in the boycott. Shuttlesworth recalled a woman whose \$15 hat (\$ in 2023) was destroyed by boycott enforcers. Campaign participant Joe Dickson recalled, "We had to go under strict surveillance. We had to tell people, say look: if you go downtown and buy something, you're going to have to answer to us." After several business owners in Birmingham took down "white only" and "colored only" signs, Commissioner Connor told business owners that if they did not obey the segregation ordinances, they would lose their business licenses.
### Project C
Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence in Birmingham was not welcomed by all in the black community. A local black attorney complained in Time that the new city administration did not have enough time to confer with the various groups invested in changing the city's segregation policies. Black hotel owner A. G. Gaston agreed. A white Jesuit priest assisting in desegregation negotiations attested the "demonstrations [were] poorly timed and misdirected".
Protest organizers knew they would meet with violence from the Birmingham Police Department and chose a confrontational approach to get the attention of the federal government. Wyatt Tee Walker, one of the SCLC founders and the executive director from 1960 to 1964, planned the tactics of the direct action protests, specifically targeting Bull Connor's tendency to react to demonstrations with violence: "My theory was that if we mounted a strong nonviolent movement, the opposition would surely do something to attract the media, and in turn induce national sympathy and attention to the everyday segregated circumstance of a person living in the Deep South." He headed the planning of what he called Project C, which stood for "confrontation". Organizers believed their phones were tapped, so to prevent their plans from being leaked and perhaps influencing the mayoral election, they used code words for demonstrations.
The plan called for direct nonviolent action to attract media attention to "the biggest and baddest city of the South". In preparation for the protests, Walker timed the walking distance from the 16th Street Baptist Church, headquarters for the campaign, to the downtown area. He surveyed the segregated lunch counters of department stores, and listed federal buildings as secondary targets should police block the protesters' entrance into primary targets such as stores, libraries, and all-white churches.
#### Methods
The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins by black visitors at white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a voter-registration drive. Most businesses responded by refusing to serve demonstrators. Some white spectators at a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter spat upon the participants. A few hundred protesters, including jazz musician Al Hibbler, were arrested, although Hibbler was immediately released by Connor.
The SCLC's goals were to fill the jails with protesters to force the city government to negotiate as demonstrations continued. However, not enough people were arrested to affect the functioning of the city and the wisdom of the plans were being questioned in the black community. The editor of The Birmingham World, the city's black newspaper, called the direct actions by the demonstrators "wasteful and worthless", and urged black citizens to use the courts to change the city's racist policies. Most white residents of Birmingham expressed shock at the demonstrations. White religious leaders denounced King and the other organizers, saying that "a cause should be pressed in the courts and the negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets". Some white Birmingham residents were supportive as the boycott continued. When one black woman entered Loveman's department store to buy her children Easter shoes, a white saleswoman said to her, "Negro, ain't you ashamed of yourself, your people out there on the street getting put in jail and you in here spending money and I'm not going to sell you any, you'll have to go some other place." King promised a protest every day until "peaceful equality had been assured" and expressed doubt that the new mayor would ever voluntarily desegregate the city.
#### City reaction
On April 10, 1963, Bull Connor obtained an injunction barring the protests and subsequently raised bail bond for those arrested from \$200 to \$1,500 (\$ to \$ in 2023). Fred Shuttlesworth called the injunction a "flagrant denial of our constitutional rights" and organizers prepared to defy the order. The decision to ignore the injunction had been made during the planning stage of the campaign. King and the SCLC had obeyed court injunctions in their Albany protests and reasoned that obeying them contributed to the Albany campaign's lack of success. In a press release they explained, "We are now confronted with recalcitrant forces in the Deep South that will use the courts to perpetuate the unjust and illegal systems of racial separation". Incoming mayor Albert Boutwell called King and the SCLC organizers "strangers" whose only purpose in Birmingham was "to stir inter-racial discord". Connor promised, "You can rest assured that I will fill the jail full of any persons violating the law as long as I'm at City Hall."
The movement organizers found themselves out of money after the amount of required bail was raised. Because King was the major fundraiser, his associates urged him to travel the country to raise bail money for those arrested. He had, however, previously promised to lead the marchers to jail in solidarity, but hesitated as the planned date arrived. Some SCLC members grew frustrated with his indecisiveness. "I have never seen Martin so troubled", one of King's friends later said. After King prayed and reflected alone in his hotel room, he and the campaign leaders decided to defy the injunction and prepared for mass arrests of campaign supporters. To build morale and to recruit volunteers to go to jail, Ralph Abernathy spoke at a mass meeting of Birmingham's black citizens at the 6th Avenue Baptist Church: "The eyes of the world are on Birmingham tonight. Bobby Kennedy is looking here at Birmingham, the United States Congress is looking at Birmingham. The Department of Justice is looking at Birmingham. Are you ready, are you ready to make the challenge? I am ready to go to jail, are you?" With Abernathy, King was among 50 Birmingham residents ranging in age from 15 to 81 years who were arrested on Good Friday, April 12, 1963. It was King's 13th arrest.
### Martin Luther King Jr. jailed
Martin Luther King Jr. was held in the Birmingham jail and was denied a consultation with an attorney from the NAACP without guards present. When historian Jonathan Bass wrote of the incident in 2001, he noted that news of King's incarceration was spread quickly by Wyatt Tee Walker, as planned. King's supporters sent telegrams about his arrest to the White House. He could have been released on bail at any time, and jail administrators wished him to be released as soon as possible to avoid the media attention while King was in custody. However, campaign organizers offered no bail in order "to focus the attention of the media and national public opinion on the Birmingham situation".
Twenty-four hours after his arrest, King was allowed to see local attorneys from the SCLC. When Coretta Scott King did not hear from her husband, she called Walker and he suggested that she call President Kennedy directly. Mrs. King was recuperating at home after the birth of their fourth child when she received a call from President Kennedy the Monday after the arrest. The president told her she could expect a call from her husband soon. When Martin Luther King Jr. called his wife, their conversation was brief and guarded; he correctly assumed that his phones were tapped. Several days later, Jacqueline Kennedy called Coretta Scott King to express her concern for King while he was incarcerated.
Using scraps of paper given to him by a janitor, notes written on the margins of a newspaper, and later a legal pad given to him by SCLC attorneys, King wrote his essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail". It responded to eight politically moderate white clergymen who accused King of agitating local residents and not giving the incoming mayor a chance to make any changes. The essay was a culmination of many of King's ideas, which he had touched on in earlier writings. King's arrest attracted national attention, including that of corporate officers of retail chains with stores in downtown Birmingham. After King's arrest, the chains' profits began to erode. National business owners pressed the Kennedy administration to intervene. King was released on April 20, 1963.
## Conflict escalation
### Recruiting students
Despite the publicity surrounding King's arrest, the campaign was faltering because few demonstrators were willing to risk arrest. In addition, although Connor had used police dogs to assist in the arrest of demonstrators, this did not attract the media attention that organizers had hoped for. To re-energize the campaign, SCLC organizer James Bevel devised a controversial alternative plan he named D Day that was later called the "Children's Crusade" by Newsweek magazine. D Day called for students from Birmingham elementary schools and high schools as well as nearby Miles College to take part in the demonstrations.
Bevel, a veteran of earlier nonviolent student protests with the Nashville Student Movement and SNCC, had been named SCLC's Director of Direct Action and Nonviolent Education. After initiating the idea he organized and educated the students in nonviolence tactics and philosophy. King hesitated to approve the use of children, but Bevel believed that children were appropriate for the demonstrations because jail time for them would not hurt families economically as much as the loss of a working parent. He also saw that adults in the black community were divided about how much support to give the protests. Bevel and the organizers knew that high school students were a more cohesive group; they had been together as classmates since kindergarten. He recruited girls who were school leaders and boys who were athletes. Bevel found girls more receptive to his ideas because they had less experience as victims of white violence. When the girls joined, however, the boys were close behind.
Bevel and the SCLC held workshops to help students overcome their fear of dogs and jails. They showed films of the Nashville sit-ins organized in 1960 to end segregation at public lunch counters. Birmingham's black radio station, WENN, supported the new plan by telling students to arrive at the demonstration meeting place with a toothbrush to be used in jail. Flyers were distributed in black schools and neighborhoods that said, "Fight for freedom first then go to school" and "It's up to you to free our teachers, our parents, yourself, and our country."
### Children's Crusade
On May 2, 1963, 7th grader Gwendolyn Sanders helped organize her classmates, and hundreds of children from high schoolers down to first graders who joined her in a massive walkout defying the principal of Parker High School who attempted to lock the gates to keep students inside. Demonstrators were given instructions to march to the downtown area, to meet with the Mayor, and integrate the chosen buildings. They were to leave in smaller groups and continue on their courses until arrested. Marching in disciplined ranks, some of them using walkie-talkies, they were sent at timed intervals from various churches to the downtown business area. More than 600 students were arrested; the youngest of these was reported to be eight years old. Children left the churches while singing hymns and "freedom songs" such as "We Shall Overcome". They clapped and laughed while being arrested and awaiting transport to jail. The mood was compared to that of a school picnic. Although Bevel informed Connor that the march was to take place, Connor and the police were dumbfounded by the numbers and behavior of the children. They assembled paddy wagons and school buses to take the children to jail. When no squad cars were left to block the city streets, Connor, whose authority extended to the fire department, used fire trucks. The day's arrests brought the total number of jailed protesters to 1,200 in the 900-capacity Birmingham jail.
Some considered the use of children controversial, including incoming Birmingham mayor Albert Boutwell and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who condemned the decision to use children in the protests. Kennedy was reported in The New York Times as saying, "an injured, maimed, or dead child is a price that none of us can afford to pay", although adding, "I believe that everyone understands their just grievances must be resolved." Malcolm X criticized the decision, saying, "Real men don't put their children on the firing line."
King, who had been silent and then out of town while Bevel was organizing the children, was impressed by the success of the children's protests. That evening he declared at a mass meeting, "I have been inspired and moved by today. I have never seen anything like it." Although Wyatt Tee Walker was initially against the use of children in the demonstrations, he responded to criticism by saying, "Negro children will get a better education in five days in jail than in five months in a segregated school." The D Day campaign received front page coverage by The Washington Post and The New York Times.
### Fire hoses and police dogs
When Connor realized that the Birmingham jail was full, on May 3 he changed police tactics to keep protesters out of the downtown business area. Another thousand students gathered at the church and left to walk across Kelly Ingram Park while chanting, "We're going to walk, walk, walk. Freedom ... freedom ... freedom." As the demonstrators left the church, police warned them to stop and turn back, "or you'll get wet". When they continued, Connor ordered the city's fire hoses, set at a level that would peel bark off a tree or separate bricks from mortar, to be turned on the children. Boys' shirts were ripped off, and girls were pushed over the tops of cars by the force of the water. When the students crouched or fell, the blasts of water rolled them down the asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks. Connor allowed white spectators to push forward, shouting, "Let those people come forward, sergeant. I want 'em to see the dogs work."
A.G. Gaston, who was appalled at the idea of using children, was on the phone with white attorney David Vann trying to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. When Gaston looked out the window and saw the children being hit with high-pressure water, he said, "Lawyer Vann, I can't talk to you now or ever. My people are out there fighting for their lives and my freedom. I have to go help them", and hung up the phone. Black parents and adults who were observing cheered on the marching students, but when the hoses were turned on, bystanders began to throw rocks and bottles at the police. To disperse them, Connor ordered police to use German Shepherd dogs to keep them in line. James Bevel wove in and out of the crowds warning them, "If any cops get hurt, we're going to lose this fight." At 3 pm, the protest was over. During a kind of truce, protesters went home. Police removed the barricades and re-opened the streets to traffic. That evening King told worried parents in a crowd of a thousand, "Don't worry about your children who are in jail. The eyes of the world are on Birmingham. We're going on in spite of dogs and fire hoses. We've gone too far to turn back now."
#### Images of the day
The images had a profound effect in Birmingham. Despite decades of disagreements, when the photos were released, "the black community was instantaneously consolidated behind King", according to David Vann, who would later serve as mayor of Birmingham. Horrified at what the Birmingham police were doing to protect segregation, New York Senator Jacob K. Javits declared, "the country won't tolerate it", and pressed Congress to pass a civil rights bill. Similar reactions were reported by Kentucky Senator Sherman Cooper, and Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, who compared Birmingham to South Africa under apartheid. A New York Times editorial called the behavior of the Birmingham police "a national disgrace." The Washington Post editorialized, "The spectacle in Birmingham ... must excite the sympathy of the rest of the country for the decent, just, and reasonable citizens of the community, who have so recently demonstrated at the polls their lack of support for the very policies that have produced the Birmingham riots. The authorities who tried, by these brutal means, to stop the freedom marchers do not speak or act in the name of the enlightened people of the city." President Kennedy sent Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall to Birmingham to help negotiate a truce. Marshall faced a stalemate when merchants and protest organizers refused to budge.
### Standoff
Black onlookers in the area of Kelly Ingram Park abandoned nonviolence on May 5. Spectators taunted police, and SCLC leaders begged them to be peaceful or go home. James Bevel borrowed a bullhorn from the police and shouted, "Everybody get off this corner. If you're not going to demonstrate in a nonviolent way, then leave!" Commissioner Connor was overheard saying, "If you'd ask half of them what freedom means, they couldn't tell you." To prevent further marches, Connor ordered the doors to the churches blocked to prevent students from leaving.
By May 6, the jails were so full that Connor transformed the stockade at the state fairgrounds into a makeshift jail to hold protesters. Black protestors arrived at white churches to integrate services. They were accepted in Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches but turned away at others, where they knelt and prayed until they were arrested. Well-known national figures arrived to show support. Singer Joan Baez arrived to perform for free at Miles College and stayed at the black-owned and integrated Gaston Motel. Comedian Dick Gregory and Barbara Deming, a writer for The Nation, were both arrested. The young Dan Rather reported for CBS News. The car of Fannie Flagg, a local television personality and recent Miss Alabama finalist, was surrounded by teenagers who recognized her. Flagg worked at Channel 6 on the morning show, and after asking her producers why the show was not covering the demonstrations, she received orders never to mention them on air. She rolled down the window and shouted to the children, "I'm with you all the way!"
Birmingham's fire department refused orders from Connor to turn the hoses on demonstrators again, and waded through the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church to clean up water from earlier fire-hose flooding. White business leaders met with protest organizers to try and arrange an economic solution but said they had no control over politics. Protest organizers disagreed, saying that business leaders were positioned to pressure political leaders.
### City paralysis
The situation reached a crisis on May 7, 1963. Breakfast in the jail took four hours to distribute to all the prisoners. Seventy members of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce pleaded with the protest organizers to stop the actions. The NAACP asked for sympathizers to picket in unity in 100 American cities. Twenty rabbis flew to Birmingham to support the cause, equating silence about segregation to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Local rabbis disagreed and asked them to go home. The editor of The Birmingham News wired President Kennedy and pleaded with him to end the protests.
Fire hoses were used once again, injuring police and Fred Shuttlesworth, as well as other demonstrators. Commissioner Connor expressed regret at missing seeing Shuttlesworth get hit and said he "wished they'd carried him away in a hearse". Another 1,000 people were arrested, bringing the total to 2,500.
News of the mass arrests of children had reached Western Europe and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union devoted up to 25 percent of its news broadcast to the demonstrations, sending much of it to Africa, where Soviet and U.S. interests clashed. Soviet news commentary accused the Kennedy administration of neglect and "inactivity". Alabama Governor George Wallace sent state troopers to assist Connor. Attorney General Robert Kennedy prepared to activate the Alabama National Guard and notified the Second Infantry Division from Fort Benning, Georgia that it might be deployed to Birmingham.
No business of any kind was being conducted downtown. Organizers planned to flood the downtown area businesses with black people. Smaller groups of decoys were set out to distract police attention from activities at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Protesters set off false fire alarms to occupy the fire department and its hoses. One group of children approached a police officer and announced, "We want to go to jail!" When the officer pointed the way, the students ran across Kelly Ingram Park shouting, "We're going to jail!" Six hundred picketers reached downtown Birmingham. Large groups of protesters sat in stores and sang freedom songs. Streets, sidewalks, stores, and buildings were overwhelmed with more than 3,000 protesters. The sheriff and chief of police admitted to Burke Marshall that they did not think they could handle the situation for more than a few hours.
### Resolution
On May 8 at 4 am, white business leaders agreed to most of the protesters' demands. Political leaders held fast, however. The rift between the businessmen and the politicians became clear when business leaders admitted they could not guarantee the protesters' release from jail. On May 10, Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King Jr. told reporters that they had an agreement from the City of Birmingham to desegregate lunch counters, restrooms, drinking fountains and fitting rooms within 90 days, and to hire black people in stores as salesmen and clerks. Those in jail would be released on bond or their own recognizance. Urged by Kennedy, the United Auto Workers, National Maritime Union, United Steelworkers Union, and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) raised \$237,000 in bail money (\$ in 2023) to free the demonstrators. Commissioner Connor and the outgoing mayor condemned the resolution.
On the night of May 11, a bomb heavily damaged the A.G. Gaston Motel where King had been staying—and had left only hours before—and another damaged the house of A. D. King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s brother. When police went to inspect the motel, they were met with rocks and bottles from neighborhood black citizens. The arrival of state troopers only further angered the crowd; in the early hours of the morning, thousands of black people rioted, numerous buildings and vehicles were burned, and several people, including a police officer, were stabbed. By May 13, three thousand federal troops were deployed to Birmingham to restore order, even though Alabama Governor George Wallace told President Kennedy that state and local forces were sufficient. Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Birmingham to stress nonviolence.
Outgoing mayor Art Hanes left office after the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that Albert Boutwell could take office on May 21, 1963. Upon picking up his last paycheck, Bull Connor remarked tearfully, "This is the worst day of my life." In June 1963, the Jim Crow signs regulating segregated public places in Birmingham were taken down.
## After the campaign
Desegregation in Birmingham took place slowly after the demonstrations. King and the SCLC were criticized by some for ending the campaign with promises that were too vague and "settling for a lot less than even moderate demands". In fact, Sydney Smyer, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, re-interpreted the terms of the agreement. Shuttlesworth and King had announced that desegregation would take place 90 days from May 15. Smyer then said that a single black clerk hired 90 days from when the new city government took office would be sufficient. By July, most of the city's segregation ordinances had been overturned. Some of the lunch counters in department stores complied with the new rules. City parks and golf courses were opened again to black and white citizens. Mayor Boutwell appointed a biracial committee to discuss further changes. However, no hiring of black clerks, police officers, and firefighters had yet been completed and the Birmingham Bar Association rejected membership by black attorneys.
The reputation of Martin Luther King Jr. soared after the protests in Birmingham, and he was lauded by many as a hero. The SCLC was much in demand to effect change in many Southern cities. In the summer of 1963, King led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where he delivered his most famous speech, "I Have a Dream". King became Time's Man of the Year for 1963 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
The Birmingham campaign, as well as George Wallace's refusal to admit black students to the University of Alabama, convinced President Kennedy to address the severe inequalities between black and white citizens in the South: "The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them." Despite the apparent lack of immediate local success after the Birmingham campaign, Fred Shuttlesworth and Wyatt Tee Walker pointed to its influence on national affairs as its true impact. President Kennedy's administration drew up the Civil Rights Act bill. After being filibustered for 75 days by "diehard southerners" in Congress, it was passed into law in 1964 and signed by President Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights Act applied to the entire nation, prohibiting racial discrimination in employment and in access to public places. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, however, disagreed that the Birmingham campaign was the primary force behind the Civil Rights Act. Wilkins gave credit to other movements, such as the Freedom Rides, the integration of the University of Mississippi, and campaigns to end public school segregation.
Birmingham's public schools were integrated in September 1963. Governor Wallace sent National Guard troops to keep black students out but President Kennedy reversed Wallace by ordering the troops to stand down. Violence continued to plague the city, however. Someone threw a tear gas canister into Loveman's department store when it complied with the desegregation agreement; twenty people in the store required hospital treatment.
Four months after the Birmingham campaign settlement, someone bombed the house of NAACP attorney Arthur Shores, injuring his wife in the attack. On September 15, 1963, Birmingham again earned international attention when Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church on a Sunday morning and killed four young girls. FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe was hired to infiltrate the KKK and monitor their activities and plans. Rowe was involved, along with the Birmingham Police, with the KKK attacks on the Freedom Riders, led by Fred Shuttlesworth, in Anniston, Alabama on May 14, 1961. In addition, Rowe and several other Klansmen also partook in the killing of Civil Rights activist Viola Liuzzo on March 25, 1965, in Lowndes County, Georgia after the Selma to Montgomery march.
The Birmingham campaign inspired the Civil Rights Movement in other parts of the South. Two days after King and Shuttlesworth announced the settlement in Birmingham, Medgar Evers of the NAACP in Jackson, Mississippi demanded a biracial committee to address concerns there. On June 12, 1963, Evers was murdered by a KKK member outside his home. He had been organizing demonstrations similar to those in Birmingham to pressure Jackson's city government. In 1965 Shuttlesworth assisted Bevel, King, and the SCLC to lead the Selma to Montgomery marches, intended to increase voter registration among black citizens.
### Campaign impact
Historian Glenn Eskew wrote that the campaign "led to an awakening to the evils of segregation and a need for reforms in the region." According to Eskew, the riots that occurred after the bombing of the Gaston Motel foreshadowed rioting in larger cities later in the 1960s. ACMHR vice president Abraham Woods claimed that the rioting in Birmingham set a precedent for the "Burn, baby, burn" mindset, a cry used in later civic unrest in the Watts riots, the 12th Street riots in Detroit, and other American cities in the 1960s. A study of the Watts riots concluded, "The 'rules of the game' in race relations were permanently changed in Birmingham."
Wyatt Tee Walker wrote that the Birmingham campaign was "legend" and had become the Civil Rights Movement's most important chapter. It was "the chief watershed of the nonviolent movement in the United States. It marked the maturation of the SCLC as a national force in the civil rights arena of the land that had been dominated by the older and stodgier NAACP." Walker called the Birmingham campaign and the Selma marches "Siamese twins" joining to "kill segregation ... and bury the body". Jonathan Bass declared that "King had won a tremendous public relations victory in Birmingham" but also stated pointedly that "it was the citizens of the Magic City, both black and white, and not Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, that brought about the real transformation of the city."
## See also
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
|
5,778,038 |
Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng
| 1,173,353,726 |
Vietnamese nationalist and democratic socialist political party (1927–1975)
|
[
"1927 establishments in French Indochina",
"1927 establishments in Vietnam",
"Anti-communism in Vietnam",
"Anti-communist parties",
"Banned political parties in Vietnam",
"Banned socialist parties",
"Nationalist parties in Asia",
"Organizations based in Orange County, California",
"Overseas Vietnamese organizations in the United States",
"Political parties established in 1927",
"Socialist International",
"Socialist parties in Asia",
"South Vietnam",
"Three Principles of the People",
"Vietnamese anti-communists",
"Vietnamese independence movement",
"Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng",
"Westminster, California"
] |
The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (; chữ Hán: ; lit. 'Vietnamese Nationalist Party'), abbreviated VNQDĐ or Việt Quốc, was a nationalist and democratic socialist political party that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century. Its origins lie in a group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals who began publishing revolutionary material in the mid-1920s. In 1927, after the publishing house failed because of French harassment and censorship, the VNQDĐ was formed under the leadership of Nguyễn Thái Học. Modelling itself on the Kuomintang of Nationalist China (the same three characters in chữ Hán: ) the VNQDĐ gained a small following among northerners, particularly teachers and intellectuals. The party, which was less successful among peasants and industrial workers, was organised in small clandestine cells.
From 1928, the VNQDĐ attracted attention through its assassinations of French officials and Vietnamese collaborators. A turning point came in February 1929 with the Bazin assassination, the killing of a French labour recruiter widely despised by local Vietnamese people. Although the perpetrators' precise affiliation was unclear, the French colonial authorities held the VNQDĐ responsible. Between 300 and 400 of the party's approximately 1,500 members were detained in the resulting crackdown. Many of the leaders were arrested, but Học managed to escape.
In late 1929, the party was weakened by an internal split. Under increasing French pressure, the VNQDĐ leadership switched tactics, replacing a strategy of isolated clandestine attacks against individuals with a plan to expel the French in a single blow with a large-scale popular uprising. After stockpiling home-made weapons, the VNQDĐ launched the Yên Bái mutiny on February 10, 1930, with the aim of sparking a widespread revolt. VNQDĐ forces combined with disaffected Vietnamese troops, who mutinied against the French colonial army. The mutiny was quickly put down, with heavy French retribution. Học and other leading figures were captured and executed and the VNQDĐ never regained its political strength in the country.
Some remaining factions sought peaceful means of struggle, while other groups fled across the border to Kuomintang bases in the Yunnan province of China, where they received arms and training. Meanwhile, during the 1930s, Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) has a mass following and became the overwhelming bulk of the independence movement. Vietnam was occupied by Japan during World War II and, in the chaos that followed the Japanese surrender in 1945, the VNQDĐ and the ICP briefly joined forces in the fight for Vietnamese independence. However, after a falling out, Ho purged the VNQDĐ, leaving his communist-dominated Viet Minh unchallenged as the foremost anti-colonial militant organisation. As a part of the post-war settlement that ended the First Indochina War, Vietnam was partitioned into two zones. The remnants of the VNQDĐ fled to the capitalist south, where they remained until the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. Today, the party survives only among overseas Vietnamese.
## Origins
French involvement in Vietnam started in the late 18th century when the Catholic priest Pigneau de Behaine assisted Nguyễn Ánh, to found the Nguyễn dynasty by recruiting French volunteers. In return, Nguyễn Ánh, better known by his era name Gia Long, allowed Catholic missionaries to operate in Vietnam. However, relations became strained under Gia Long's successor Minh Mang as missionaries sought to incite revolts in an attempt to enthrone a Catholic. This prompted anti-Christian edicts, and in 1858, a French invasion of Vietnam was mounted, ostensibly to protect Catholicism, but in reality for colonial purposes. The French steadily made gains and completed the colonization of Vietnam in 1883. Armed revolts against colonial rule occurred regularly, most notably through the Can Vuong movement of the late-1880s. In the early-20th century, the 1916 southern revolts and the Thai Nguyen uprising were notable disruptions to the French administration.
In late 1925, a small group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals, led by a teacher named Pham Tuan Tai and his brother Pham Tuan Lam, started the Nam Dong Thu Xa (Southeast Asia Publishing House). They aimed to promote violent revolution as a means of gaining independence for Vietnam from French colonization, and published books and brochures about Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Revolution of 1911, as well as opening a free school to teach quoc ngu (Romanised Vietnamese script) to the working class. The group soon attracted the support of other progressive young northerners, including students and teachers led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. Hoc was an alumnus of Hanoi's Commercial School, who had been stripped of a scholarship because of his mediocre academic performance. Hoc had previously tried to initiate peaceful reforms by making written submissions to the French authorities, but these were ignored, and his attempt to foster policy change through the publication of a magazine never materialized due to the refusal of a license.
Harassment and censorship imposed by the French colonial authorities led to the commercial failure of the Nam Dong Thu Xa. By the autumn of 1927, the group's priorities turned towards more direct political action, in a bid to appeal to more radical elements in the north. Membership grew to around 200, distributed among 18 cells in 14 provinces across northern and central Vietnam.
At the time, nationalist sentiment had been on the increase in Vietnam. The French colonial authorities were bringing more Vietnamese into the administration, and there was a small but growing proportion who were exposed to western education. As a result, they became aware of French ideals such as Liberté, égalité, fraternité, republicanism and democracy, which sharply contrasted to the racial inequality and stratified system of the colonial elite ruling the masses in Vietnam. There was also an increasing awareness of the political writings of Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which stoked a desire for civil and political rights, combined with the knowledge of the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905, which gave people confidence that Asians could defeat western powers.
## Formation
The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDĐ) was formed at a meeting in Hanoi on December 25, 1927, with Nguyen Thai Hoc as the party's first leader. It was Vietnam's first home-grown revolutionary party, established three years before the Indochinese Communist Party. The party advocated democratic socialism, but at the outset there was considerable debate over its other fundamental objectives. Many wanted it to promote worldwide revolution, rather than limiting itself to campaigning for an independent Vietnamese republic; but there were fears that this would lead to accusations of communism, putting off potential Vietnamese supporters who yearned above all for independence. In a bid for moderation, the final statement was a compromise that read:
> The aim and general line of the party is to make a national revolution, to use military force to overthrow the feudal colonial system, to set up a democratic republic of Vietnam. At the same time we will help all oppressed nationalities in the work of struggling to achieve independence, in particular such neighboring countries as Laos and Cambodia.
A manifesto released in February 1930 showed that the VNQDĐ heavily based its rhetoric on appealing to resentment against the system of racial inequality and the French imposition of capitalism. It appealed to the populace to rise up against colonisation and the poor treatment of Vietnamese people. It assailed the French for restricting the Vietnamese people's ability to study, discuss policy and associate, and what it perceived as exploitative capitalist policies that enriched French enterprises while leaving Vietnamese people unhealthy. It criticised the colonial administration, which it saw as corrupt and encouraging low-level Vietnamese bureaucrats to mistreat their compatriots, and said that the ouster to French rule was necessary to stop the "elimination process" against the Vietnamese race.
In order to attain its primary aim of independence, the VNQDĐ had three principles by which it intended to operate. The first was nationalism, under which people of all ethnic groups in Vietnam were to be citizens of a sovereign nation. Secondly, democracy was to give citizens the right to vote, impeach elected officials, ratify and abolish laws. The third and final principle was to implement socialist controls on the economy, and restricting capitalism through nationalisation, guaranteed minimum working conditions and land reform. This was ultimately aimed towards reducing income inequality. There had been a debate over the socioeconomic bent of the party when it was formed, with some advocating communism and others private property, but the position reached was not dissimilar from an existing Vietnamese social norm where villagers often owned land communally although social hierarchies still existed. Although the socioeconomic side of the VNQDĐ agenda was not as heavily promoted at a high political level as the other two principles, there was a strong push at grassroots level to implement more socialist systems.
Although the VNQDĐ modelled itself on Sun Yat-sen's Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang or KMT, later led by Chiang Kai-shek), even down to copying the "Nationalist Party" designation, it had no direct relationship with its Chinese counterpart and in fact did not gain much attention outside Vietnam until the Yen Bay mutiny in 1930. However, in elucidating its primary objective of national independence, it did rely ideologically on Súns Three Principles of the People (nationalism, people's welfare and human rights). Like the KMT, it was a clandestine organisation held together with tight discipline. Its basic unit was the cell, above which there were several levels of administration, including provincial, regional and central committees. Also like the KMT, the VNQDĐ's revolutionary strategy envisaged a military takeover, followed by a period of political training for the population before a constitutional government could take control.
Most party members were teachers, young people who had been exposed to a western education and political theory, employees of the French colonial government, Confucian-oriented village notables, or non-commissioned officers in the colonial army. In particular, they sought to cultivate support among warrant officers who would then be able to mobilise their enlisted men. This led to a membership based heavily on traditional Asian and western-style political elites. The VNQDĐ campaigned mainly among these facets of society—there were few workers or peasants in its support base, and those that were supporters of the VNQDĐ, were put into affiliated organisations that were adjunct to the parent organisation. The party's popularity was based on a groundswell of anti-French feeling in northern Vietnam in the 1920s; many writers had assailed society for glorifying military actions against China, Champa, Siam and Cambodia, Vietnam's historical rivals, while neglecting to oppose French colonialism. The VNQDĐ admitted many female members, which was quite revolutionary for the time. It set about seeking alliances with other nationalist factions in Vietnam. In a meeting on July 4, 1928, the Central Committee appealed for unity among the Vietnamese revolutionary movements, sending delegates to meet with other organisations struggling for independence. The preliminary contacts did not yield any concrete alliances. Talks with the New Vietnam Revolutionary Party (NVRP) failed because the NVRP wanted a more centralised and structured party organisation, although the VNQDĐ did manage to absorb the NVRP branch in Hung Hoa. The VNQDĐ also assailed the Vietnamese communists of Ho Chi Minh for betraying the leading nationalist of the time—Phan Boi Chau—to the French in return for a financial reward. Ho had done this to eliminate other nationalist rivals. The VNQDĐ would later be on the receiving end of another of Ho's manoeuvres.
## Initial activities
Financial problems compounded the VNQDĐ's difficulties. Money was needed to set up a commercial enterprise, a cover for the revolutionaries to meet and plot, and for raising funds. For this purpose, a hotel-restaurant named the Vietnam Hotel was opened in September 1928. The French colonial authorities were aware of the real purpose of the business, and put it under surveillance without taking further preliminary action. The first notable reorganisation of the VNQDĐ was in December, when Nguyen Khac Nhu replaced Hoc as chairman. Three proto-governmental organs were created, to form the legislative, executive and judicial arms of government. The records of the French secret service estimated that by early 1929, the VNQDĐ consisted of approximately 1,500 members in 120 cells, mostly in areas around the Red River Delta. The intelligence reported that most members were students, minor merchants or low-level bureaucrats in the French administration. The report stated that there were landlords and wealthy peasants among the members, but that few were of scholar-gentry (mandarin) rank. According to the historian Cecil B. Currey, "The VNQDĐ's lower-class origins made it, in many ways, closer to the labouring poor than were the Communists, many of whom...[were] from established middle-class families." At the time, the two other notable nationalist organisations were the communists and the New Vietnam Revolutionary Party, and although they had different visions of a post-independence nation, both competed with the VNQDĐ in attracting the support of the small, educated, urban class. In the late-1920s, around half of the communists were from bourgeoise backgrounds.
Beginning in 1928, the VNQDĐ attracted substantial Vietnamese support, provoking increased attention from the French colonial administration. This came after a VNQDĐ death squad killed several French officials and Vietnamese collaborators who had a reputation for cruelty towards the Vietnamese populace.
## Assassination of Bazin
The assassination of Hanoi-based French labour recruiter Hervé Bazin on February 9, 1929, was a turning point that marked the beginning of the VNQDĐ's decline. A graduate of the École Coloniale in Paris, Bazin directed the recruitment of Vietnamese labourers to work on colonial plantations. Recruiting techniques often included beating or coercion, because the foremen who did the recruiting received a commission for each enlisted worker. On the plantations, living conditions were poor and the remuneration was low, leading to widespread indignation. In response, Vietnamese hatred of Bazin led to thoughts of an assassination. A group of workers approached the VNQDĐ with a proposal to kill Bazin. The sources disagree on whether the party adopted a policy of sanctioning the assassination. One account is that Hoc felt that assassinations were pointless because they would only prompt a crackdown by the French Sûreté, thereby weakening the party. He felt that it was better to strengthen the party until the time was ripe to overthrow the French, viewing Bazin as a mere twig on the tree of the colonial apparatus. Another view is that the senior VNQDĐ leaders felt that killing Bazin was necessary so that the party would appear to be relevant to workers involved in industry or commerce, given that the communists had begun to target this demographic for their recruitment drives.
The first account says that, turned down by the VNQDĐ leadership, one of the assassination's proponents—it is unclear whether or not he was a party member—created his own plot. With an accomplice, he shot and killed Bazin on February 9, 1929, as the Frenchman left his mistress's house. The French attributed the attack to the VNQDĐ and reacted by apprehending all the party members they could find: between three and four hundred men were rounded up, including 36 government clerks, 13 French government officials, 36 schoolteachers, 39 merchants, 37 landowners and 40 military personnel. The subsequent trials resulted in 78 men being convicted and sentenced to jail terms ranging between five and twenty years. The arrests severely depleted the VNQDĐ leadership: most of the Central Committee were captured, though Hoc and Nhu were among the few who escaped from a raid on their hideout at the Vietnam Hotel.
## Internal split and change in strategy
In 1929, the VNQDĐ split when a faction led by Nguyen The Nghiep began to disobey party orders and was therefore expelled from the Central Committee. Some sources claim that Nghiep had formed a breakaway party and had begun secret contacts with French authorities.
Perturbed by those who betrayed fellow members to the French and the problems this behaviour caused, Hoc convened a meeting to tighten regulations in mid-1929 at the village of Lac Dao, along the Gia Lam-Haiphong railway. This was also the occasion for a shift in strategy: Hoc argued for a general uprising, citing rising discontent among Vietnamese soldiers in the colonial army. More moderate party leaders believed this move to be premature, and cautioned against it, but Hoc's stature meant he prevailed in shifting the party's orientation towards violent struggle. One of the arguments presented for large-scale violence was that the French response to the Bazin assassination meant that the party's strength could decline in the long term. The plan was to provoke a series of uprisings at military posts around the Red River Delta in early 1930, where VNQDĐ forces would join Vietnamese soldiers in an attack on the two major northern cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The leaders agreed to restrict their uprisings to Tonkin, because the party was weak elsewhere.
For the remainder of 1929, the party prepared for the revolt. They located and manufactured weapons, storing them in hidden depots. The preparation was hindered by French police, particularly the seizure of arms caches. Recruitment campaigns and grassroots activist drives were put in place, even though the VNQDĐ were realistic and understood that their assault was unlikely to succeed. The village elders were used to mobilise neighbours into the political movement. Their logic was "Even if victory is not achieved, we will fully mature as human beings with our [heroic] efforts".
## Yên Bái mutiny
At around 01:30 on Monday, February 10, 1930, approximately 40 troops belonging to the 2nd Battalion of the Fourth Régiment de Tirailleurs Tonkinois stationed at Yên Bái, reinforced by around 60 civilian members of the VNQDĐ, attacked their 29 French officers and warrant officers. The rebels had intended to split into three groups: the first group was to infiltrate the infantry, kill French NCOs in their beds and raise support among Vietnamese troops; the second, supported by the VNQDĐ civilians, was to break into the post headquarters; and the third group would enter the officers' quarters. The French were caught off guard; five were killed and three seriously wounded. The mutineers isolated a few more French officers from their men, even managing to raise the VNQDĐ flag above one of the buildings. About two hours later, however, it became apparent that the badly coordinated uprising had failed, and the remaining 550 Vietnamese soldiers helped quell the rebellion rather than participate in it. The insurrectionists had failed to liquidate the Garde indigène town post and could not convince the frightened townspeople to join them in a general revolt. At 07:30, a French Indochinese counterattack scattered the mutineers; two hours later, order was re-established in Yên Bái.
That same evening, two further insurrectionary attempts failed in the Sơn Dương sector. A raid on the Garde indigène post in Hưng Hóa was repelled by the Vietnamese guards, who appeared to have been tipped off. In the nearby town of Kinh Khe, VNQDĐ members killed the instructor Nguyen Quang Kinh and one of his wives. After destroying the Garde indigène post in Lâm Thao, the VNQDĐ briefly seized control of the district seat. At sunrise, a new Garde indigène unit arrived and inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents, mortally wounding Nhu. Aware of the events in the upper delta region, Pho Duc Chinh fled and abandoned a planned attack on the Sơn Tây garrison, but he was captured a few days later by French authorities.
On February 10, a VNQDĐ member injured a policeman at a Hanoi checkpoint; at night, Arts students threw bombs at government buildings, which they regarded as part of the repressive power of the colonial state. On the night of February 15–16, Học and his remaining forces seized the nearby villages of Phu Duc and Vĩnh Bảo, in Thái Bình and Hải Dương provinces respectively, for a few hours. In the second village, the VNQDĐ killed the local mandarin of the French colonial government, Tri Huyen. On February 16, French warplanes responded by bombarding the VNQDĐ's last base at Co Am village; on the same day, Tonkin's Resident Superior René Robin dispatched 200 Gardes indigènes, eight French commanders and two Sûreté inspectors. A few further violent incidents occurred until February 22, when Governor-General Pierre Pasquier declared that the insurrection had been defeated. Học and his lieutenants, Chinh and Nguyen Thanh Loi, were apprehended.
A series of trials were held to prosecute those arrested during the uprising. The largest number of death penalties was handed down by the first Criminal Commission, which convened at Yen Bay. Among the 87 people found guilty at Yen Bay, 46 were servicemen. Some argued in their own defence that they had been "surprised and forced to take part in the insurrection". Of the 87 convicted, 39 were sentenced to death, five to deportation, 33 to life sentences of forced labour, nine to 20 years imprisonment, and one to five years of forced labour. Of those condemned to death, 24 were civilians and 15 were servicemen. Presidential pardons reduced the number of death penalties from 39 to 13. Học and Chinh were among the 13 who were executed on June 17, 1930. The condemned men cried "Viet Nam!" as the guillotine fell. Học wrote a final plea to the French, in a letter that claimed that he had always wanted to cooperate with French authorities, but that their intransigence had forced him to revolt. Học contended that France could only stay in Indochina if they dropped their "brutal" policies, and became more amiable towards the Vietnamese. The VNQDĐ leader called for universal education, training in commerce and industry, and an end to the corrupt practices of the French-installed mandarins.
## Exile in Yunnan
Following Yen Bay, the VNQDĐ became more diffuse, with many factions effectively acting virtually autonomously of one another. Le Huu Canh—who had tried to stall the failed mutiny—attempted to reunite what remained of the party under the banner of peaceful reform. Other factions, however, remained faithful to Học's legacy, recreating the movement in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. A failed assassination attempt on Governor-General Pasquier led to French crackdowns in 1931 and 1932. The survivors escaped to Yunnan in southern China, where some of Nghiep's supporters were still active. The Yunnan VNQDĐ was in fact a section of the Chinese Kuomintang, who protected its members from the Chinese government while funds were raised by robbery and extortion along the Sino-Vietnamese border. This eventually led to a Chinese government crackdown, but VNQDĐ members continued to train at the Yunnan Military School; some enlisted in the nationalist Chinese army while others learned to manufacture weapons and munitions in the Yunnan arsenal.
Nghiep was briefly jailed by Yunnan authorities, but continued to run the party from his cell. Upon his release in 1933, Nghiep consolidated the party with similar groups in the area, including some followers of Phan Bội Châu who had formed a Canton-based organisation with similar aims in 1925. Chau's group had formed in opposition to the communist tendencies of Ho Chi Minh's Revolutionary Youth League. However, Ho betrayed Chau to eliminate a potential rival and to pocket a reward. With nationalist Chinese aid, Chau's followers had set up a League of Oppressed Oriental Peoples, a Pan-Asian group that ended in failure. In 1932 the League made the point of declaring a "Provisional Indochinese Government" at Canton. In July 1933, Chau's group was integrated into Nghiep's Yunnan organisation. In 1935, Nghiep surrendered to the French consulate in Shanghai. The remainder of the VNQDĐ was paralysed by infighting and began losing political relevance, with only moderate activity until the outbreak of World War II and Japan's invasion of French Indochina in 1940. They attempted to organise workers along the Yunnan railway, threatening occasional border assaults, with little success.
The VNQDĐ was gradually overshadowed as the leading Vietnamese independence organisation by Ho's Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). In 1940, Ho arrived in Yunnan, which was a hotbed of both ICP and VNQDĐ activity. He initiated collaboration between the ICP and other nationalists such as the VNQDĐ. At the time, World War II had broken out and Japan had conquered most of eastern China and replaced the French in Vietnam. Ho moved east to the neighbouring province of Guangxi, where Chinese military leaders had been attempting to organise Vietnamese nationalists against the Japanese. The VNQDĐ had been active in Guangxi and some of their members had joined the KMT army. Under the umbrella of KMT activities, a broad alliance of nationalists emerged. With Ho at the forefront, the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Independence League, usually known as the Viet Minh) was formed and based in the town of Chinghsi. The pro-VNQDĐ nationalist Ho Ngoc Lam, a KMT army officer and former disciple of Phan Boi Chau, was named as the deputy of Phạm Văn Đồng, later to be Ho's Prime Minister. The front was later broadened and renamed the Viet Nam Giai Phong Dong Minh (Vietnam Liberation League). It was an uneasy situation, as another VNQDĐ leader, Truong Boi Cong, a graduate of a KMT military academy, wanted to challenge the communists for pre-eminence, while Vũ Hồng Khanh led a virulently anti-communist VNQDĐ faction. The Viet Nam Revolutionary League was a union of various Vietnamese nationalist groups, run by the pro Chinese VNQDĐ. Chinese KMT General Zhang Fakui created the league to further Chinese influence in Indochina, against the French and Japanese. Its stated goal was for unity with China under the Three Principles of the People, created by KMT founder Dr. Sun and opposition to Vietnamese and French Imperialists. The Revolutionary League was controlled by Nguyen Hai Than, who was born in China and could not speak Vietnamese. General Zhang shrewdly blocked the Communists of Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh from entering the league, as his main goal was Chinese influence in Indochina. The KMT utilized these Vietnamese nationalists during World War II against Japanese forces. At one stage, the communists made an appeal for other Vietnamese anti-colonialists to join forces, but condemned Khanh as an "opportunist" and "fake revolutionary" in their letter. The cooperation in the border area lasted for only a few months before VNQDĐ officials complained to the local KMT officials that the communists, led by Dong and Võ Nguyên Giáp, were attempting to dominate the league. This prompted the local authorities to shut down the front's activities.
## Post World War II
In March 1945, the VNQDĐ received a boost, when Imperial Japan, which had occupied Vietnam since 1941, deposed the French administration, and installed the Empire of Vietnam, a puppet regime. This resulted in the release of some anti-French activists, including VNQDĐ members.
On August 15, 1945, Japanese forces in Vietnam surrendered to the Republic of China. General Lu Han (盧漢) was the representative of the Nationalist Army. The government of the Republic of China favored the VNQDĐ over Viet Minh which led to Ho's reliance on the rebel Chinese communists.
Ho's Viet Minh seized power and set up a provisional government in the wake of Japan's withdrawal from Vietnam. This move violated a prior agreement between the member parties of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League), which included the VNQDĐ as well as the Vietminh, and Ho was pressured to broaden his government's appeal by including the VNQDĐ (now led by Nguyễn Tường Tam). The Vietminh announced that they would abolish the mandarin governance system and hold national elections with universal suffrage in two hold. The VNQDĐ objected to this, fearing that the communists would perpetrate electoral fraud.
After the seizure of power, hundreds of VNQDĐ members returned from China, only to be killed at the border by the Vietminh. Nevertheless, the VNQDĐ arrived in northern Vietnam with arms and supplies from the KMT, in addition to its prestige as a Vietnamese nationalist organisation. Nationalist China backed the VNQDĐ in the hope of gaining more influence over its southern neighbour. Ho tried to broaden his support in order to strengthen himself, in addition to decreasing Chinese and French power. He hoped that by co-opting VNQDĐ members, he could shut out the KMT. The communists had no intention of sharing power with anyone in the long term and regarded the move as purely a strategic exercise. Giap, the Vietminh's military chief, called the VNQDĐ a "group of reactionaries plotting to rely on Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang and their rifle barrels to snatch a few crumbs". The VNQDĐ dominated the main control lines between northern Vietnam and China near Lào Cai. They funded their operations from the tribute that they levied from the local populace. Once the majority of the non-communist nationalists had returned to Vietnam, the VNQDĐ banded with them to form an anti-Vietminh alliance. The VNQDĐ and the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (DVQDD, Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam) started their own military academy at Yên Bái to train their own military recruits. Armed confrontations between the Vietminh and the nationalists occurred regularly in major northern cities. The VNQDĐ were aided by the KMT, who were in northern Vietnam as the result of an international agreement to stabilise the country. The KMT often disarmed local Vietminh bands.
The VNQDĐ then established their national headquarters in Hanoi, and began to publish newspapers, expounding their policies and explaining their ideology. The OSS agent Archimedes Patti, who was based in Kunming and northern Vietnam, reported that the VNQDĐ were "hopelessly disoriented politically" and felt that they had no idea of how to run a government. He speculated that the VNQDĐ were driven by "desires for personal power and economic gain". Giap accused them of being "bandits". Military and newspaper attacks between the groups occurred regularly, but a power-sharing agreement was put in place until the elections occurred in order to end the attacks and strengthen national unity to further the goal of independence. The communists also allowed the VNQDĐ to continue printing material.
However, the agreement was ineffective in the meantime. The VNQDĐ kidnapped Giap and the Propaganda Minister Tran Huy Lieu and held them for three weeks until Ho agreed to remove Giáp and Lieu from the cabinet. As a result, the VNQDĐ's Vũ Hồng Khanh became defence minister, with Giap as his deputy. What the VNQDĐ and other non-communist nationalists thought to be an equitable power-sharing agreement turned out to be a ruse. Every non-communist minister had a communist deputy, and if the former refused to approve a decree, the Vietminh official would do so. Many ministers were excluded from knowing the details of their portfolio; Khanh was forbidden to see any military statistics and some were forbidden to attend cabinet meetings. In one case, the Minister of Social Works became a factory worker because he was forced to remain politically idle. Meanwhile, Giáp was able to stymie the activities of VNQDĐ officials of higher rank in the coalition government. Aside from shutting down the ability of the VNQDĐ officials to disseminate information, he often ordered his men to start riots and street brawls at public VNQDĐ events.
Ho scheduled elections for December 23, but he made a deal with the VNQDĐ and the Dong Minh Hoi, which assured them of 50 and 20 seats in the new national assembly respectively, regardless of the poll results. This only temporarily placated the VNQDĐ, which continued its skirmishes against the Vietminh. Eventually, Chinese pressure on the VNQDĐ and the Dong Minh Hoi saw them accept a coalition government, in which Tam served as foreign minister. For the communists' part, they accused the KMT of intimidating them into sharing power with the VNQDĐ, and claimed that VNQDĐ soldiers had tried to attack polling stations. The VNQDĐ claimed that the communists had engaged in vote fraud and intimidation, citing Vietminh claims that they had received tallies in excess of 80% in areas controlled by French troops.
## War against French colonial rule
The Ho–Sainteny agreement, signed on March 6, 1946, saw the return of French colonial forces to Vietnam, replacing the Chinese nationalists who were supposed to be maintaining order. The VNQDĐ were now without their main supporters. As a result, the VNQDĐ were further attacked by the French, who often encircled VNQDĐ strongholds, enabling Viet Minh attacks. Giáp's army hunted down VNQDĐ troops and cleared them from the Red River Delta, seizing arms and arresting party members, who were falsely charged with crimes ranging from counterfeiting to unlawful arms possession. The Viet Minh massacred thousands of VNQDĐ members and other nationalists in a large scale purge. Most of the survivors fled to China or French-controlled areas in Vietnam. After driving the VNQDĐ out of their Hanoi headquarters on On Nhu Hau Street, Giáp ordered his agents to construct an underground torture chamber on the premises. They then planted exhumed and badly decomposed bodies in the chamber, and accused the VNQDĐ of gruesome murders, although most of the dead were VNQDĐ members who had been killed by Giáp's men. The communists made a public spectacle of the scene in an attempt to discredit the VNQDĐ, but the truth eventually came out and the "On Nhu Hau Street affair" lowered their public image.
When the National Assembly reconvened in Hanoi on October 28, only 30 of the 50 VNQDĐ seats were filled. Of the 37 VNQDĐ and Dong Minh Hoi members who turned up, only 20 remained by the end of the session. By the end of the year, Tam had resigned as foreign minister and fled to China, and only one of the three original VNQDĐ cabinet members was still in office. In any case, the VNQDĐ never had any power, despite their numerical presence. Upon the opening of the National Assembly, the communist majority voted to vest power in an executive committee almost entirely consisting of communists; the legislature met only once a year. In any case, the façade of a legislature was dispensed with as the First Indochina War went into full flight. A small group of VNQDĐ fighters escaped Giáp's assault and retreated to a mountainous enclave along the Sino-Vietnamese border, where they declared themselves to be the government of Vietnam, with little effect.
## Post-independence
After Vietnam gained independence in 1954, the Geneva Accords partitioned the country into a communist north and an anti-communist south, but stipulated that there were to be 300 days of free passage between the two zones. During Operation Passage to Freedom, most VNQDĐ members migrated to the south.
The VNQDĐ was deeply divided after years of communist pressure, lacked strong leadership and no longer had a coherent military presence, although they had a large presence in central Vietnam. The party's disarray was only exacerbated by the actions of autocratic President Ngô Đình Diệm, who imprisoned many of its members. Diem's administration was a "dictatorship by Catholics—A new kind of fascism", according to the title of a VNQDĐ pamphlet published in July 1955. The VNQDĐ tried to revolt against Diem in 1955 in central Vietnam. During the transition period after Geneva, the VNQDĐ sought to set up a new military academy in central Vietnam, but they were crushed by Ngô Đình Cẩn, who ran the region for his elder brother Diệm, dismantled and jailed VNQDĐ members and leaders.
Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) felt that Diệm discriminated against them because of their political leanings. Diệm used the secret Catholic Cần Lao Party to keep control of the army and stifle attempts by VNQDĐ members to rise through the ranks.
During the Diệm era, the VNQDĐ were implicated in two failed coup attempts. In November 1960, a paratrooper revolt failed after the mutineers agreed to negotiate, allowing time for loyalists to relieve the president. Many of the officers involved had links to or were members of the VNQDĐ, and fled the country after the coup collapsed. In 1963, VNQDĐ leaders Tam and Vũ Hồng Khanh were among those arrested for their involvement in the plot; Tam committed suicide before the case started, and Khanh was jailed. In February 1962, two Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots, Nguyễn Văn Cử—son of a prominent VNQDĐ leader—and Phạm Phú Quốc, bombed the Independence Palace in a bid to kill Diệm and his family, but their targets escaped unharmed. Diệm was eventually deposed in a military coup and killed in November 1963. While the generals that led the coup were not members of the VNQDĐ, they sought to cultivate ARVN officers who were part of the VNQDĐ because of their antipathy towards Diệm.
Many VNQDĐ members were part of the ARVN, which sought to prevent South Vietnam from being overrun by communists during the Vietnam War, and they were known for being more anti-communist than most of their compatriots.
After the fall of Diệm and the execution of Cẩn in May 1964, the VNQDĐ became more active in their strongholds in central Vietnam. Nevertheless, there was no coherent national leadership and groups at district and provincial level tended to operate autonomously. By 1965, their members had managed to infiltrate and take over the Peoples Action Teams (PATs), irregular paramilitary counter-insurgency forces organised by Australian Army advisers to fight the communists, and used them for their own purposes. In December, one VNQDĐ member had managed to turn his PAT colleagues towards the nationalist agenda, and the local party leadership in Quảng Nam approached the Australians in an attempt to have the 1000-man PAT outfit formally allied to the VNQDĐ. The overture was rejected. The politicisation of paramilitary units worked both ways; some province chiefs used the anti-communist forces to assassinate political opponents, including VNQDĐ members.
In 1966, the Buddhist Uprising erupted in central Vietnam, in which some Buddhist leaders fomented civil unrest against the war, hoping to end foreign involvement in Vietnam and end the conflict through a peace deal with the communists. The VNQDĐ remained implacably opposed to any coexistence with the communists. Members of the VNQDĐ made alliances with Catholics, collected arms, and engaged in pro-war street clashes with the Buddhists, forcing elements of the ARVN to intervene to stop them.
On April 19, clashes erupted in Quảng Ngãi Province between the Buddhists and the VNQDĐ, prompting the local ARVN commander Tôn Thất Đính to forcibly restrain the two groups. Three days later the VNQDĐ accused the Buddhists of attacking their premises in Hội An and Da Nang, while US officials reported that the VNQDĐ were making plans to assassinate leading Buddhists, such as the activist monk Thích Trí Quang.
The VNQDĐ contested the national elections of 1967, the first elections since the fall of Diem, which were rigged—Diem and his people invariably gained more than 95% of the vote and sometimes exceeded the number of registered voters. The campaign was disorganised due to a lack of infrastructure and some VNQDĐ candidates were not formally sanctioned by any hierarchy. The VNQDĐ focused on the districts in I Corps in central Vietnam where they were thought to be strong. There were 60 seats in the senate, and the six victorious tickets would see all ten of their members elected. The VNQDĐ entered eight tickets in the senate election, and while they totalled 15% of the national vote between them, the most of any grouping, it was diluted between the groupings; none of the tickets and thus none of the candidates were elected. This contrasted with one Catholic alliance with three tickets that won only 8% of the vote, but had all 30 candidates elected. They won nine seats in the lower house, a small minority presence, all from districts in central Vietnam, where they tended to poll between 20 and 40% in various areas. The VNQDĐ members made several loose alliances with Hòa Hảo members of the lower house.
During the Tet Offensive of 1968, the communists attacked and seized control of Huế for a month. During this time, in the Massacre at Huế they executed around 3,000–6,000 people that they had taken prisoner, out of a total population of 140,000. The communists had compiled a list of "reactionaries" to be liquidated before their assault. Known for their virulent anti-communism, VNQDĐ members appeared to have been disproportionately targeted in the massacre.
After the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the remnants of the VNQDĐ were again targeted by the victorious communists. As Vietnam is a single-party state led by the Vietnamese Communist Party, the VNQDĐ is illegal. Some VNQDĐ members fled to the West, where they continued their political activities. The VNQDĐ remains respected among some sections of the overseas Vietnamese community as Vietnam's leading anti-communist organisation.
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RAF Uxbridge
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Air force base in the UK
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[
"1917 establishments in England",
"Battle of Britain",
"Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hillingdon",
"History of the London Borough of Hillingdon",
"Military history of Middlesex",
"Military installations closed in 2010",
"Military installations established in 1917",
"Royal Air Force stations in London",
"Uxbridge"
] |
RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a 44.6-hectare (110-acre) site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years before the founding of the RAF. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the station was open to the public.
The station is best known as the headquarters of No. 11 Group RAF, which was responsible for the aerial defence of London and the south-east of England during the Battle of Britain. Hillingdon House served as the group's headquarters. A bunker, subsequently known as the Battle of Britain Bunker, was built nearby to house the 11 Group Operations Room, which controlled fighter squadrons operating within the group. The Operations Room was also responsible for providing air support during the evacuation of Dunkirk in May 1940 (Operation Dynamo) and the D-Day landings (Operation Overlord). It was here that Winston Churchill first said, "Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed by so many to so few", which he repeated in a speech to Parliament four days later.
RAF Uxbridge closed on 31 March 2010 as part of a reduction in the number of Ministry of Defence installations in the Greater London area. Many of its remaining military units were relocated to nearby RAF Northolt the following day. Plans for redevelopment, consisting of a mixture of new residential and commercial properties and the retention of all listed buildings, were approved in January 2011. A small part of the station incorporating the Battle of Britain Bunker retains the RAF Uxbridge name and is owned by Hillingdon Council.
The River Pinn runs through the site from north to south, passing Hillingdon House and the Battle of Britain Bunker. The land around the river is mainly wooded and designated as greenbelt, and Hillingdon Golf Course borders the south of the station. A footpath through the site that had closed in 1988 was reopened in 2011.
## History
### Early years
The area that became RAF Uxbridge was long a part of the estate of Hillingdon House, built as a hunting lodge in 1717 by the Duke of Schomberg, who staged regular hunts in the grounds. He was a German-born general serving under the future King William III, and was knighted for his part in the 1690 Battle of the Boyne.
The Marchioness of Rockingham, widow of Prime Minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, bought the house in 1786 for £9,000 () following her husband's death and lived there until her own death in 1804. She left the estate to her stepsister Elizabeth, widow of William Weddell MP, who sold it to Josias Du Pré Porcher in 1805.
In 1810 the estate was sold to Richard Henry Cox, grandson of Richard Cox, founder of the travel company Cox & Kings. Cox & Co, as the company was then known, was formed after Richard Cox was appointed agent to the Foot Guards (later the Grenadier Guards), and provided banking services for many regiments of the British Army by the end of the 18th century. The mansion was completely rebuilt after it burnt down in 1844 and later received a Grade II listing as a historic site.
### First World War
In 1914 the mansion was put on the market by the estate of Frederick Cox, Richard Henry Cox's grandson. It was described as "a brick and stone building, partly stuccoed, with extensive outbuildings and ornamental gardens". The house and gardens, together with the surrounding parkland and an artificial lake created by damming a section of the River Pinn, amounted to over 81 ha (200 acres).
The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, with the intention of establishing a prisoner of war camp. The local population strongly opposed the plan, causing the government to relent, and the site instead became the Canadian Convalescent Hospital to care for troops evacuated from the front line during the First World War. The hospital opened on 20 September 1915 and was joined on 19 November 1917 by the Royal Flying Corps Armament School which moved into Hillingdon House with 114 officers and 1156 men, making a donation of £2289.12s.9d (£ in ) to the Canadian Red Cross. The RFC used parts of the estate not required by the Canadians, and established firing ranges for the training of recruits in ground gunnery. A total of eight of these ranges were built along the River Pinn; one remains today. The hospital closed on 12 December 1917.
On 1 April 1918, the Uxbridge site came under control of the Royal Air Force, which had been formed that day by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. The following month it became the first RAF station to receive a royal visit, from King George V.
### Inter-war years
The Recruits Training Depot and a detachment of the RAF Depot from RAF Halton arrived in August 1919, merging to form No. 1 Depot, RAF Uxbridge. The station itself was designated RAF Central Depot, Uxbridge. The site was then split to form two new RAF stations, the area to the east of the River Pinn heading uphill to Hillingdon House becoming RAF Hillingdon and the remainder RAF Uxbridge. That year, the building that became the station cinema was opened, designed by Lieutenant J. G. N. Clift of the Royal Engineers, and served as a lecture hall for new recruits. The RAF School of Music moved to RAF Uxbridge from Hampstead in September 1919. Headquarters Southern Area, Southern Area Medical Headquarters, Southern Area Barrack Stores, and the Southern Area and South Eastern Area Headquarters of the Air Construction Service moved into Hillingdon House in October 1919. T. E. Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia", underwent initial training at the Uxbridge Depot in 1922 after enlisting in the RAF under the assumed name John Hume-Ross. He recounted his experiences in The Mint.
Uxbridge Football Club was provided with the use of the station stadium from 1923 and played evening matches there. Ten barrack blocks designed by A. Gilpin were built around the parade ground in 1925, as was the RAF officers' hospital and the original Operations Room, controlled by the Fighting Area of Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB). The Air Ministry chose RAF Uxbridge as the new base for ADGB on 14 January 1926 owing to its proximity to Whitehall. The site had the added advantage of lying on the fringes of London and therefore difficult for an enemy to locate and bomb. Having also housed a gymnasium, the lecture hall building became the station cinema in 1927, initially for the use of station personnel only but soon opened to the general public. On 1 March 1929, the headquarters of the Observer Corps was established at Hillingdon House; Air Commodore Edward Masterman was appointed its first commandant. The Observer Corps remained at RAF Uxbridge until 1 March 1936, when it transferred to RAF Bentley Priory.
Owing to its wooden construction the original Operations Room could only be used during the summer months; maintenance of the signalling and communications equipment became difficult under damp winter conditions. A memo dated 16 January 1933, sent to the senior Air Staff Officer, Wing Commander Modin, stated:
> Uxbridge Royal Air Force buildings would provide an easy bombing target from all points of view, I feel that our Operations Room at least must go underground ... and the sooner it is put there the better, as not only will the re-installation of communications and apparatus generally take time, but if that machinery is to function smoothly in a sudden emergency, installation must have been completed and the whole layout repeatedly worked and tried out before the danger of such emergency arises.
Douglas Bader arrived at the military hospital in 1932 to recover from the amputation of his legs following an air crash. During his stay Bader met the Desoutter brothers, who were beginning to make lightweight artificial legs from aluminium. Once fitted with artificial legs, Bader fought hard to regain his former abilities and in time his efforts paid off. He was able to drive a specially modified car, play golf and even dance. During his convalescence, Bader met his future wife Thelma Edwards, a waitress at The Pantiles tearooms in Bagshot 25 miles away.
Formed on 1 May 1936, No. 11 Group RAF was headquartered at RAF Uxbridge under the command of Air Vice Marshal Philip Joubert de la Ferté, who was succeeded by Sir Ernest Gossage in January 1937. The ADGB was reorganised on 13 July 1936, with control of fighter aircraft passing to the newly established RAF Fighter Command, which moved to RAF Bentley Priory. The following day the remaining elements of ADGB became RAF Bomber Command, headquartered in Hillingdon House.
Planning for the new 11 Group Operations Room (within what became known as the Battle of Britain Bunker) began in August 1937. Initially it was to be buried 66 feet (20 m) below ground, but problems with the local London Clay on the site meant it was eventually built by Sir Robert McAlpine at a depth of 60 feet (18 m), although it was still able to withstand being hit by a 500-pound (230 kg) bomb. The bunker was designed by Bob Creer of the Air Ministry. Work began in February 1939 and finished in August, ten days before the outbreak of the Second World War. The original Operations Room on the surface remained as a back-up, but was not required for that purpose and was subsequently renamed Building 76. Also in August 1939, Bomber Command moved to Iver and on 2 September the new Operations Room and RAF Uxbridge reached operational war readiness. The station closed to the public on the outbreak of war, and the football club was required to suspend its use of the stadium.
### Second World War
During the war, RAF Uxbridge was tasked with despatching personnel to and from training and operational units in Northern France. It also housed the RAF Uxbridge Language School, where Polish Air Force pilots were taught key RAF codewords. Pilots practised formation flying on the station football pitch, using tricycles fitted with radios, compasses and speed indicators. British Expeditionary Force troops returning from Dunkirk were processed at Uxbridge. In mid-1940, staff at the station processed an average of 2,500 recruits and experienced troops per week.
During the Battle of Britain, between July and October 1940, RAF Fighter Command at RAF Bentley Priory received air threat warnings that it filtered to remove duplication, doubt and confusion. These were then forwarded to the Operations Room at RAF Uxbridge, which allocated appropriate defence resources and passed orders on to No. 11 Group sector airfields. No. 11 Group personnel doubled to 20,000 between April and November 1940. The RAF officers' hospital was converted to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) hospital early in 1940.
While overseeing the operations at RAF Uxbridge, Air Vice Marshal Park stayed in a house opposite the entrance to the bunker. He used a small door to reach the bunker from the house each day. The house, named after the war in Park's honour, was demolished in 1996 to make way for newly constructed married quarters; only the garden wall and door were retained. Wing Commander Willoughby de Broke received the Air Force Cross on 11 July 1940 for his service as a Senior Operations Officer for No. 11 Group, working within the Operations Room. Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the station on 16 August 1940, to monitor the battle from the Operations Room. He subsequently made his well-known comment, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", to General Ismay as they got into their car to leave. Churchill repeated the quote in a speech to Parliament four days later. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the station on 6 September. Churchill was again present at RAF Uxbridge on 15 September 1940, the fiercest day of fighting of the entire battle and later named Battle of Britain Day. As the last squadrons were sent into battle, Churchill asked Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park, "How many reserves have we?" Park answered, "There are none."
A delayed-action landmine fell on the station on 26 September 1940, between the police school and WAAF Quarters where it remained until it was defused the following day. Two days later on 28 September a bomb fell into a tree 50 yards (46 m) from the Operations Room and was later taken to Harefield where it was defused. A Junkers Ju 88 attacked the station on 6 October 1940, dropping a bomb beside the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) grocery shop. The device damaged water and gas mains but caused no casualties. Few bombs fell on the station; Luftwaffe pilots may have mistaken the glass greenhouses at the Lowe & Shawyer plant nursery west of the station for a large body of water not on their maps.
The king and queen returned on 1 November 1941, by which time a "Royal Box" had been installed in the Operations Room from which they could observe the plotting activities. During 1942, General Charles de Gaulle, Sir Anthony Eden and Lord Mountbatten all visited the 11 Group Operations Room. The actors Rex Harrison (then a squadron leader liaising with Bomber Command), Cyril Raymond and Ronald Adam all served within the Operations Room during the war.
In 1941, a division of the Meteorological Office was established at RAF Uxbridge as part of the Intelligence Branch. On 1 July that year, the station Sick Quarters were merged with the WAAF hospital to create the RAF Station Hospital. No. 11 Group was involved in providing air support for the Dieppe Raid (Operation Jubilee) on 19 August 1942. Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory commanded participating Allied air forces from the No. 11 Group Operations Room. The air operations section of Operation Overlord—the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 (D-Day)—was also controlled from RAF Uxbridge. Orders from the station were the only ones issued to Allied air units on the day. The headquarters of the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th Tactical Air Force of the USAAF were stationed at Uxbridge while preparations were made for the invasion. On D-Day, the No. 11 Group Controller was responsible for ensuring sufficient air patrols of the United Kingdom, the main shipping routes, and the beach landing areas.
### Post-war years
RAF Uxbridge served as an athlete's village for the male competitors in the 1948 Summer Olympics. Swimmers trained at nearby Uxbridge Lido, and female athletes were housed at RAF West Drayton. Personnel from RAF Uxbridge were moved out to RAF Stanmore Park and transported back to the station daily for their shifts. In 1949, the RAF Cricket Association opened on Vine Lane on the western boundary of the station. Also moving into the stations grounds in October of that year were the 14F squadron or the Air Training Corps, their access also being via Vine Lane.The station's badge was approved in April 1953, incorporating a drill sergeant's pace stick to symbolise the training of recruits, and a bugle to represent the Central Band of the RAF; Uxbridge was the first RAF station in Middlesex to have a badge approved.
The ceremonial entrance to the north-west of the station, St Andrew's Gate, was officially opened on 16 December 1957 to mark the link between Uxbridge and the Royal Air Force. A memorial to the personnel of No. 11 Group, made of Cornish granite, was placed in the ground above the Operations Room in 1957. No. 11 Group moved to RAF Martlesham Heath on 14 April 1958 and the room was soon sealed in its original condition. The memorial was unveiled by Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding on 23 April 1958 in a ceremony attended by Group Captain Douglas Bader and Wing Commander Lord Willoughby de Broke, among others, and marked by a flypast of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Control of RAF Hillingdon passed from Fighter Command to Technical Training Command that year, at which time the entire site became known as RAF Uxbridge. The RAF School of Education moved into Hillingdon House from RAF Spitalgate on 10 November 1958, and the station was subsequently merged with No. 22 Group RAF.
The station was granted the Freedom of the London Borough of Hillingdon on 19 March 1960, an honour allowing the station's personnel to march throughout the borough in uniform. On 1 November that year, the Queen's Colour Squadron of the RAF Regiment moved to Uxbridge and the Southern Region Air Traffic Services headquarters moved into Hillingdon House. After the war, the station was already home to the London Area Control Centre, renamed the London Air Traffic Control Centre in 1948 and the Uxbridge Air Traffic Control Centre in 1957. This eventually transferred to RAF West Drayton but remained under the parentage of RAF Uxbridge.
The 11 Group Operations Room was extensively surveyed in order for a replica to be built at Pinewood Studios for the 1969 film Battle of Britain. Scenes for the 1996 television miniseries Over Here and an episode of Richard Holmes' War Walks were filmed in the Operations Room itself. The reinforced Uniter building was built on the site in the 1970s to house communications equipment. Although no longer used for this purpose, the building contains two fuel storage tanks. The main entrance to the station was moved in 1972 from beside the station cinema to its present location roughly 50 yards (46 m) south.
Over nine months in 1975, the 11 Group Operations Room was restored by No. 9 Signals Unit. The original map was repaired and returned to the table by the RAF Cartography unit, and the board detailing the readiness and activities of each sector squadron was rebuilt to resemble its status on 15 September 1940. In 1985 a museum was created within the bunker by Warrant Officer Robert "Chris" Wren and the Operations Room opened for group visits.
In January 1981, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) planted a bomb in the Suvla barrack block at RAF Uxbridge. The device was discovered and the thirty-five RAF musicians and fifteen airmen living there were evacuated before it exploded. Following the incident, an enquiry began and security at all RAF stations was reviewed. The following year, many RAF personnel from the station were deployed during the Falklands War. The station went on to celebrate its 70th anniversary in 1987 by staging several events that raised £30,000 (£ in ) for the RAF Benevolent Fund.
RAF Uxbridge also became involved in Operation Granby following the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Personnel at Uxbridge were prepared for service in the Gulf at that time and deployed in December that year. During the aerial assault on Iraq in January 1991, support group meetings began at the station for the families of service personnel serving during the Gulf War. Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, visited one of these groups in February 1991.
The station church, St Luke's, became structurally unsound on 21 November 1990 after the foundations failed. The building dated back to 1933 and had been constructed of wood; the walls were pushed out and the floor rose by 4 inches (100 mm). In March 1993, the Leigh-Mallory bridge was opened across the River Pinn, and the church moved into a new permanent home, Building 231, in March 1995. Jim Bolger, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, visited the station in May, and in October the station's new sports centre opened.
RAF Uxbridge personnel were once more prepared for action in the Gulf in 2003 in readiness for Operation Telic in Iraq. A support network for the families of service personnel sent into action was again established at the station. In March 2003 the Under-Secretary of State for Defence was briefed at Uxbridge as part of preparations for a visit to the Gulf.
Personnel paraded through Uxbridge town centre on 28 November 2007, exercising the freedom of the borough granted to the station in 1960. RAF Uxbridge became a satellite station of RAF Northolt on 1 April 2008, in preparation for eventual closure. In the final years of RAF ownership, the Service Prosecuting Authority and Civil Aviation Authority's UK Airprox Board (investigating air proximity incidents) was based in Hillingdon House. The final of the national Carnegie Champions schools rugby tournament was held at the station in August 2008. The link between RAF Uxbridge and the Royal Observer Corps was renewed in 2008 with the closure of RAF Bentley Priory and the relocation to Uxbridge of ROC memorabilia from the Priory Officers' Mess for safekeeping and display (the Royal Observer Corps having been stood down from operational duties in December 1995).
The Queen's Colour Squadron returned from a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2009, marked by a homecoming parade through Uxbridge town centre held on 5 August 2009. More than 20,000 people watched the parade, which started from Uxbridge Magistrates Court, passing along the town's High Street to the RAF station.
## RAF units
Sources: RAF Uxbridge 90th Anniversary 1917–2007, RAF Uxbridge – A Fond Farewell, and Ministry of Defence.
## Closure and redevelopment
Prior to the closure of RAF Uxbridge, Queen Elizabeth II sent a message to the station in February 2010, via her equerry, Wing Commander A. D. Calame, who had served as Officer Commanding the Queen's Colour Squadron between 10 August 2005 and 16 July 2007:
> Her Majesty was interested to hear that, in this anniversary year, the historic Number 11 Group Operations Rooms Bunker has been listed and will be preserved as a Royal Air Force asset. Hopefully, the facility will continue as a permanent reminder of those who fought and won the Battle of Britain.
> Her Majesty hopes that the relocation to Royal Air Force Northolt will continue to progress well, and wishes all personnel at Uxbridge best wishes for the future.
The station closed on 31 March 2010 as part of the Ministry of Defence's Project MoDEL, a programme to reduce the number of defence sites in Greater London in favour of a core site at RAF Northolt. The closure ceremony was overseen by the Mayor of Hillingdon and included parades and the final lowering of the Royal Air Force Ensign over the parade ground. A Supermarine Spitfire conducted a flypast of the station. The final units marched to their new station at RAF Northolt the following day. The station, which had received the Freedom of the Borough of Hillingdon, returned the award to the London Borough of Hillingdon as part of the ceremony, though this was returned on 4 September to be stored in the museum of the Battle of Britain Bunker. A commemorative blue plaque dedicated to Douglas Bader was unveiled by the Mayor of Hillingdon at the entrance to the Officers' Mess.
The Middlesex Wing Headquarters of the Air Training Corps (ATC) had been based at the station together with No. 1083 Squadron ATC, which met on Mondays and Thursdays for parade nights. As part of the closing ceremony, personnel of No. 1083 Squadron were presented with the station badge to adopt as their own. The squadron continued to meet at the station until July 2010, when a newly refurbished building at the TA Centre on Honeycroft Hill became available.
The Grade I listed Battle of Britain Bunker is now preserved as a museum open to the public, while the Grade II listed Hillingdon House will be partially converted into a restaurant. The station cinema is also Grade II listed. The Battle of Britain War Memorial is a scheduled protected monument. Although not listed, several other buildings on the site were identified within the plans for possible retention: the Sick Quarters, the Officers' Mess, the original gymnasium, the carpenters' block in the grounds of Hillingdon House and a building near the Battle of Britain Bunker. St. Andrew's Gate will be retained, as will the Mons barrack block adjacent to the parade ground.
Plans to develop the remaining 44.6 hectares (110 acres) of the site were approved by the London Borough of Hillingdon in January 2011 for 1,340 homes, shops, a theatre and a primary school to be built over ten years. The council intends the development to become an extension of Uxbridge town centre. Early suggestions from the Leader of Hillingdon Council included a theatre with a statue of T.E. Lawrence outside, and a new museum built around the Battle of Britain Bunker. MP for Uxbridge John Randall called in 2009 for Hillingdon Hospital to be relocated to the site as an alternative to a planned rebuilding project on its existing site. The hospital trust ruled out such a move due to the projected costs.
The area around the Battle of Britain Bunker, including the No. 11 Group memorial, will retain the RAF Uxbridge name and be maintained by RAF Northolt as an exclave. The Royal Air Force Ensign was moved to the area, together with the Supermarine Spitfire gate guardian, a fibreglass replica of aircraft BR600. The Spitfire was refurbished and painted in the D-Day invasion colours of No. 33 Squadron as aircraft BS239, funded by the London Borough of Hillingdon. Uxbridge's first gate guardian was a real Supermarine Spitfire which was unveiled on 23 May 1973. This was sold to a collector for restoration and replaced by the current guardian in 1988. At a service commemorating the Battle of Britain in September 2010, a new Hawker Hurricane gate guardian in the markings of No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron was unveiled, also near the bunker. The guardian is a fibreglass replica of the aircraft flown by Witold Urbanowicz during the Battle of Britain.
The South Hillingdon branch of the St. John Ambulance service was based at RAF Uxbridge until the closure in 2010 led to a period of uncertainty over its relocation. Eventually, RAF Northolt provided the charity with new premises, which were available from January 2011.
In June 2011, it was announced that the public right of way from St Andrew's Gate in the north-west to Vine Lane in the north-east would be reopened, after work to fence off the pathway was completed. The path, 800 metres (2,600 ft) long, was the subject of a petition submitted to Hillingdon Council in 2010 and had been closed since 1988. The path was reopened in early August 2011.
Since closing, the site has been used extensively for filming. Most recently, scenes for the television drama Endeavour, set in the 1960s, were filmed there.
In April 2012, VSM Estates announced it would be completing the purchase of the site from the MoD, with a view to commencing building work by the end of the year. VSM were provided with a £60 million five-year loan by HSBC, together with funding from joint parent companies, St. Modwen Properties and Vinci plc. Persimmon will develop 8.9 hectares (22 acres) of the site with 500 homes under an existing joint venture agreement with St Modwen. Demolition of the site in phases began in October 2012. The site will be developed under the St Andrew's Park name.
A wood commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II was planted within the site in May 2012. Each school in the London Borough of Hillingdon was invited to plant a tree, and the Station Commander of RAF Northolt, Group Captain Tim O'Brien, also planted one on behalf of the RAF. The wood was officially dedicated by the London Borough of Hillingdon's Representative Deputy Lieutenant, Wing Commander Edna Partridge, on 19 July 2012.
A ground-breaking ceremony was held on 2 July 2013 on the site, attended by the Mayor of Hillingdon and cabinet members of Hillingdon Council. The development is due to be completed within seven years.
A new primary school, built on the site of the former sports ground and gym, opened in September 2014. Named the John Locke Academy, the school will have 630 primary places and 90 nursery places when fully subscribed.
An additional planning application for the construction of office buildings was submitted by St. Modwen in June 2015.
## See also
- List of Battle of Britain airfields
- List of former Royal Air Force stations
|
25,887,432 |
Psilocybe aztecorum
| 1,153,876,656 |
Species of fungus
|
[
"Entheogens",
"Fungi described in 1957",
"Fungi of Mexico",
"Fungi without expected TNC conservation status",
"Psilocybe",
"Psychedelic tryptamine carriers",
"Psychoactive fungi"
] |
Psilocybe aztecorum is a species of psilocybin mushroom in the family Hymenogastraceae. Known from Arizona, Colorado, central Mexico, India and Costa Rica, the fungus grows on decomposing woody debris and is found in mountainous areas at elevations of 2,000 to 4,000 m (6,600 to 13,100 ft), typically in meadows or open, grassy conifer forests. The mushrooms have convex to bell-shaped caps 1.5–2 cm (0.6–0.8 in) in diameter, atop slender cylindrical stems that are up to 7.5 cm (3.0 in) long. The color of the caps changes with variations in hydration, ranging from dark chestnut brown to straw yellow or whitish when dry. The base of the stem is densely covered with conspicuous white rhizomorphs, a characteristic uncommon amongst Psilocybe species.
The species was first reported by French mycologist Roger Heim in 1956 as a variety of Psilocybe mexicana before he officially described it under its current name a year later. Named for its association with the Nahua people also called Aztecs, P. aztecorum may have been one of the sacred mushroom species, or teonanácatl (A Nahuatl word translated variously as "sacred mushroom" or "flesh of the gods"), reported in the codices of 16th-century Spanish chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún. The mushrooms are still used for spiritual ceremonies by Nahua people in the Popocatépetl region, although this traditional usage is waning. The variety P. aztecorum var. bonetii has smaller spores than the main variety, and is found at lower elevations with Montezuma pine (Pinus montezumae) and sacred fir (Abies religiosa). P. aztecorum may be distinguished from similar temperate species such as P. baeocystis and P. quebecensis by their ranges, and by differences in the morphology of microscopic structures like cystidia.
## Taxonomy and nomenclature
The species was first mentioned by French mycologist Roger Heim in 1956 based on material collected by American ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson in Paso de Cortés, on the slopes of Popocatépetl mountain in Mexico. Heim originally named the species as a variety of Psilocybe mexicana; limited to dried mushroom material for analysis, he only described the spores, which he explained were "relatively longer and narrower than that of Psilocybe mexicana". A year later, Heim renamed the fungus Psilocybe aztecorum and officially described it, in addition to several other Mexican Psilocybe taxa. Some of these mushrooms, including P. aztecorum, were illustrated in the popular American weekly magazine Life ("Seeking the Magic Mushroom"), in which Wasson recounted the psychedelic visions that he experienced during the divinatory rituals of the Mazatec people, thereby introducing psilocybin mushrooms to Western popular culture.
In 1978, Mexican mycologist and Psilocybe specialist Gastón Guzmán emended the description of P. aztecorum to include the color variation of the cap resulting from its strongly hygrophanous nature, the mycenoid form, the rhizoids at the base of the stem, the lignicolous habitat, and the size of the spores—all features that he thought were either confused, or not sufficiently detailed, in Heim's original description. In the same publication, Guzmán also characterized the variety P. aztecorum var. bonetii, distinguished from the main variety by its smaller spores. He had originally described this variant as a separate species, Psilocybe bonetii, in 1970. Further, Guzmán later published Psilocybe natarajanii, originally described by him from Tamil Nadu in southern India, as a synonym of P. aztecorum var. bonetii; this putative synonymy, however, is confirmed by neither MycoBank nor Index Fungorum. Guzmán called the main variety P. aztecorum var. aztecorum; for this reason, the species authority is often cited as "P. aztecorum var. aztecorum R. Heim emend. Guzmán".
Psilocybe aztecorum is the type species of Guzmán's section Aztecorum, a group of bluing (i.e., psilocybin-containing) Psilocybe mushrooms characterized by having a strongly hygrophanous cap that dries to brown or brownish white when dry; spores that appear asymmetrical when seen in side view; and pleurocystidia that, when present, are hyaline (translucent). Other species classified in section Aztecorum are P. baeocystis and P. quebecensis.
The specific epithet aztecorum refers to the Aztec peoples of central Mexico, who used this mushroom in traditional ceremonies long before the Spanish came to America. The variety P. aztecorum var. bonneti is named after Dr. Federico Bonet (died 1980), emeritus professor of the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, who assisted Guzmán with his doctoral studies. The popular names of P. aztecorum are niños or niñitos (children or little children), or in the Nahuatl language apipiltzin which means niños del agua ("children of the water"), alluding to their habitat along ravines.
## Description
The cap is convex to bell-shaped, sometimes developing a broad umbo before expanding and flattening in age; it reaches a diameter of 1.5–2 cm (0.6–0.8 in). In maturity, the cap eventually forms a central depression, and, in some old specimens, opens into the hollow stem. The cap surface is slimy to the touch, and has translucent striations along the margin when moist. The cap is strongly hygrophanous, meaning that it will change color depending on its level of hydration. The color ranges from yellowish brown to golden yellow in young button forms to brownish gray in age, with greenish-gray tints on the margin. The color later changes to whitish from the center to the margin, finally remaining completely white; dried specimens are straw-colored to pale brownish. In contrast to most psilocybin mushrooms, the cap of P. aztecorum does not have a strong bluing reaction upon injury—only the margin stains slightly green-blue.
The gills are adnate (broadly attached to the stem slightly above the bottom of the gill) or adnexed (reaching the stem, but not attached to it), and are light violet gray to dark violet brown. They are either uniform in color, or have whitish edges. The hollow stem is 5.5 to 7.5 cm (2.2 to 3.0 in) by 3 to 4 mm (0.12 to 0.16 in) thick, equal in width throughout or thicker at the top, cylindric or sometimes flattened, and either straight or with turns and windings. Its surface is smooth, silky-fibrillose, whitish to greyish, and stains blue-green irregularly when touched or in age. The base of the stem is densely covered with well-developed white rhizomorphs. Young mushrooms have a white cobweb-like partial veil that does not last long before it disappears, although it sometimes remains as a non-permanent ring on the upper part of the stem. The flesh is whitish to yellowish or reddish yellow in the cap, or reddish brown in the stem, and shows little or no bluing reaction to injury. Like most of the bluing Psilocybe mushrooms, the odor and taste of P. aztecorum is slightly farinaceous (similar to freshly ground flour) in fresh specimens; dried specimens have a more intense odor. A drop of dilute potassium hydroxide (KOH) stains the cap, stem, and flesh reddish brown; sometimes, the stem does not stain or stains slightly yellowish red. The spore print is blackish violet.
### Microscopic characteristics
The spores are elongated-ellipsoid in face view, roughly terete (more or less cylindrical but usually tapering at both ends), slightly inequilateral or asymmetrical in side view—the so-called "mango" form. They typically have dimensions of 12–14 by 6.6–7.7 by 6–7.5 μm, although some spores have irregular shapes and are strongly elongated, up to 23 μm. Spores are thick-walled (generally between 1–1.5 μm), dark yellowish brown, and have a broad germ pore. The variety bonetii has smaller spores measuring 10–13 by 6–7.5 by 6–7 μm.
The basidia (spore-bearing cells) measure 24–33 by 6.6–8.8 μm, and may be attached to anywhere from one to four spores, although four-spored basidia are most common. They are hyaline to sometimes somewhat yellowish, club-shaped or roughly cylindrical, and some have a slight constriction around the middle. The cheilocystidia (cystidia on the edge of a gill) are abundant, forming a sterile band on the gill edge. They are hyaline, fusoid-ampullaceous (with a shape ranging from a spindle to a swollen bottle), with dimensions of 20–45 by 5–8.2 μm, and have a filamentous neck measuring 6–11 by 1.6–2.5 μm. The pleurocystidia (cystidia on the gill face) are scattered, similar to the cheilocystidia in form and size, hyaline, and some have bifurcated or branched necks.
The subhymenium (a layer of cells immediately below the hymenium) consists of spherical cells that are interwoven with hyphae; this layer is hyaline to yellowish or brownish, and does not have pigment crusted on the walls of the hyphae. The epicutis (the upper of two layers of the cap cuticle) is made of a thin gelatinous layer of hyaline or brownish hyphae measuring 1.5–2.5 μm in diameter. The hypodermium (the cuticle tissue layer under the epicutis) is hyaline, and has elongated to roughly spherical hyphae that are 10–18 μm in diameter. Clamp connections are present in the hyphae of P. aztecorum.
### Similar species
Psilocybe pseudoaztecorum, found in India, differs from P. aztecorum in the morphology of the pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia. The characteristic filamentous neck present in the cystidia of P. aztecorum is absent in P. pseudoaztecorum. P. pseudoaztecorum had been previously described by K. Natarajan and N. Raman as P. aztecorum, but they published the taxon with a new name after consultation with Guzmán. Fresh specimens of P. aztecorum resemble P. pelliculosa, but this latter species is found only in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and Canada. Like P. aztecorum, the caps of the South African species P. natalensis also bleach to nearly white when dried. The closely related P. baeocystis also bleaches in color to white when dry. Found in northwest North America from British Columbia to Washington and Oregon, P. baeocystis has thinner cheilocystidia than P. aztecorum (typically measuring 20–32 by 4.4–6 μm) and its pleurocystidia, when present, are found only near the gill edge. P. quebecensis, known only from Quebec, Canada, has pleurocystidia measuring 12–25 by 5–10 μm. Although the phylogeny of the species comprising section Aztecorum is not known with certainty, Guzmán has suggested that P. aztecorum was the ancestor of P. baeocystis in northwestern North America and of P. quebecensis in northeastern North America.
## Habitat and distribution
A lignicolous species, Psilocybe aztecorum lives in and decays dead wood, leaves, sticks, or other similar organic debris. Mushrooms typically fruit in groups of 5 to 20, sometimes in bundles. Usual substrates include wood debris buried in soil, twigs or very rotten logs, and, rarely, pine cones. The mushroom is found in woodlands (a low-density forest or wooded area that allows sunlight to penetrate to the forest floor) containing Hartweg's pine (Pinus hartwegii) in addition to grasses such as Festuca tolucensis and Muhlenbergia quadridentata, and the herbaceous plant Alchemilla procumbens, at elevations of 3,200–4,000 m (10,500–13,100 ft). Heim found the type specimens at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,500 ft) in an alpine pine forest. P. aztecorum fruits from August to October.
Psilocybe aztecorum is known only from the high mountains of central Mexico, such as Sierra Nevada, Nevado de Toluca, and La Malinche in the States of Mexico, Puebla, and Tlaxcala. According to Guzmán, it is likely that the species also grows in other areas with high mountains, such as the States of Nuevo Leon, Veracruz, Colima, and Chiapas, which have ecological conditions similar to those of the known localities. Variety bonetii grows in the same substrata as the type variety, mainly on humus, but only in forests with Montezuma pine (Pinus montezumae) and sacred fir (Abies religiosa), between 2,000–3,300 m (6,600–10,800 ft) elevation; it has not been recorded from Hartweg's pine forests. Also known only from Mexico, in the states of Mexico and Morelos, and in the Federal District, P. aztecorum var. bonetii usually fruits from August to November. According to Guzmán, P. aztecorum should be of conservation concern owing to loss of its natural habitat.
## Entheogenic use
Psilocybe aztecorum contains the psychoactive compound psilocybin. In 1958, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann reported a relatively low concentration of 0.02% psilocybin, but this analysis was performed on two-year-old specimens. Jonathan Ott and Guzmán indicated the presence of psilocybin in the variety bonartii. In terms of psychoactive potency, Paul Stamets rates P. aztecorum as "moderately to highly active".
The statue of the Aztec "god of flowers", Xochipilli, a 16th-century stone effigy unearthed on the side of the volcano Popocatépetl, depicts a single figure seated cross-legged upon a temple-like base; his body is covered in carvings of sacred and psychoactive organisms. Circular patterns on his kneecaps, right forearm, and headdress have been interpreted by R. Gordon Wasson as stylized fruit bodies of Psilocybe aztecorum. Wasson says that the convex shape and incurved margins depicted in these images show the mushroom caps just before maturity. P. aztecorum is, in addition to P. caerulescens, one of two mushrooms thought to be the species described by 16th-century Spanish chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún as the teonanácatl. The word teonanácatl () has been variously translated as "sacred or divine mushroom" or as "flesh of the gods". These mushrooms, considered holy sacraments by the Aztecs, were consumed during spiritual and divinatory rituals to induce hallucinatory visions.
Psilocybe aztecorum is still used ceremonially by the indigenous people of Oaxaca, and by Nahua people in the Popocatépetl region, although this usage is gradually diminishing. Traditional folk healers, or curanderos, maintain familiarity with psychoactive mushrooms (and other mind-altering plants used in ceremonial rituals), and diagnose illnesses by having the client ingest the mushrooms. One Mixe curandero initiation ritual involves ingestion of mushrooms following a period of "abstinence from talking, sexual intercourse, and all foods except nuts for three days, whereupon the individual goes up to a mountain, subsists on nothing but a little honey, and prays to God for the power to heal."
## See also
- Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms
- List of psilocybin mushrooms
|
12,106,162 |
Squirm
| 1,157,733,243 |
1976 American natural horror film directed by Jeff Lieberman
|
[
"1970s American films",
"1970s English-language films",
"1976 directorial debut films",
"1976 films",
"1976 horror films",
"American International Pictures films",
"American natural horror films",
"Films about worms",
"Films directed by Jeff Lieberman",
"Films scored by Robert Prince",
"Films set in 1975",
"Films set in Georgia (U.S. state)",
"Films shot in Georgia (U.S. state)"
] |
Squirm is a 1976 American natural horror film written and directed by Jeff Lieberman in his feature-film directing debut, starring Don Scardino, Patricia Pearcy, R. A. Dow, Jean Sullivan, Peter MacLean, Fran Higgins and William Newman. The film takes place in the fictional town of Fly Creek, Georgia, which becomes infested with carnivorous worms after an electrical storm. Lieberman's script is based on a childhood incident in which his brother fed electricity into a patch of earth, causing earthworms to rise to the surface.
Most of the financing came from Broadway producers Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh. Millions of worms were used over the five-week filming in Port Wentworth, Georgia; worms were brought in from Maine to augment local supplies. Makeup artist Rick Baker provided the special effects, using prosthetics for the first time in his career. After American International Pictures picked up Squirm for distribution, it was edited to remove the most graphic scenes in an unsuccessful attempt to lower its "R" rating to "PG". The film was a commercial success, but opened to lukewarm reviews. It has since become a critical favorite and a cult classic.
## Plot
On September 29th, 1975, in the rural town of Fly Creek, Georgia, a powerful storm blows down an overhead power line, leaving the area without electricity. The power line lands in wet mud and electrifies the worms underneath. The next morning, Geri Sanders borrows a truck from her neighbor, worm farmer Roger Grimes, to pick up her boyfriend Mick, who is arriving from New York City for a vacation. While Geri and Mick go to town, Roger's shipment of 100,000 bloodworms and sandworms escape from the back of the truck. Mick enters a diner, where a customer says over 300,000 volts are being released into the ground from severed power lines. He orders an egg cream and finds a worm in it, though the owner and Sheriff Jim Reston believe he placed it there himself as a prank.
Geri introduces Mick to her mother Naomi and sister Alma, before they both leave to browse at antique dealer Aaron Beardsley's house. Outside, Roger's father Willie finds the shipment of worms is missing. Roger sees Mick with Geri and becomes envious of their relationship. After arriving at Beardsley's house, Geri and Mick cannot find him, but Geri sees a human skeleton outside the property. They bring over Sheriff Reston but the skeleton disappears. Thinking it is another prank, Reston threatens to arrest Mick if he returns to the town. While asking locals about Beardsley's whereabouts, they find out he was last seen before the storm. Mick believes he himself unintentionally released the worms; he apologizes to Roger and invites him to go fishing with him and Geri. They find the skeleton in Roger's truck.
While on the boat, Mick is bitten by a worm. Roger shows his bitten-off thumb and tells Mick and Geri that worms attack when electrified. Mick gets off the boat to tend to his wound, leaving Geri with Roger; Mick and Alma take the skeleton's skull to an abandoned dental office, where they compare its teeth with X-rays and confirm the skeleton is Beardsley's. Roger makes advances towards Geri, but the worms they brought as bait attack him and crawl into his face. He runs off into the woods and Geri tells Mick what happened. Mick and Geri visit the worm farm to find Roger, but Mick finds Willie's body being eaten by worms. They try telling Sheriff Reston, but he ignores them. Mick deduces the worms killed Beardsley but cannot figure out why they attacked him.
While Mick and Geri are eating dinner with Naomi and Alma, the worms eat through the roots of a tree, causing it to crash into the house. Mick realizes electricity is still being released from the power lines and that the wet soil is acting as a conductor; he hypothesizes the worms only come out at night. Mick tells Geri to keep everyone inside equipped with candles and leaves to get plywood to board up the house. Roger, whose face has been deformed by worms, attacks Mick and knocks him unconscious. He then enters the house and kidnaps Geri. The worms infest the house and attack other places in town. Sheriff Reston and a woman are eaten alive in a jail cell, and people at a bar are attacked and eaten.
Mick regains consciousness and finds Naomi's remains, covered in worms, at the house. When he goes upstairs, Roger attacks and chases him downstairs. Mick pushes Roger into a pile of worms, which engulf him. Mick frees Geri and tells her that Naomi, and presumably Alma, are dead. While they try escaping through a window, Roger crawls out of the pile of worms and bites Mick in the leg. Mick beats Roger to death with a flashlight before climbing onto a tree with Geri, where they stay until morning. Upon waking up, they realize the worms had disappeared and a repairman informs them that the power has been restored. Alma, who survived by hiding in a chest, comes out and looks out the window. Geri and Mick rush into the house to meet her.
## Cast
- Don Scardino as Mick
- Patricia Pearcy as Geraldine "Geri" Sanders
- R. A. Dow as Roger Grimes
- Jean Sullivan as Naomi Sanders
- Peter MacLean as Sheriff Jim Reston
- Fran Higgins as Alma Sanders
- William Newman as Quigley
- Barbara Quinn as Sheriff's Girl
- Carl Dagenhart as Willie Grimes
- Angel Sande as Millie
- Carol Jean Owens as Lizzie
- Kim Leon Iocovozzi as Hank
- Walter Dimmick as Danny
- Leslie Thorsen as Bonnie
- Julia Klopp as Mrs. Klopp
## Production
Squirm was written by Jeff Lieberman, who at the time was working for Janus Films on a series called The Art of Film; he developed Squirm after his work shifts ended to deal with his "frustrations over having to put on a tie". The script was based on a childhood incident in which Lieberman's brother connected a transformer to the ground to force worms to emerge so he could use them for a fishing trip, which "scared the shit out of" Lieberman. He was also inspired by a news story from Floyds Knobs, Indiana about migrating millipedes invading homes and by the 1963 film The Birds.
Lieberman completed a rough draft in six weeks and gave it to producer George Manasse, who saw potential in it. Manasse showed Lieberman's script to then-independent Broadway producers Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh. They read the script during the warm U.S. summer months of 1975, after which the project moved swiftly, with the producers buying Squirm and investing \$470,000 of their own money into the project. Squirm was the only film produced by The Squirm Company. The original setting and filming location was planned to be New England but the filming was changed to Port Wentworth, Georgia, due to unsuitable fall weather conditions in the northeastern U.S. Production began in the warmer climate of Georgia in the late fall of November 1975.
Kim Basinger auditioned for the role of Geri, but Lieberman passed on her, believing that the audience would not believe that she would live in a "hick town". Lieberman later regretted the decision, calling himself an idiot. Martin Sheen was originally cast to play the role of Mick, but was replaced with Don Scardino. Sheen had suggested that Mick should be an actor and had wanted him to recite the Yorick scene from Hamlet when he discovers Aaron Beardsley's skull. Jean Sullivan, who played Geri's mother Naomi, based her Southern accent on Tennessee Williams. To prepare for his part as Roger, R. A. Dow spent weeks in Port Wentworth to do method acting training.
Half of the worms used in the film were made of rubber; the others included large sandworms from Maine, refrigerated and transported to Port Wentworth, and an estimated 3 million bloodworms provided by the University of Georgia Oceanographic Institute. To get the worms to move, wires were run under them and electrified. One scene in which a living room is filled with worms was accomplished by building a scaffolding four feet (1.2 m) above the ground; a canvas was placed on top and covered with a six-inch layer of thousands of worms. The local Boy Scouts troop was hired to move the canvas from below to make the worms undulate; they received merit badges for their work. After production wrapped, newspapers in Maine reported the local fishing industry had been impacted by a shortage of worms caused by the film production.
Brian Smedley-Aston edited Squirm. Robert Prince composed the score and also conducted a full orchestra in England for the film. Bernard Herrmann, composer for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Psycho (1960), was originally slated to write the score but died before beginning work. Joe Mangine was the director of photography and Henry Shrady was the art director. Special make-up effects artist Rick Baker created the make-up in New York for R. A. Dow's character Roger, who turns into "Wormface". He made a facial mold using prosthetics, which he had never worked with before. The fake worms were drawn through Dow's skin using monofilament fishing line covered in lubricant, pulled from just out of shot.
Principal photography wrapped after five weeks, one of which was dedicated to working with the worms. Lieberman was heavily involved with the post-production work, which included making the sound effects for the worms using balloons and shears and looping the two sounds using multitrack recording. The shears snapping open and closed were used to make the sound of their teeth. The worms' screams were taken from a scene in which pigs are slaughtered in Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie.
## Release
Squirm was shown during the May 1976 Cannes Film Market. It was acquired by American International Pictures (AIP), who released it theatrically in the United States on July 14, 1976, and worldwide on August 9 that same year. AIP had given a \$250,000 advance to the film's producers for domestic distribution and \$500,000 in guarantees from sixteen territories.
AIP hoped for a "PG" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), but the MPAA objected to nearly all the horror scenes as "objectionable to PG-rated sensibilities". The film was edited to remove most of the scariest material and a shower scene with Patricia Pearcy. This cut the running time by 1 minute. The now 92-minute film, however, still received an "R" rating. In 1977, the MPAA re-rated the film with a "PG" rating. The TV film was even more extensively cut: Lieberman commented that "In the theatrical version there was just enough of the worm attacks left for them to work; on TV, the cuts are ridiculous!" The film was financially successful; Lansbury and Beruh made their investment back from the foreign theatrical market.
The film was released on VHS by Vestron Video in 1983 and on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment in 2003. The DVD version, with a 93-minute run time, restored the shower scene and included an audio commentary with Lieberman as part of the special features. MGM released it as part of a set with Swamp Thing (1982) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985) in 2011. The unedited R-rated version was released in the United Kingdom on Blu-ray and DVD by Arrow Video on September 23, 2013. This version was released in the United States on Blu-ray by Shout! Factory under its label Scream Factory on October 28, 2014. Squirm was also released on streaming services Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, and Shudder.
## Reception
Opinions on the film's horror elements and special effects were mostly positive, with several reviewers crediting the special effects for conveying a sense of gruesome creepiness. A TV Guide contributor described the worm scenes as "genuinely terrifying", and Cinefantastique contributor Kyle B. Counts found a shot of the worms burrowing into Roger's face "expertly gruesome". Vincent Canby, writing in The New York Times, felt the worm scenes were "effectively revolting", though he disliked the shot of Roger sinking into a pile of worms, comparing it to spaghetti with meat sauce. In his 2019 book American International Pictures, Rob Craig agreed that the movie's horror was made effective by Baker's gory make-up. Craig was also impressed that the film managed to convey a "sense of dread" with the use of a traditionally non-threatening creature like the earthworm, by "amassing [them] into a gigantic horde which becomes a mass-minded killing force". Another retrospective reviewer, in the 2013 edition of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, assessed the film as an "above-average horror outing [that] builds to good shock sequences". Robert Prince's use of synthesizers in the music score produced an "unnerving effect" according to Donald Guarisco of AllMovie.
Critics were less impressed with the film's production and performances and were divided on Lieberman's direction. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times argued that Lieberman showed "plenty of panache [...] deftly playing a disarming folksy atmosphere against rapidly escalating peril", and TV Guide thought it was underrated, "as with most of Lieberman's work". Counts criticized the director's handling of the creepy moments in the film as "oppressively clumsy", and Variety magazine also found the creepy special effects were offset by "clumsy and amateurish" production. The cinematography was praised by critics; John Kenneth Muir commended the filmmaking along with the film's imagery, though he found the inconsistent tone and lack of believable characters "a letdown". In Canby's opinion, Scardino and Pearcy gave decent performances.
Squirm received lukewarm reviews upon its release from Variety and The New York Times, but impressions changed over time. Counts, an early reviewer, criticized the way the film cut away from violent moments to scenes of comic relief, saying that it undermined the film's "threadbare" tension, but Thomas thought the film had a good balance between humor and terror. John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin thought the film's use of humor and narrative rendered Squirm a commendable and scary addition to the genre. Guarisco described Squirm as an "excellent example of the 'revenge of nature' horror" genre, and praised its third act for getting viewers invested in the fate of the characters. The film received generally positive retrospective evaluations, earning it cult classic status and recognition for its humor and themes; Time listed Squirm as one of the best "Killer-Animal Movies" in 2010, noting its "sick twist" on the shower scene in Psycho. A TV Guide contributor gave positive marks to its handling of the tongue-in-cheek humor and scares, including the tribute to Psycho. Craig considered it to be "an entertaining – and fairly insightful − film which is certainly not uncritical to its main characters and their community". Jim Craddock, author of VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever, gave a less than positive review and summarized it as an "okay" giant worm movie.
## Analysis
Squirm can be seen as a "revenge of nature" film, a genre which began in the early 1970s with films like Frogs and Night of the Lepus. Jaws, the most important film in the genre, spawned "Jawsploitation" films which attempted to take advantage of its success, but film studies scholar I. Q. Hunter argues that Jaws "merely served to perpetuate the early-1970s genre Quentin Tarantino called the 'Mother Nature goes ape-shit kind of movie'". Muir describes the genre as "eco-horror", commenting that "these films reflected genuine audience trepidation that Mother Nature would not stand for Man's continued pillaging and pollution of the Earth".
The film critic Robin Wood, in a discussion of horror films showing the re-emergence of repressed sexual and familial tensions, included Squirm as an example of the "revenge of nature" motif and argued that the survival of three of the main characters runs "counter to the film's logic" of the unstoppable natural forces that the worms represent. Rob Craig also commented on the sexual undercurrents in the film, arguing that in the context of the film's treatment of rural folk as "ignorant, divisive, reactionary, corrupt, and quite possibly lunatic", the worms can be seen as a metaphor for "a country bumpkin's slimy, limp penis: a laughably vulnerable object by itself, but fearsomely dangerous in aggregate", which in turn implies the rural men are "a gaggle of 'limp noodles' which are nonetheless dangerous as a societal force". Kyle B. Counts notes similarities between the themes of "masculine ideals" in Squirm and Straw Dogs, in which the male leads are heroes, and also said the film does not give the impression Don Scardino's character grew into a "man" after his experience.
Lieberman wrote the foreword for Jon Towlson's 2014 book Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present. In this, he addressed the critical and scholarly analysis of Squirm:
> In my first movie, Squirm (1976), I really didn't try to make any sort of social or political comment. At least not consciously. However, soon after the movie's release, critics found some very profound subtexts which I myself wasn't aware of. Nature getting revenge on man for his disrespect of ecology. The symbolism of man's mortality and his inevitable fate of becoming worm food. Even themes of suppressed sexuality in the main characters. This could all very well be true, but if it is, it was not done purposely on my part.
## Legacy
Director Brian De Palma included a poster of Squirm in several scenes of his 1981 film Blow Out. A fan of De Palma, Lieberman told Fangoria that he asked him about the poster years later. De Palma reportedly answered "Only use the best!"
Musician "Weird Paul" Petroskey created an album titled Worm in My Egg Cream that was dedicated to the scene where Mick orders an egg cream and finds a worm in it. Released on his label Rocks & Rolling Records, all 16 tracks on the album are titled the same as the album.
Squirm was featured on a 10th-season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), a comedy television series in which the character Mike Nelson and his two robot friends Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo are forced to watch bad films as part of an ongoing scientific experiment. The episode was broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel on August 1, 1999 and was the penultimate episode of the season and of the Sci-Fi Channel era of the show. It was shown along with the short film A Case of Spring Fever. In 2014, Shout! Factory released the MST3K episode as part of the "Turkey Day Collection", along with episodes focused on Jungle Goddess, The Painted Hills, and The Screaming Skull.
|
1,952,495 |
Deinocheirus
| 1,170,037,330 |
Genus of theropod dinosaurs
|
[
"Clawed herbivores",
"Fossil taxa described in 1970",
"Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia",
"Maastrichtian life",
"Nemegt fauna",
"Ornithomimosaurs",
"Taxa named by Halszka Osmólska"
] |
Deinocheirus (/ˌdaɪnoʊˈkaɪrəs/ DY-no-KY-rəs) is a genus of large ornithomimosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous around 70 million years ago. In 1965, a pair of large arms, shoulder girdles, and a few other bones of a new dinosaur were first discovered in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. In 1970, this specimen became the holotype of the only species within the genus, Deinocheirus mirificus; the genus name is Greek for "horrible hand". No further remains were discovered for almost fifty years, and its nature remained a mystery. Two more complete specimens were described in 2014, which shed light on many aspects of the animal. Parts of these new specimens had been looted from Mongolia some years before, but were repatriated in 2014.
Deinocheirus was an unusual ornithomimosaur, the largest of the clade at 11 m (36 ft) long, and weighing 6.5 t (7.2 short tons). Though it was a bulky animal, it had many hollow bones which saved weight. The arms were among the largest of any bipedal dinosaur at 2.4 m (7.9 ft) long, with large, blunt claws on its three-fingered hands. The legs were relatively short, and bore blunt claws. Its vertebrae had tall neural spines that formed a "sail" along its back. Most of the vertebrae and some other bones were highly pneumatised by invading air sacs. The tail ended in pygostyle-like vertebrae, which indicate the presence of a fan of feathers. The skull was 1.024 m (3.36 ft) long, with a wide bill and a deep lower jaw, similar to those of hadrosaurs.
The classification of Deinocheirus was long uncertain, and it was initially placed in the theropod group Carnosauria, but similarities with ornithomimosaurians were soon noted. After more complete remains were found, Deinocheirus was shown to be a primitive ornithomimosaurian, most closely related to the smaller genera Garudimimus and Beishanlong, together forming the family Deinocheiridae. Members of this group were not adapted for speed, unlike other ornithomimosaurs. Deinocheirus is thought to have been omnivorous; its skull shape indicates a diet of plants, fish scales were found in association with one specimen and gastroliths were also present in the stomach region of the specimen. The large claws may have been used for digging and gathering plants. Bite marks on Deinocheirus bones have been attributed to the tyrannosaurid Tarbosaurus.
## Discovery
The first known fossil remains of Deinocheirus were discovered by Polish palaeontologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska on July 9, 1965, at the Altan Ula III site (coordinates: ) in the Nemegt Basin of the Gobi Desert. She was part of a Polish group accompanied by Mongolian palaeontologist Rinchen Barsbold during the 1963–1965 Polish-Mongolian palaeontological expeditions, which were organised by the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. The crew spent July 9–11 excavating the specimen and loading it onto a vehicle. A 1968 report by Kielan-Jaworowska and Naydin Dovchin, which summarised the accomplishments of the expeditions, announced that the remains represented a new family of theropod dinosaur.
The specimen was discovered on a small hill in sandstone, and consists of a partial, disarticulated skeleton, most parts of which had probably eroded away at the time of discovery. The specimen consisted of both forelimbs, excluding the claws of the right hand, the complete shoulder girdle, centra of three dorsal vertebrae, five ribs, gastralia (belly ribs), and two ceratobranchialia. The specimen was made the holotype of Deinocheirus mirificus, named by Halszka Osmólska and Ewa Roniewicz in 1970. The generic name is derived from Greek deinos (δεινός), meaning "horrible", and cheir (χείρ), meaning "hand", due to the size and strong claws of the forelimbs. The specific name comes from Latin and means "unusual" or "peculiar", chosen for the unusual structure of the forelimbs. The Polish-Mongolian expeditions were notable for being led by women, among the first to name new dinosaurs. The original specimen number of the holotype was ZPal MgD-I/6, but it has since been re-catalogued as MPC-D 100/18.
The paucity of known Deinocheirus remains inhibited a thorough understanding of the animal for almost half a century onwards, and the scientific literature often described it as among the most "enigmatic", "mysterious", and "bizarre" of dinosaurs. The holotype arms became part of a traveling exhibit of Mongolian dinosaur fossils, touring various countries. In 2012, Phil R. Bell, Philip J. Currie, and Yuong-Nam Lee announced the discovery of additional elements of the holotype specimen, including fragments of gastralia, found by a Korean-Mongolian team which re-located the original quarry in 2008. Bite marks on two gastralia were identified as belonging to Tarbosaurus, and it was proposed that this accounted for the scattered, disassociated state of the holotype specimen.
### Additional specimens
In 2013, the discovery of two new Deinocheirus specimens was announced before the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) conference by Lee, Barsbold, Currie, and colleagues. Housed at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, these two headless individuals were given the specimen numbers MPC-D 100/127 and MPC-D 100/128. MPC-D 100/128, a subadult specimen, was found by scientists in the Altan Ula IV locality (coordinates: ) of the Nemegt Formation during the Korea-Mongolia International Dinosaur Expedition in 2006, but had already been damaged by fossil poachers. The second specimen, MPC-D 100/127, was found by scientists in the Bugiin Tsav locality (coordinates: ) in 2009. It is slightly larger than the holotype, and it could be clearly identified as Deinocheirus by its left forelimb, and therefore helped identify the earlier collected specimen as Deinocheirus. The specimen had also been excavated by poachers, who had removed the skull, hands and feet, but left behind a single toe bone. It had probably been looted after 2002, based on money left in the quarry. Skulls, claw bones and teeth are often selectively targeted by poachers on the expense of the rest of the skeletons (which are often vandalized), due to their saleability. Currie stated in an interview that it was a policy of their team to investigate quarries after they had been looted and recover anything of significance, and that finding any new Deinocheirus fossils was cause for celebration, even without the poached parts. A virtual model of Deinocheirus revealed at the SVP presentation brought applause from the crowd of attending palaeontologists, and the American palaeontologist Stephen L. Brusatte stated he had never been as surprised by a SVP talk, though new fossils are routinely presented at the conference.
After the new specimens were announced, it was rumoured that a looted skull had found its way to a European museum through the black market. The poached elements were spotted in a private European collection by the French fossil trader François Escuillé, who notified Belgian palaeontologist Pascal Godefroit about them in 2011. They suspected the remains belonged to Deinocheirus, and contacted the Korean-Mongolian team. Escuillé subsequently acquired the fossils and donated them to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The recovered material consisted of a skull, a left hand, and feet, which had been collected in Mongolia, sold to a Japanese buyer, and resold to a German party (the fossils also passed through China and France). The team concluded that these elements belonged to specimen MPC-D 100/127, as the single leftover toe bone fit perfectly into the unprepared matrix of a poached foot, the bone and matrix matched in colour, and because the elements belonged to an individual of the same size, with no overlap in skeletal elements. On May 1, 2014, the fossils were repatriated to Mongolia by a delegation from the Belgian Museum, during a ceremony held at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. The reunited skeleton was deposited at the Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs in Ulaanbaatar, along with a Tarbosaurus skeleton which had also been brought back after being stolen. American palaeontologist Thomas R. Holtz stated in an interview that the new Deinocheirus remains looked like the "product of a secret love affair between a hadrosaur and Gallimimus".
Combined with the poached elements, both new specimens represent almost the entire skeleton of Deinocheirus, as MPC-D 100/127 includes all material apart from the middle dorsal vertebrae, most caudal vertebrae, and the right forelimb; MPC-D 100/128 fills in most gaps of the other skeleton, with nearly all dorsal and caudal vertebrae, the ilium, a partial ischium, and most of the left hindlimb. In 2014, the specimens were described by Lee, Barsbold, Currie, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Hang-Jae Lee Lee, Godefroit, Escuillié, and Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig. A similar series of events was reported earlier in 2014 with Spinosaurus, another sail-backed theropod which had only been known from few remains since 1912. Poached remains were reunited with specimens obtained by scientists, and Spinosaurus was shown to have been quite different from other spinosaurids. The two cases showed that the lifestyle and appearance of incompletely known extinct animals cannot always be safely inferred from close relatives. By 2017, the Mongolian government had increased its effort to seize poached fossils from collectors and repatriate them, but proving their provenance had become a scientific and political concern. Therefore, a study tested the possibility of identifying poached fossils by geochemical methods, using Deinocheirus and other Nemegt dinosaurs as examples. In 2018, numerous large, tridactyl (three-toed) tracks were reported from the Nemegt locality (discovered in 2007 alongside sauropod tracks). Though the tracks were similar to those of hadrosaurs, no tracks of hadrosaur hands were identified, and since the feet of Deinocheirus are now known to have been similar to those of hadrosaurs, it cannot be ruled out that the tracks were made by this genus.
## Description
Deinocheirus is the largest ornithomimosaurian (ostrich dinosaur) discovered; according to the 2014 description, the largest known specimen measured about 11 m (36 ft) long, with an estimated weight of 6.36 t (7.01 short tons). The two other known specimens are smaller, the holotype being 94% as big while the smallest, a subadult, only 74% as big. In 2016, Gregory S. Paul presented a higher length estimate of 11.5 m (38 ft) but a lower mass estimate of 5 t (5.5 short tons). Also in 2016, Asier Larramendi and Molina-Pérez presented a higher length estimate of 12 m (39 ft) and a higher mass estimate of 7 t (7.7 short tons), and an estimated hip height of 4.4 m (14 ft). In 2020, Campione and Evans gave a body mass estimate of approximately 6.5 t (7.2 short tons). When only the incomplete holotype arms were known, various sizes were extrapolated from them by different methods. A 2010 study estimated the hip height of Deinocheirus to be 3.3–3.6 m (11–12 ft). The weight had previously been estimated between 2 tonnes (2.2 short tons) and 12 tonnes (13 short tons). Enormous sizes were also suggested by comparing the arms with those of tyrannosaurs, even though members of that group did not have large arms in proportion to their body size.
The only known skull, belonging to the largest specimen, measures 1.024 m (3.36 ft) from the premaxilla at the front to the back of the occipital condyle. The widest part of the skull behind the eyes is only 23 cm (9.1 in) wide in comparison. The skull was similar to those of other ornithomimosaurs in being low and narrow, but differed in that the snout was more elongated. The skull bone walls were rather thin, about 6 mm (0.24 in). It had a rounded, flattened beak, which would have been covered by keratin in life. The nostrils were turned upwards, and the nasal bone was a narrow strap that extended up above the eye sockets. The outer diameter of the sclerotic rings in the eyes was small, 8.4 cm (3.3 in), compared to the size of the skull. The lower temporal fenestrae, openings behind the eyes, were partially closed off by the jugal bones, similar to Gallimimus. The jaws were toothless and down-turned, and the lower jaw was very massive and deep compared to the slender and low upper jaw. The relative size of the lower jaw was closer to that of tyrannosaurids than to other ornithomimosaurs. The snout was spatulate (flared outwards to the sides) and 25 cm (9.8 in) wide, which is wider than the skull roof. This shape was similar to the snout of duck-billed hadrosaurids.
### Postcranial skeleton
Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus possessed the longest forelimbs known for any bipedal dinosaurs. The holotype forelimbs measure 2.4 m (7.9 ft) long—the humerus (upper arm bone) is 93.8 cm (36.9 in), the ulna 68.8 cm (27.1 in), and the hand is 77 cm (30 in)—including the 19.6-centimetre-long (7.7 in) recurved claws. Each scapulocoracoid of the shoulder girdle has a length of 1.53 m (5 ft). Each half of the paired ceratobranchialia measure 42 cm (17 in). The shoulder-blade was long and narrow, and the deltopectoralis crest was pronounced and triangular. The upper arm (humerus) was relatively slender, and only slightly longer than the hand. The ulna and radius (lower arm bones) were elongate and not firmly connected to each other in a syndesmosis. The metacarpus was long compared to the fingers. The three fingers were about equal in length, the first being the stoutest and the second the longest. Various rough areas and impressions on the forelimbs indicate the presence of powerful muscles. Most articular surfaces of the arm bones were deeply furrowed, indicating that the animal had thick pads of cartilage between the joints. Though the arms of Deinocheirus were large, the ratio between them and the shoulder girdle was less than that of the smaller ornithomimosaur Ornithomimus. The arm bones of Deinocheirus were similar in proportions to those of the small theropod Compsognathus.
Though Deinocheirus was a bulky animal, its dorsal ribs were tall and relatively straight, indicating that the body was narrow. The ten neck vertebrae were low and long, and progressively shorter backwards from the skull. This resulted in a more S-curved neck than seen in other ornithomimosaurs, due to the larger skull. The neural spines of the twelve back vertebrae became increasingly longer from front to back, the last one being 8.5 times the height of the centrum part. This is almost the same as the highest ratio in the neural spines of the theropod Spinosaurus. The neural spines had a system of interconnecting ligaments, which stiffened the vertebral column allowing it to support the abdomen while transmitting the stress to the hips and hindlimbs. Together, the neural spines formed a tall "sail" along the lower back, hips, and base of the tail, somewhat similar to that of Spinosaurus.
All the vertebrae were highly pneumatised by invading air sacs, except for the atlas bone and the hindmost tail vertebrae, and were thereby connected to the respiratory system. The back vertebrae were as pneumatised as those of sauropod dinosaurs, and had an extensive system of depressions. These adaptations may be correlated with gigantism, as they reduce weight. The six vertebrae of the sacrum were also tall and pneumatised, and all but the first one were fused together at the top, their neural spines forming a neural plate. The ilium, the top hip bone, was also partially pneumatised close to the sacral vertebrae. Part of the pelvis was hypertrophied (enlarged) compared to other ornithomimosaurs, to support the weight of the animal with strong muscle attachments. The front hip bones tilted upwards in life. The tail of Deinocheirus ended in at least two fused vertebrae, which were described as similar to the pygostyle of oviraptorosaurian and therizinosauroid theropods. Ornithomimosaurs are known to have had pennaceous feathers, so this feature suggests that they might have had a fan of feathers at the tail end.
The wishbone (furcula), an element not known from any other ornithomimosaurs, was U-shaped. The hindlimbs were relatively short, and the thigh bone (femur) was longer than the shin bone (tibia), as is common for large animals. The metatarsus was short and not arctometatarsalian, as in most other theropods. The claw bones of the feet were blunt and broad-tipped instead of tapered, unlike other theropods, but resembled the unguals of large ornithischian dinosaurs. The proportions of the toe bones resembled those of tyrannosaurs, due to the large weight they had to bear.
## Classification
When Deinocheirus was only known from the original forelimbs, its taxonomic relationship was difficult to determine, and several hypotheses were proposed. Osmólska and Roniewicz initially concluded that Deinocheirus did not belong in any already named theropod family, so they created a new, monotypic family Deinocheiridae, placed in the infraorder Carnosauria. This was due to the large size and thick-walled limb bones, but they also found some similarities with Ornithomimus, and, to a lesser extent, Allosaurus. In 1971, John Ostrom first proposed that Deinocheirus belonged with the Ornithomimosauria, while noting that it contained both ornithomimosaurian and non-ornithomimosaurian characters. In 1976, Rhinchen Barsbold named the order Deinocheirosauria, which was to include the supposedly related genera Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus. A relationship between Deinocheirus and the long-armed therizinosaurs was supported by some later writers, but they are not considered to be closely related today.
In 2004, Peter Makovicky, Kobayashi and Currie pointed out that Deinocheirus was likely a primitive ornithomimosaurian, since it lacked some of the features typical of the Ornithomimidae family. Primitive traits include its recurved claws, the low humerus-to-scapula ratio, and the lack of a syndesmosis. A 2006 study by Kobayashi and Barsbold found Deinocheirus to be possibly the most primitive ornithomimosaur, but was unable to further resolve its affinities, due to the lack of skull and hindlimb elements. A cladistic analysis accompanying the 2014 description of the two much more complete specimens found that Deinocheirus formed a clade with Garudimimus and Beishanlong, which were therefore included in the Deinocheiridae. The resulting cladogram follows below:
The 2014 study defined Deinocheiridae as a clade including all taxa with a more recent common ancestor with Deinocheirus mirificus than with Ornithomimus velox. The three members share various anatomical features in the limbs. The 2014 cladogram suggested that ornithomimosaurians diverged into two major lineages in the Early Cretaceous: Deinocheiridae and Ornithomimidae. Unlike other ornithomimosaurians, deinocheirids were not built for running. The anatomical peculiarities of Deinocheirus when compared to other, much smaller ornithomimosaurs, can largely be explained by its much larger size and weight. Deinocheirids and the smaller ornithomimids did not have teeth, unlike more primitive ornithomimosaurs. In 2020, the deinocheirid Paraxenisaurus from Mexico was named, making it the first member of the group known from North America. Its describers suggested deinocheirids originated in Laurasia (the northern supercontinent of the time) or that they dispersed across polar regions in the Northern Hemisphere, and a similar interchange is also known to have occurred in other dinosaur groups with Asian affinities during the Campanian–Maastrichtian ages. This study also found Harpymimus to be a basal deinocheirid, while placing Beishanlong just outside the group, as a basal ornithomimosaur.
## Palaeobiology
The blunt and short hand-claws of Deinocheirus were similar to those of the therizinosaur Alxasaurus, which indicates the long arms and claws were used for digging and gathering plants. The blunt claws of the feet could have helped the animal from sinking into substrate when wading. The robust hind limbs and hip region indicates the animal moved slowly. The large size of the animal may have protected it against predators such as Tarbosaurus, but in turn it lost the running ability of other ornithomimosaurs. The long neural spines and possible tail fan may have been used for display behaviour. Deinocheirus was likely diurnal (active during the day), since the sclerotic rings of the eyes were relatively small in comparison with its skull length. The hand had good mobility relative to the lower arm, but was capable of only a limited flexing motion, unable to close in grasping.
The brain of Deinocheirus was reconstructed through CT scans and presented at the 2014 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference. The brain was globular and similar in shape to that of birds and troodontid theropods, the cerebrum was expanded in a way similar to most theropods, and the olfactory tracts were relatively large. The brain was proportionally small and compact, and its reptile encephalization quotient (brain-body ratio) was estimated at 0.69, which is low for theropods, and similar to sauropods. Other ornithomimosaurs have proportionally large brains, and the small brain of Deinocheirus may reflect its social behaviour or diet. Its coordination and balance would not have been as important as for carnivorous theropods.
In 2015, Akinobu Watanabe and colleagues found that together with Archaeornithomimus and Gallimimus, Deinocheirus had the most pneumatised skeleton among ornithomimosaurs. Pneumatisation is thought to be advantageous for flight in modern birds, but its function in non-avian dinosaurs is not known with certainty. It has been proposed that pneumatisation was used to reduce the mass of large bones (associated with gigantic size in the case of Deinocheirus), that it was related to high metabolism, balance during locomotion, or used for thermoregulation.
A bone microstructure study presented at the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists in 2015 showed that Deinocheirus probably had a high metabolic rate, and grew rapidly before reaching sexual maturity. A histological study of a gastralia fragment from the holotype presented at a 2018 conference showed that its internal structure was similar to that of ossified tendons of other theropods. The osteons contained possible canaliculi, which would be the first-known occurrence of such structures in a basal ornithomimosaur. The structure of the periosteum and lack of growth arrest lines suggests that the holotype was a fully grown adult.
### Diet
The distinct shape of the skull shows that Deinocheirus had a more specialised diet than other ornithomimosaurs. The beak was similar to that of ducks, which indicates it may have likewise foraged in water, or browsed near the ground like some sauropods and hadrosaurs. The attachment sites for the muscles that open and close the jaws were very small in comparison to the size of the skull, which indicates Deinocheirus had a weak bite force. The skull was likely adapted for cropping soft understorey or water vegetation. The depth of the lower jaw indicates the presence of a large tongue, which could have assisted the animal in sucking in food material obtained with the broad beak when foraging on the bottom of freshwater bodies.
More than 1,400 gastroliths (stomach stones, 8 to 87 mm in size) were found among the ribs and gastralia of specimen MPC-D100/127. The ratio of gastrolith mass to total weight, 0.0022, supports the theory that these gastroliths helped the toothless animals in grinding their food. Features such as the presence of a beak and a U-shaped, downturned jaw, are indicators of facultative (optional) herbivory among coelurosaurian theropods. In spite of these features, fish vertebrae and scales were also found among the gastroliths, which suggests that it was an omnivore. Ornithomimosaurs in general are thought to have fed on both plants and small animals.
David J. Button and Zanno found in 2019 herbivorous dinosaurs mainly followed two distinct modes of feeding, either processing food in the gut—characterized by gracile skulls and low bite forces—or the mouth, characterized by features associated with extensive processing. Deinocheirus, along with ornithomimid ornithomimosaurs, diplodocoid and titanosaur sauropods, Segnosaurus, and caenagnathids, was found to be in the former category. These researchers suggested that deinocheirids and ornithomimid ornithomimosaurians such as Gallimimus had invaded these niches separately, convergently achieving relatively large sizes. Advantages from large body mass in herbivores include increased intake rate of food and fasting resistance, and these trends may therefore indicate that deinocheirids and ornithomimids were more herbivorous than other ornithomimosaurians. They cautioned that the correlations between body mass and body mass were not simple, and that there was no directional trend towards increased mass seen in the clade. Furthermore, the diet of most ornithomimosaurians is poorly known, and Deinocheirus appears to have been at least opportunistically omnivorous.
A 2022 article by Waisum Ma and colleagues examined how feeding mechanics varied between different non-bird coelurosaurian groups through finite element analysis, revealing that they all underwent reduction of feeding-related stress in their jaws. They found that Deinocheirus showed different patterns of stress and strain distribution than other ornithomimisaurs, indicating it was a specialized feeder. They suspected Deinocheirus may have reverted to omnivory/carnivory.
Various feeding behaviours were proposed before more complete remains of Deinocheirus were known, and it was early on envisioned as a predatory, allosaur-like animal with giant arms. In their original description, Osmólska and Roniewicz found that the hands of Deinocheirus were unsuited for grasping, but could instead have been used to tear prey apart. In 1970, the Russian paleontologist Anatoly Konstantinovich Rozhdestvensky compared the forelimbs of Deinocheirus to sloths, leading him to hypothesise that Deinocheirus was a specialised climbing dinosaur, that fed on plants and animals found in trees. In 1988, Paul instead suggested that the claws were too blunt for predatory purposes, but would have been good defensive weapons. While attempting to determine the ecological niches for Deinocheirus and Therizinosaurus in 2010, Phil Senter and James H. Robins suggested that Deinocheirus had the largest vertical feeding range due to its hip height, and specialised in eating high foliage. In 2017, it was suggested that the claws of Deinocheirus were adapted for pulling large quantities of herbaceous plants out of water, and to decrease the resistance of water.
### Palaeopathology
Osmólska and Roniewicz reported palaeopathologies in the holotype specimen such as abnormal pits, grooves and tubercles on the first and second phalanx of the left second finger that may have been the result of injuries to the joint between the two bones. The damage may have caused changes to the arrangement of ligaments of muscles. The two coracoids are also differently developed. A rib of specimen MPC-D 100/127 shows a healed trauma which has remodelled the bone. In 2012, bite marks on two gastralia of the holotype specimen were reported. The size and shape of the bite marks match the teeth of Tarbosaurus, the largest known predator from the Nemegt Formation. Various types of feeding traces were identified; punctures, gouges, striae, fragmentary teeth, and combinations of the above marks. The bite marks probably represent feeding behaviour instead of aggression between the species, and the fact that bite marks were not found elsewhere on the body indicates the predator focused on internal organs. Tarbosaurus bite marks have also been identified on hadrosaur and sauropod fossils, but theropod bite marks on bones of other theropods are very rare in the fossil record.
## Palaeoenvironment
The three known Deinocheirus specimens were recovered from the Nemegt Formation in the Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia. This geologic formation has never been dated radiometrically, but the fauna present in the fossil record indicate it was probably deposited during the early Maastrichtian age, at the end of the Late Cretaceous about 70 million years ago. The rock facies of the Nemegt Formation suggest the presence of stream and river channels, mudflats, and shallow lakes. Such large river channels and soil deposits are evidence of a far more humid climate than those found in the older Barun Goyot and Djadochta formations. However, caliche deposits indicate at least periodic droughts occurred. Sediment was deposited in the channels and floodplains of large rivers.
Deinocheirus is thought to have been widely distributed within the Nemegt Formation, as the only three specimens found have been 50 km (31 mi) apart. The river systems of the Nemegt Formation provided a suitable niche for Deinocheirus with its omnivorous habits. The environment was similar to the Okavango Delta of present-day Botswana. Within this ecosystem, Deinocheirus would have eaten plants and small animals, including fish. It may have competed for trees with other large herbivorous dinosaurs such as the long-necked theropod Therizinosaurus, various titanosaurian sauropods, and the smaller hadrosaurid Saurolophus. Deinocheirus may have competed with those herbivores for higher foliage such as trees, but was also able to feed on material that they could not. Along with Deinocheirus, the discoveries of Therizinosaurus and Gigantoraptor show that three groups of herbivorous theropods (ornithomimosaurs, therizinosaurs and oviraptorosaurs), independently reached their maximum sizes in the late Cretaceous of Asia.
The habitats in and around the Nemegt rivers where Deinocheirus lived provided a home for a wide array of organisms. Occasional mollusc fossils are found, as well as a variety of other aquatic animals like fish and turtles, and the crocodylomorph Paralligator. Mammal fossils are rare in the Nemegt Formation, but many birds have been found, including the enantiornithine Gurilynia, the hesperornithiform Judinornis, as well as Teviornis, a possible Anseriform. Herbivorous dinosaurs of the Nemegt Formation include ankylosaurids such as Tarchia, the pachycephalosaurian Prenocephale, large hadrosaurids such as Saurolophus and Barsboldia, and sauropods such as Nemegtosaurus, and Opisthocoelicaudia. Predatory theropods that lived alongside Deinocheirus include tyrannosauroids such as Tarbosaurus, Alioramus, and Bagaraatan, and troodontids such as Borogovia, Tochisaurus, and Zanabazar. Theropod groups with both omnivorous and herbivorous members include therizinosaurs, such as Therizinosaurus, oviraptorosaurians, such as Elmisaurus, Nemegtomaia, and Rinchenia, and other ornithomimosaurians, such as Anserimimus and Gallimimus.
## See also
- Timeline of ornithomimosaur research
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16,051,292 |
HMS Nairana (1917)
| 1,153,525,078 |
Australian passenger ferry and Royal Navy seaplane carrier
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[
"1915 ships",
"Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War",
"Bass Strait ferries",
"History of Tasmania",
"Iron and steel steamships of Australia",
"Maritime incidents in 1951",
"Passenger ships of Australia",
"Seaplane carriers of the Royal Navy",
"Ships built on the River Clyde",
"Shipwrecks of Victoria (state)",
"World War I aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom",
"World War II merchant ships of Australia"
] |
HMS Nairana (/naɪˈrɑːnə/) was a passenger ferry that was requisitioned by the Royal Navy (RN) as a seaplane carrier in 1917. She was laid down in Scotland in 1914 as TSS Nairana for the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker, but construction was suspended after the outbreak of the First World War. Following resumption of work, the ship was launched in 1915, and converted to operate wheeled aircraft from her forward flying-off deck, as well as floatplanes that were lowered into the water. She saw service during the war with the Grand Fleet, and in 1918–19 supported the British intervention in the Russian Civil War.
Nairana was returned to her former owners in 1921 and refitted in her original planned configuration, and spent the next 27 years ferrying passengers and cargo between Tasmania and Melbourne. She was twice struck by rogue waves in Bass Strait, and nearly capsized on both occasions. Nairana was the only Bass Strait ferry not requisitioned for military service in the Second World War, and so became the sole passenger ship with service to Tasmania during the conflict. She was laid up in 1948, wrecked in a storm three years later and scrapped in situ in 1953–54.
## Background and description
### Original design
In December 1913, negotiations between the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker and the British shipbuilders William Denny and Brothers began for a passenger ship with some cargo capacity to serve in the Australian coastal trade. The shipping line wanted a vessel that would improve on their earlier ferry Loongana, which had also been built by Denny's. Huddart Parker decided on a design that could carry of cargo on a draught of 14 feet (4.3 m) and could maintain 19.5 knots (36.1 km/h; 22.4 mph) for 12 hours. The ship was ordered on 22 January 1914, at a cost of £129,830, for delivery in May 1915. She was named Nairana, an Aboriginal Tasmanian name for the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax).
Nairana was designed to accommodate 280 first-class and 112 second-class passengers, and had a crew of 26 officers, 42 crewmen and 25 stokers. She had an overall length of 328 feet (100.0 m), a beam of 45 feet 6 inches (13.9 m), and a draught of 14 feet 7 inches (4.4 m). Designed to displace 3,479 long tons (3,535 t) Nairana had tonnages of 3,547 gross register tons (GRT), 1,118 long tons DWT, and 3,311 tons Builder's Old Measurement.
The ship was launched 21 June 1915 at the Denny shipyard in Dumbarton, Scotland. The launch had been delayed nine months, after the British Government ordered that all construction workers be pulled from non-military vessels after the start of the First World War, and work had been resumed only to make her slipway available for warships. She remained at anchor for the next year and a half. The Royal Navy purchased her on 27 February 1917 for completion as a combined landplane and seaplane carrier. The price of £138,118 included the cost of conversion to her new role. The ship was nearly complete when requisitioned, although her propelling machinery was not yet installed. Consequently, only limited internal modifications, notably the addition of three large workshops, could be made.
### Military configuration
HMS Nairana displaced 3,070 long tons (3,120 t) in RN service. She was 352 feet (107.3 m) long overall, had a beam of 45.6 feet (547.2 in), and a mean draught of 13 feet 2 inches (4.01 m). The ship was powered by two sets of Parsons geared steam turbines designed to produce a total of 6,700 shaft horsepower (5,000 kW), each driving one three-bladed propeller. The turbines were powered by steam provided by six Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers at a working pressure of 202 psi (1,393 kPa; 14 kgf/cm<sup>2</sup>). On her sea trials, Nairana made 7,003 shp (5,222 kW) and reached 20.32 knots (37.63 km/h; 23.38 mph). She carried 448 long tons (455 t) of coal which gave her a range of 1,060 nautical miles (1,960 km; 1,220 mi) at a speed of 19.5 knots (36.1 km/h; 22.4 mph). Her crew numbered 278, including 90 aviation personnel.
The ship was armed with four 40-calibre, 3-inch (76 mm) 12-pounder 12 cwt quick-firing guns on single mounts. Two of these were mounted on the forecastle as low-angle guns, and the other two were mounted on the rear hangar roof as anti-aircraft guns. They fired 12.5-pound (5.7 kg) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 2,359 ft/s (719 m/s); this gave a maximum range of 9,720 yd (8,890 m).
Nairana was fitted with a 95-foot (29.0 m) flying-off deck forward, intended for aircraft with wheeled undercarriages, and a prominent hangar aft. A massive latticework gantry crane protruded aft from the hangar roof and a twin-boom derrick forward were fitted to handle her aircraft. The smaller forward hangar was built under the ship's bridge and the aircraft were raised to the flight deck overhead by a 22-by-14-foot (6.7 m × 4.3 m) lift, one of the first in the RN. The forward hangar could fit four single-seat fighters and the rear hangar had a capacity of four floatplanes. The ship could lower them into the water while steaming at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) and recover the floatplanes at 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph). She carried 1,200 imperial gallons (5,500 L; 1,400 US gal) of petrol for her aircraft.
During her service, Nairana carried Beardmore W.B.III, Fairey Campania, Short Type 184, and Sopwith Baby, Pup, and 2F1 Camel aircraft.
## Career
### Military service
Upon commissioning on 25 August 1917, Nairana was assigned to the Battle Cruiser Force of the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, carrying four Short Type 184 floatplanes and four Beardmore W.B.III aircraft. She saw little operational use as she was employed for pilot training and ferrying aircraft to ships equipped with flying-off decks.
In 1918, Nairana participated in the North Russia Campaign in support of the British intervention in the Russian Civil War. On 1 August she took part in what was probably the first fully combined air, sea and land military operation in history, when she and her Campania seaplanes joined Allied ground forces and other ships in driving the Bolsheviks out of their fortifications on Modyugski Island at the mouth of the Northern Dvina River. Nairana used her own guns on the Bolshevik batteries. She and her aircraft then scouted ahead of the Allied force as it proceeded up the channel to Arkhangelsk. The appearance of one of her Campanias over Arkhangelsk caused the Bolshevik troops there to panic and abandon the city. Nairana sustained no damage during the assault. As of October, the ship was carrying five Campanias and two Sopwith Babies, although these last two aircraft were replaced by Sopwith Camels in 1919.
By May 1919, Nairana was refitting in Rosyth. She then ferried a flight of Fairey IIIC floatplanes to North Russia for use by the Royal Air Force later in the month. She remained at Murmansk for several weeks before proceeding on to Kem. There the ship was inspected by Rear-Admiral John Green, Rear-Admiral Commanding in the White Sea, on 29 July. At the end of August, Nairana proceeded to Onega where her aircraft observed for the monitor HMS Erebus as the latter bombarded the town for several days before returning to Kem. She departed Russia on 8 October and arrived back at Rosyth four days later. Later that month the ship was transferred to Devonport to begin the process of decommissioning from naval service.
### Ferry service
The British Government sold Nairana to William Denny and Brothers after her service in Russia to be rebuilt to her original plans, and the ship was handed over to Huddart Parker in January 1921. Nairana arrived in Melbourne in March, after a two-month voyage from Plymouth, and commenced her first Bass Strait crossing on 18 April 1921. She was registered in Melbourne under the British flag and was allocated the United Kingdom official number 143765, and the code letters THPM. Transferred to Tasmanian Steamers in January 1922, she operated the Bass Strait run from Launceston, Devonport and Burnie to Melbourne for the next 26 years. She accommodated 250 passengers in first class and 140 in second, and generally cruised at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). She was withdrawn from service for overhaul at Sydney's Cockatoo Island Dockyard in October 1922, and again in September–October 1923. In January 1925 Nairana was chartered by the Federal Government and crewed by non-union labour, following a strike by shipping workers. She was taken out of service for a major overhaul at Cockatoo Island from May to October 1927. On the night of 24 January 1928, she was struck by a rogue wave in heavy seas, and almost capsized; one woman, already ill when she boarded in Launceston, died.
As well as passengers, Nairana regularly carried cargo, including gold bullion, and live animals such as horses and cattle between Tasmania and the mainland. A Tasmanian devil being transported to Melbourne Zoo in a wooden crate placed in one of the ship's four horse stalls escaped by chewing a hole through its box, and was never seen again. In 1934, her code letters were changed to VJGY. Nairana was withdrawn from service in December 1935 as a result of a ship workers' strike, returning to the Bass Strait run in the new year. As she neared Port Phillip Bay on 12 April 1936, on a clear day with apparently calm seas, she was again struck by a rogue wave and rolled onto her port side before swinging back over to starboard and eventually righting. The impact injured most of her 88 passengers and killed four, including a family of three who disappeared after being swept overboard. Despite this, she proceeded to her berth in the Yarra River, having sustained only minor damage.
After war was declared in September 1939, Nairana began carrying military personnel as well as commercial passengers. Her hull, previously black, was painted grey, and she was fitted with paravanes to defend against mines, a BL (breech-loading) 4-inch Mk VIII anti-submarine gun on the aft promenade deck, and a 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun on her deckhouse. She also carried some .303 rifles for shooting at mines. As a coal burner that emitted tell-tale black smoke visible for miles, Nairana was not considered for war service, the only Bass Strait ferry not to be requisitioned. She thus became the sole commercial passenger vessel to operate between Tasmania and the mainland through the war years, maintaining a heavy schedule. The ship underwent repairs for 13 days at Williamstown, Victoria, after running aground in the Tamar River in 1943.
Nairana had her final overhaul at Cockatoo Island between February and April 1944. By mid-1947, airlines had captured a significant portion of the passenger trade across Bass Strait, and Nairana's schedule was reduced. On 31 December, her captain collapsed and died as he was speaking to two of his officers while the ship was alongside in Burnie; a post-mortem examination attributed the death to heart disease. Nairana made her last crossing from Tasmania to the mainland on 13–14 February 1948, after which she was retired and laid up in Melbourne. Sold for scrap to William Mussell Pty Ltd, Williamstown, Nairana broke her moorings during a gale on 18 February 1951 and was driven ashore off Port Melbourne. Unrecoverable, she was broken up in place in 1953–54.
## Legacy
Throughout her career as a Bass Strait ferry, Nairana had displayed a commemorative plaque and a photograph from her days as a carrier, presented by the British Admiralty in recognition of her service in the First World War, and especially her part in the fall of Arkhangelsk. After she was retired, the plaque went on display at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea, New Zealand, and the photograph at the Launceston Maritime Museum, Tasmania.
|
54,166 |
Raiders of the Lost Ark
| 1,173,777,993 |
1981 film directed by Steven Spielberg
|
[
"1980s American films",
"1980s English-language films",
"1980s action adventure films",
"1980s supernatural films",
"American action adventure films",
"Ark of the Covenant",
"Films about Nazis",
"Films about treasure hunting",
"Films directed by Steven Spielberg",
"Films produced by Frank Marshall",
"Films scored by John Williams",
"Films set in 1936",
"Films set in Egypt",
"Films set in Greece",
"Films set in Nepal",
"Films set in Peru",
"Films set in Washington, D.C.",
"Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios",
"Films shot in California",
"Films shot in England",
"Films shot in France",
"Films shot in Hawaii",
"Films shot in Hertfordshire",
"Films shot in San Francisco",
"Films shot in Tunisia",
"Films that won the Best Sound Editing Academy Award",
"Films that won the Best Sound Mixing Academy Award",
"Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award",
"Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award",
"Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award",
"Films with screenplays by George Lucas",
"Films with screenplays by Lawrence Kasdan",
"Films with screenplays by Philip Kaufman",
"Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation winning works",
"IMAX films",
"Indiana Jones films",
"Lucasfilm films",
"Paramount Pictures films",
"Poisoning in film",
"United States National Film Registry films"
] |
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Set in 1936, the film stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, a globetrotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant which is said to make an army invincible. Teaming up with his tough former romantic interest Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power.
Lucas conceived Raiders of the Lost Ark in the early 1970s. Seeking to modernize the serial films of the early 20th century, he developed the idea further with Kaufman, who suggested the Ark as the film's goal. Lucas eventually focused on developing his 1977 film Star Wars. Development on Raiders of the Lost Ark resumed that year when he shared the idea with Spielberg, who joined the project several months later. While the pair had ideas for set pieces and stunts for the film, they hired Kasdan to fill in the narrative gaps between them. Principal photography began in June 1980 on a \$20 million budget, and concluded that September. Filming took place on sets at Elstree Studios, England, and on location mainly in La Rochelle, France, Tunisia, and Hawaii.
Pre-release polling showed little audience interest in the film leading up to its June 12, 1981, release date, especially compared to Superman II. Despite this, Raiders of the Lost Ark became the highest-grossing film of the year, earning approximately \$354 million worldwide, and played in some theaters for over a year. It was also a critical success, receiving praise for its set pieces, humor, and action. The film was nominated for several awards, and won five Academy Awards, seven Saturn Awards, and one BAFTA, among other accolades.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is now considered one of the greatest films ever made and has had a lasting impact on popular culture, spawning a host of imitators across several media and inspiring other filmmakers. The United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1999. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first entry in what became the Indiana Jones franchise, which includes four more films—Temple of Doom (1984), Last Crusade (1989), Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and Dial of Destiny (2023)—a television series, video games, comic books, novels, theme park attractions, toys, and an amateur remake.
## Plot
In 1936, American archaeologist Indiana Jones recovers a Golden Idol from a booby-trapped Peruvian temple. Rival archaeologist René Belloq corners him and steals the idol; Jones escapes in a waiting seaplane. After returning to the United States, Jones is briefed by two Army Intelligence agents that Nazi German forces are excavating at Tanis, Egypt, and one of their telegrams mentions Jones' former mentor Abner Ravenwood. Jones deduces that the Nazis are seeking the Ark of the Covenant, which Adolf Hitler believes will make their army invincible. The agents recruit Jones to recover the Ark first.
At a bar in Nepal, Jones reunites with Ravenwood's daughter Marion, with whom Jones once had an illicit relationship, and learns that Ravenwood is dead. The bar is set ablaze during a scuffle with Gestapo agent Arnold Toht, who arrives to take a medallion from Marion. Toht attempts to recover the medallion from the flames, but only burns its image into his hand. Jones and Marion take the medallion and escape.
Traveling to Cairo, the pair meet Jones's friend Sallah. Sallah reveals Belloq is assisting the Nazis, who have fashioned an incomplete replica medallion from the burns on Toht's hand. Nazi soldiers and mercenaries attack Jones, and Marion is seemingly killed, leaving Jones despondent. An imam deciphers the medallion for Jones, revealing that one side bears a warning against disturbing the Ark, and the other bears the complete measurements for the "staff of Ra", an item used to locate the Ark. Jones and Sallah realize that the Nazis are digging in the wrong location, infiltrate the Nazi dig site, and use the medallion and the correctly sized staff of Ra to locate the Well of Souls, the Ark's resting place. They recover the Ark, a golden, intricately decorated chest, but Belloq and the Nazis discover them and seize it. Jones and Marion, whom Belloq has held captive, are sealed inside the well, but the pair escape and Jones captures a truck carrying the Ark. Alongside Marion, Jones arranges to transport the Ark to London aboard a tramp steamer. A German U-boat intercepts the steamer and seizes the Ark and Marion; Jones covertly boards the U-boat. The vessel travels to an island in the Aegean Sea, where Belloq intends to test the power of the Ark before presenting it to Hitler.
On the island, Jones ambushes the Nazi group and threatens to destroy the Ark, but surrenders after Belloq deduces that Jones would never destroy something so historically significant, also surmising that Jones wants to know if the Ark's power is real. The Nazis restrain Jones and Marion at the testing site as Belloq ceremonially opens the Ark but finds only sand inside. At Jones' instruction, he and Marion close their eyes to avoid looking at the opened Ark, as it releases spirits, flames, and bolts of energy that kill Belloq, Toht, and the assembled Nazis before sealing itself shut. Jones and Marion open their eyes to find the area cleared of bodies and their bindings removed.
Back in Washington, D.C., the United States government rewards Jones for securing the Ark. Despite Jones' insistence, the agents state only that the Ark has been moved to an undisclosed location for "top men" to study. In a vast warehouse, the Ark is crated up and stored among countless other crates.
## Cast
- Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones: An archaeology professor and adventurer
- Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood: A spirited, tough bar owner and Jones' former lover
- Paul Freeman as René Belloq: A rival archaeologist to Jones, in the employ of the Nazis
- Ronald Lacey as Major Arnold Toht: A sadistic Gestapo agent
- John Rhys-Davies as Sallah: An Egyptian excavator and old acquaintance of Jones
- Denholm Elliott as Marcus Brody: A museum curator and Jones' loyal friend
Raiders of the Lost Ark also features Wolf Kahler as Nazi officer Colonel Dietrich and Anthony Higgins as Major Gobler, Dietrich's right-hand man. Don Fellows and William Hootkins appear as United States Army Intelligence agents Colonel Musgrove and Major Eaton, respectively. George Harris plays Simon Katanga, captain of the Bantu Wind tramp steamer, and Fred Sorenson portrays Jones' pilot Jock.
Producer Frank Marshall appears as the Flying Wing pilot. Pat Roach and Vic Tablian each portray two characters in the film: Roach appears as the Nazi who brawls with Jones by the Flying Wing and one of Toht's Nepalese Sherpas; Tablian plays Jones's treacherous Peruvian guide Barranca and the Monkey Man in Cairo. The film features the first theatrical appearance of Alfred Molina as Jones' guide Satipo. Terry Richards portrays the Cairo swordsman shot by Jones.
## Production
### Conception
George Lucas conceived Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1973, shortly after finishing the comedy drama American Graffiti (1973). An old movie poster of a heroic character leaping from a horse to a truck reminded Lucas of the early 20th-century serial films he enjoyed as a youth, such as Buck Rogers (1939), Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939), Spy Smasher (1942), and Don Winslow of the Navy (1942). He wanted to make a B movie modeled on those serials and conceived The Adventures of Indiana Smith, featuring a daring archaeologist named after his Alaskan Malamute dog. Around the same time, Lucas was trying to adapt the space opera serial Flash Gordon (1936), but could not obtain the rights. He shelved the Indiana Smith project to focus on creating his own space opera, Star Wars (1977).
In 1975, Lucas discussed his serial film idea with his friend Philip Kaufman. The pair worked on a story for two weeks. Lucas imagined his character as a college professor and archaeologist adventurer, based on his own appreciation for archaeology and famous archaeologists like Hiram Bingham III, Roy Chapman Andrews, and Leonard Woolley. Kaufman removed Lucas' vision of Smith as a nightclub patron and womanizer, and suggested the Ark of the Covenant as the film's central goal; he learned of the Ark from his hematologist. The Ark provided a source of conflict for the hero and the Nazis, playing off Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's historical fascination with the occult.
Lucas wanted Kaufman to direct the film, but because he was already committed to working on the western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Lucas paused the idea again and resumed working on Star Wars. In May 1977, Lucas vacationed in Hawaii to avoid any potential negative news about the theatrical debut of Star Wars. He invited Steven Spielberg to join him and his wife. On a beach near Mauna Kea, Lucas and Spielberg discussed their next projects. Spielberg wanted to direct a James Bond film, but Lucas pitched him The Adventures of Indiana Smith. Lucas still hoped Kaufman would direct it, but a few months later it was clear he could not participate and Lucas asked Spielberg to replace him.
### Writing
Lawrence Kasdan, Spielberg's recent discovery, was chosen to write the script. Kasdan had been working as a professional screenwriter for only a month but Lucas agreed to hire him after reading his script for Continental Divide (1981). In January 1978, Lucas, Kasdan, and Spielberg spent about nine hours a day over three to five days at Lucas' assistant's house in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, developing Lucas' outline. Several ideas came from these discussions, including the boulder trap, the monkey in Cairo, Toht burning the medallion's imprint into his hand, and government agents locking the Ark away. Kasdan realized Spielberg and Lucas had several set pieces in mind, but they were looking for someone else to do the hard work of piecing them together.
Spielberg hated the name Indiana Smith, believing it would remind audiences of the Steve McQueen character Nevada Smith. All three men agreed to use "Jones" instead. Actors Clint Eastwood and Toshiro Mifune, and the James Bond character, were the basis of Jones' own. Lucas wanted Jones to be a kung fu practitioner and a playboy, funding his lifestyle with the spoils of his adventures, but Spielberg and Kasdan felt the character was complicated enough being an adventurer and archaeologist. Spielberg suggested making Jones an avid gambler or an alcoholic, but Lucas wanted Jones to be a role model who is "honest and true and trusting." Both men felt it was important Jones be fallible, vulnerable, and as capable of comedic moments as well as serious ones. They intended him to be someone the audience could relate to and idolize. Lucas suggested Marion would have a romantic past, at the age of 11, with the much older Jones; Spielberg replied, "she had better be older".
While Spielberg directed 1941 (1979), Kasdan used his office to write Raiders, taking inspiration from early 20th-century serials and adventure films like Red River (1948), Seven Samurai (1954), and The Magnificent Seven (1960). He wrote Jones as an antihero, an archaeologist reduced to grave-robbing. Kasdan wanted a supporting cast with their own unique characteristics and believed it was important these characters had a memorable impact. He described how the hardest part of writing was explaining how Jones would fall into successive dangerous events and survive, and how he traveled between locations. In August 1978, after approximately five months, Kasdan completed his first draft.
Spielberg described the draft as good but too long; Kasdan and Lucas collaborated to trim and refine it. The script was a globe-spanning tale set in the United States, Egypt, Greece, and Nepal. Several elements were cut, including a journey to Shanghai that would lead to a minecart chase and Jones using a gong to shield himself from gunfire, ideas later used in the prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). To his frustration, much of Kasdan's love story between Jones and Marion was trimmed, as were scenes showing the mutual attraction between Marion and Belloq. The screenplay was completed by December 1979.
### Development and pre-production
Lucas wanted to fund Raiders of the Lost Ark himself, but lacked the money. Lucasfilm offered the project to several Hollywood studios. They rejected it, in part because of the proposed \$20 million budget, but also because of the deal Lucas offered. He wanted the studio to provide the budget, have no creative input and allow him to retain control of the licensing rights and any sequels. The studios considered this deal unacceptable. They were also hesitant because Spielberg's had delivered a succession of films over-schedule and over-budget; his recent effort, 1941, was both over-budget and a critical failure. However, Lucas refused to do the project without Spielberg.
Paramount Pictures president Michael Eisner compromised with Lucas, agreeing to his deal in exchange for exclusive rights to any sequels and severe penalties for exceeding the schedule or budget. Lucas reportedly negotiated a salary between \$1 million and \$4 million plus a share of the gross profits, though a separate report stated he received only net profits. Spielberg received up to \$1.5 million as director and a share of the gross profits.
Producer Frank Marshall, who had experience on smaller independent films, was hired because Spielberg believed he would keep the film on schedule and budget. Spielberg also hired cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and production designer Norman Reynolds because he liked their previous works, and his long-time collaborator Michael Kahn as editor. Lucas served as a second unit director and the film's executive producer, along with his acquaintance Howard Kazanjian, whom Lucas believed would be a disciplined influence and not indulge the filmmakers' larger ambitions. He also brought in his long-time collaborator Robert Watts as associate producer and production manager. Paramount mandated a filming schedule of 85 days; Lucas, Spielberg, and Marshall agreed on a self-imposed 73-day schedule. Spielberg was determined to avoid criticism for another schedule overrun.
Six months of pre-production began in December 1979. Spielberg preferred to spend a year in pre-production, but worked at a faster pace to keep the budget low. Spielberg and Lucas were both simultaneously working on other projects. Artists Ed Verreaux, Dave Negron, Michael Lloyd, and Joe Johnston provided extensive storyboarding, with over 80% of the script represented, equaling approximately 6,000 images. This helped Spielberg pre-visualize scenes and limit the time taken to set up shots. The script described the opening of the ark only as "all hell breaks loose", and the artists were tasked with envisioning what should happen. Each offered different aspects: spirits, flames, and weird light effects; Johnston was tasked with combining all three. Spielberg also had miniature sets of larger scenes built to plan layouts and lighting, including the Well of Souls, the Tanis dig site, and the Cairo marketplace. They contained 1-inch tall figurines to suggest how many extras would be required. Among changes made at this stage, Spielberg abandoned his idea for Toht to have a mechanical arm that could be replaced with a machine gun or flamethrower. Lucas said it put the film into a different genre.
### Casting
Lucas wanted a relatively unknown actor, willing to commit to a trilogy of films, to play Indiana Jones. Those considered for the role included Bill Murray, Nick Nolte, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Tim Matheson, Nick Mancuso, Peter Coyote, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges, John Shea, Sam Elliott, and Harry Hamlin. Casting director Mike Fenton favored Bridges but Lucas' wife and frequent collaborator Marcia Lucas preferred Tom Selleck. Selleck was contractually obligated to filming the television series Magnum, P.I. if it were to be made into a full series. Lucas and Spielberg asked the show's studio, CBS, to release him 10 days early from his contract. Realizing Selleck was in demand, CBS greenlit Magnum P.I., forcing him to drop out and leaving the production with no lead actor only weeks before filming. The 1980 actors strike later put the show on hiatus for three months, which would have allowed Selleck to star as Jones.
Spielberg said Ford was perfect for the role after seeing him in The Empire Strikes Back; Kanzanjian said Ford had always been considered but not cast because he was already a well-known actor. Lucas was concerned about seeming reliant on Ford by casting him in another film after Star Wars, and he also did not think he would commit to three films. However, Ford thought it would be a fun project and agreed to the deal. He negotiated a seven-figure salary, a percentage of the gross profits, and the option to re-write his dialogue. Ford undertook extensive exercise to enhance his physique and trained for several weeks under stunt coordinator Glenn Randall to use a bullwhip, becoming proficient enough to disarm the Monkey Man (Vic Tablian); his wrist had to be rehabilitated to compensate for an old injury. Ford's interpretation of the character was as an academic first and an adventurer second.
For Jones' love interest Marion, Spielberg wanted someone akin to early 20th-century leading ladies like Irene Dunne, Barbara Stanwyck, and Ann Sheridan, who equaled their male counterparts. Lucas wanted Debra Winger, but she was not interested, and Spielberg wanted his girlfriend Amy Irving, but she was unavailable. They also considered Stephanie Zimbalist, Barbara Hershey and Sean Young. Spielberg was aware of Karen Allen from her performance in Animal House (1978), portraying an independent female character, and she impressed him with her professionalism during auditions for Raiders. One of the first things Spielberg asked Allen was "how well do you spit?". Allen developed a backstory for Marion that included her mother's death and her relationship with Jones when she was 15–16, but Spielberg said it belonged in a different movie. Kasdan named Marion after his grandmother-in-law, and took Ravenwood from a Los Angeles street.
Belloq was intended to be a sophisticated villain to counter the "beer-drinking" hero. Spielberg cast Freeman after seeing him in the docudrama Death of a Princess (1980); Freeman's piercing eyes had captivated him. Giancarlo Giannini and singer Jacques Dutronc were also considered. Danny DeVito was approached to portray Sallah, described as a skinny, 5 ft (1.5 m) tall Egyptian like Gunga Din in Gunga Din (1939). DeVito could not participate because of scheduling conflicts with his sitcom Taxi and because his agent wanted too much money. Rhys-Davies was cast based on his performance in the 1980 miniseries Shōgun. Spielberg asked him to play the character as a mix of his Shōgun role and the character John Falstaff. Ronald Lacey was cast as Toht because he reminded Spielberg of actor Peter Lorre. Klaus Kinski was offered the role but chose to appear in the horror film Venom (1981) because it offered more money.
### Filming
Principal photography began on June 23, 1980. Filming took place on location in La Rochelle in France, Tunisia in North Africa, and Hawaii, and on sets at Elstree Studios, England. Elstree was chosen because it was well-staffed with artists and technicians who had worked on Star Wars. On-location shooting cost around \$100,000 a day in addition to crew salaries; sets cost an additional \$4 million. The production could afford certain equipment only for a limited time, including a Panaglide camera stabilizer for smoother shots, and a camera crane for higher angles. To maintain the tight schedule, Spielberg said he "...didn't do 30 or 40 takes; usually only four... Had I had more time and money, it would have turned out a pretentious movie."
Filming began in La Rochelle, depicting the capture of the Bantu Wind by a Nazi U-boat. Watts borrowed a submarine from the war film Das Boot (1981) on condition it not be taken into deep waters. World War II German U-boat pens in La Rochelle represented the U-boat dock. An original coal-fired tramp steamer boat could not be found for filming, so an Egyptian boat found in an Irish port was decorated appropriately and sailed to France.
The production moved to Elstree Studios by June 30. Interiors included the scene featuring an imam deciphering the staff headpiece and the Peruvian temple. There were repeated delays while filming the Well of Souls scene: there were too few snakes, a lack of anti-venom, and Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian—who was visiting Kubrick on the set of The Shining—called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) about the treatment of the snakes. The interior of Jones' school was filmed at The Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, near Hertfordshire; the exterior was the University of the Pacific in California.
Tunisia was used to portray Egypt. Spielberg described this phase as one of his worst filming experiences: the temperature was often over 130 °F (54 °C), and over 150 crew members became sick with amoebic dysentery from the local food. Spielberg was one of the few to remain healthy because he ate food and water he brought from England. Lucas also suffered a severe sunburn and facial swelling. The Cairo village was filmed in the city of Kairouan. A day of filming was lost there because over 300 TV antennas had to be removed from the surrounding houses. Budget constraints affected Spielberg's desire to have 2,000 extras as diggers; he had to settle for 600. Stuntman Terry Richards, who portrayed the swordsman nonchalantly dispatched by Jones, spent weeks practicing sword skills for an extended fight scene. Ford was unable to perform for long periods while suffering from dysentery, and it was decided to shorten the fight scene significantly. The Sidi Bouhlel canyon near the city of Tozeur is where a rocket launcher-equipped Jones confronts the Nazis for the Ark. Lucas had used the canyon in Star Wars to portray the planet Tatooine. During the scene, a fly crawled onto Freeman's lip during his dialogue, but he continued to deliver his lines. Although it appeared to be eaten, Freeman clarified it flew away.
In late September, filming moved to Hawaii for exterior shots for the film's Peruvian opening. The Paramount logo dissolving into a natural mountain was an improvisation by Spielberg based on his own childhood habit of doing the same while making films; the mountain is Kalalea Mountain on the island of Kauaʻi. Though the scene appears to be a single location, it was shot across 10 areas in Hawaii, including the Huleia National Wildlife Refuge. It was originally more elaborate and longer, featuring an added betrayal by one of Jones' guides, resulting in a fight, and it had more dialogue; this was deemed unnecessary and removed for a tighter paced sequence. The cave's exterior was considered a perfect location, though a nearby pool was a mosquito breeding ground; even with anti-mosquito equipment the crew was bitten. The donkeys used for the trek suffered lameness. It was difficult to find replacements, and eventually, a pair of gray donkeys were painted brown with colored hairspray and flown by helicopter to the Nā Pali Coast State Park to finish the scene.
The loosely detailed script led to much improvisation; where the script described three people talking in a room, in the film it took place in a quarry alongside 500 extras. Scenes like a student of Jones's flashing the "Love You" message written across her eyelids and Marion putting on a dress to conceal a weapon were also improvised. Allen believed the latter scene focused on her character seducing Belloq, undermining her loyalty and love for Jones. She and Freeman collaborated to develop the idea of Marion getting Belloq drunk instead. Allen, Lacey, Freeman, and Rhys-Davies often spent time together between filming to talk and discuss their characters. Allen described Ford as a private person who would not discuss his character in detail, and it took her a while to adapt to his working style. Filming concluded in September 1980, after 73 days. Lucas described it as the film he had the least problems with because of the lack of studio interference.
### Post-production
Post-production lasted about two months and focused mainly on special effects and pick-up shots. Spielberg's first cut was close to three hours long before he and Kahn re-edited it to just under two hours. Lucas was happy with this edit, but later asked if he could shorten the ending. He and Kahn collaborated on the edit; Spielberg said he was happy with their changes. The final cut of the film runs for 115 minutes. Marcia Lucas opined there was no emotional closure for Jones and Marion because she was absent following the closure of the Ark. Marcia is not credited in the film, but her suggestion led Spielberg to shoot a final exterior sequence on the steps of San Francisco City Hall showing Jones and Marion together.
Other changes included the addition of a scene where the Ark makes a humming noise in the Bantu Wind hold and the removal of a scene showing Jones holding on to the U-boat periscope to follow the Nazis; Spielberg thought it looked poor and hoped the audiences would not care how Jones accomplished the feat. Lucas removed a scene of a man fainting at the sight of Indiana and Marion emerging from the Well of Souls because he thought the joke did not fit with the tone of the movie. Shots of the Douglas DC-3 in which Jones flies to Nepal were repurposed from the adventure film Lost Horizon (1973), and a street scene outside Jones' home was taken from The Hindenburg (1975). Spielberg said it was cost-effective and only sharp-eyed viewers would ever notice. Special effects supervisor Richard Edlund maintained the street scene was done with miniatures.
### Music
John Williams served as composer for Raiders of the Lost Ark. He said the music did not have to be serious for the film and was instead theatrical and excessive. Williams spent a few weeks working on the Indiana Jones theme, more commonly known as "The Raiders March" that plays during the main character's heroic scenes. Two separate pieces were played for Spielberg, who wanted to use both. These pieces became the main theme and musical bridge of "The Raiders March".
For the romantic theme, Williams took inspiration from older films like the drama Now, Voyager (1942) to create something more emotionally monumental that he felt would contrast well with the film's humor and lighter moments. Williams used "dark" orchestral pieces to represent the actions of the Nazis, using the "seventh degree on the scale of the bottom". He said this signified a militaristic evil. To create something suitably biblical for the Ark of the Covenant, he used a mix of chorus and orchestra.
## Design
### Stunts
The Peruvian temple interiors used in the film were life-sized sets. The giant boulder—made of fiberglass, plaster and wood—was designed to be 65 ft (20 m) wide, but this was reduced to 22 ft (6.7 m), with the resulting prop weighing 300 lb (140 kg). Spielberg liked the effect and had its ramp extended to give it more screen time. The boulder was controlled by a steel rod concealed in the wall by rubber rock outcroppings. Ford performed the stunt ten times for the different camera angles. Spielberg said he was an idiot for letting Ford do it, but it would not have looked as good with a stuntman concealing their face. Ford performed as many of his stunts as was allowed throughout Raiders, suffering various injuries. The tarantulas on Molina's body would not move because they were male and non-aggressive. A female spider was put on his chest to encourage movement. Abandoned ideas for the temple included a crushing wall trap and a pit concealed by spider-webs. The golden idol also had mechanically operated eyes that could follow Jones. For the last part of the scene where Jones flees by plane, the first take ended in near-disaster when the plane crashed from a height of 20 ft (6.1 m) because Ford's dangling leg was blocking the aircraft's right flap.
Filming of the Well of Souls scene was delayed initially by a lack of snakes. There were 500–600 snakes to use for close shots and some mechanical snakes for wider shots, but Spielberg wanted more. A request was made to snake handlers from around London and Europe who produced between 6,000 and 10,000 snakes in a few days. Afterward, they struggled to obtain anti-venom; with local supplies having expired, it had to be imported from India. Many of the snakes were harmless grass snakes or non-venomous pythons, but the cobras were positioned behind plexiglas to protect the cast and crew. Also present among the snakes were legless lizards. The stage doors were kept open during filming for quick access to a waiting ambulance. Spielberg recounted that Allen was so scared she could not scream on cue. He dropped a dead serpent on her to elicit a genuine reaction. Allen said she got used to the creatures after 3–4 days. Animal handler Steve Edge donned a dress and shaved his legs to stand in for Allen at specific points. Vivian Kubrick's complaint to the RSPCA about the perceived poor treatment of the snakes required production to cease while safeguards were added.
Reynolds and production artist Ron Cobb created the BV-38 flying wing based on the Horten Ho 229, the Northrop N-1M and the Vought V-173. Constructed by the British engineering firm Vickers, it was dismantled and shipped to Tunisia. It was not designed to be flight-worthy, only to serve as a source of danger from its propellers. The plane was abandoned in Tunisia and slowly dismantled over the following decade by souvenir hunters before being demolished. The fight between Jones and the German underneath the plane was mainly improvised; Spielberg had to restrain himself from making it too long as each new idea led to another. During the fight, the moving vehicle rolled over Ford's foot and towards his knee before it was stopped. It took 40 crew members to move it off of him. He avoided injury through a combination of the extreme Tunisian heat making the tire soft and the ground being covered in sand. Dysentery had left the production with a lack of stuntmen, and Spielberg had Marshall stand in as the flying wing pilot. The three-day shoot was one of Spielberg's more difficult scenes to film, and he was reported saying he wanted to go home.
Second unit director Michael D. Moore filmed most of the truck chase. Spielberg had not used a second director before but agreed to it as the scene would take a long time to film being set in multiple locations. Moore completed wider shots where stuntmen stood in for Ford. He closely followed Spielberg's storyboarding but innovated a few shots Spielberg considered improvements. Stuntman Glenn Randall suggested the scene of Jones traversing the underside of the truck. Ford sat in a concealed bicycle seat attached to the truck underside when clinging to its front. One of the convoy cars going over a cliff was a combination of matte painting background and stop motion animation of miniature figures falling out of the car.
### Special effects
Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) handled the film's special effects, under the supervision of Richard Edlund. The team worked on both Raiders of the Lost Ark and the dark fantasy Dragonslayer (1981). He felt special effects were a financially economical method of delivering a good film; as long as they were emotionally involved in the story, he said audiences would buy into even a poor special effect. Spielberg liked practical effects because he could regularly check the raw footage during filming, rather than waiting months for the completed composite effects.
Freeman said he had no idea what was happening when he opened the Ark. He was told to imagine something coming towards him and to scream. Special effects artist Steve Gawley created the Ark's spirits by suspending small robed puppets in a clouded water tank in front of a blue screen. They were shaken to create a natural movement that was composited into the live footage. A Lucasfilm receptionist, dressed in a long white robe, was suspended in the air in front of a blue screen for the close-up of the ghost. She was filmed moving away from the camera and the footage was reversed to create an inhuman movement. Her visage was composited with a skeletal model for the monstrous transformation.
Freeman, Lacey, and Kahler's death scenes were created using different models. A mold was made of Kahler's face; it was lined with bladders filled with air. Controlled by up to ten people, the air was removed to make the head shrivel. Special effects artist Chris Walas sculpted Lacey's melting face using different colored layers of gelatin placed over a carved, heat-resistant stone skull. Propane heaters were used to melt the gelatin and filmed using a slower-than-normal camera so the effect appears to take place rapidly when played at normal speed. Belloq's head mold contained a thin-plaster skull filled with blood bags and detritus. It was blown up using explosives, shotguns, and an air cannon. It took three attempts to get the desired effect. Belloq's death was considered so extreme the Motion Picture Association of America initially classified the film with an R rating restricting it to those over the age of 17 without an adult. Flames were superimposed over the scene to conceal the effect.
Kasdan scripted detailed montages during the transition between locations, but Spielberg saved money by showing a map and an animated line traveling between destinations. Skulls and rotting bodies made by chief make-up artist Tom Smith filled the Well of Souls catacombs. To get the monkey to perform a Nazi salute, the trainer hit it on the head to make it touch the affected area. When this did not work, the filmmakers hung a grape over its head to encourage it to reach up; it took 50 takes to capture. A partially deaf rat was used for the scene of the ark humming in the hold of the Bantu Wind, giving it a unique and unnatural head movement.
### Visuals and sound
Matte paintings were used to create more elaborate backgrounds: these included the establishing shot of Marion's Nepalese bar and the warehouse where the Ark is later stored, the latter painted by Michael Pangrazio. Spielberg disliked the painting of the China Clipper plane (by Alan Maley) as he did not think it looked real against the water they had filmed. Jones' attire—a leather jacket and khaki pants—was based on Humphrey Bogart's in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Charlton Heston in Secret of the Incas (1954). Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis dumped boxes of hats on the floor for Ford to try on. After picking the right style, she purchased an Australian model she aged with Fuller's earth and mineral oil, and then scrunched beneath a bed. The hat allowed them to create a recognizable image even in silhouette. Designer Ralph McQuarrie was responsible for the Ark decorations.
Spielberg wanted a moodier film noir lighting style like in The Informer (1935). In contrast, Slocombe wanted to make things brighter and used backlighting to create a greater depth of field; Spielberg preferred his changes. Slocombe often employed natural light, using solar position predictions to plot a scene's layout. Spielberg liked the beams of sunlight glimpsed through scenery and tasked special effects artist Kit West with using a smoke machine to create artificial sunlight shards. For the bar fight, Spielberg wanted pitch-black shadows on the wall, but the lighting required to achieve this would have shrouded the actors' eyes; he settled for subtler shadings. He also wanted to illuminate the Well of Souls with a lighting effect through the ceiling opening, but once this was sealed it no longer made sense. The flaming torches used in the scene did not provide enough light, so he opted to use an artificial light source. Spielberg noted Allen always looked beautiful in her scenes because Slocombe spent twice as long setting up her lighting as he did Ford's.
Sound effects supervisor Ben Burtt recorded the film's many sounds. The snake slithering is a mix of Burtt running his hands through cheese casserole and wet sponges being dragged across grip tape; the rolling boulder is a Honda Civic driving down a gravel hill; and the Ark lid opening is the sound of a toilet cistern being opened. The Ark spirits are the cries of sea lions and dolphins filtered through a vocoder. Jones' revolver is the sound of a Winchester rifle firing, while his whip-crack was made by recording Ford using the whip.
## Release
### Context
By the summer of 1981 (June–September), the film industry had been in decline for over a year. This was the result of few box office successes, rising film production costs, diminishing audiences, and increasing ticket prices. The season was predicted to be down 10% or \$250 million against the previous year. Over 60 films were scheduled for release—more than the previous year—by studios eager to make the next blockbuster film. This increased competition to attract audiences, mainly those aged 12 to 24, at the most profitable time of the year.
The superhero film Superman II was expected to dominate the season, and based on industry experts and audience polling, films including History of the World, Part I, the latest James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, and The Great Muppet Caper, were also expected to perform well. Conversely, audience polling by CinemaScore showed little awareness or anticipation for Raiders until nationwide previews a week before its release. The New York Times reported Paramount had provided theater owners with a more beneficial deal than usual to ensure Raiders was screened in the best theaters and locations.
Featuring two camels, an elephant, and a python, the press event for the film cost \$10,000. Film prints were supplied to theaters in lead-sealed containers to prevent tampering alongside a letter to theater managers stating they were responsible for any misuse of the film. This letter inspired a whistleblower at one theater to alert Paramount of the planned theft of a Raiders print to make pirated copies. The 1,200 film prints cost an estimated \$1.7 million. The theatrical release poster was created by Richard Amsel.
### Box office
In the United States (U.S.) and Canada, Raiders of the Lost Ark was released on June 12, 1981, in 1,078 theaters. The film earned \$8.3 million—an average of \$7,705 per theater, and finished as the number one film of the weekend, ahead of the debuts of Clash of the Titans (\$6.6 million) and History of the World, Part I (\$4.9 million). The film fell to the number three position in its second weekend with an additional gross of \$8 million—a decline of only four percent—behind the debuts of The Cannonball Run (\$11.8 million) and Superman II (\$14.1 million). By its fourth week, Raiders began climbing box office charts, reaching the number two position with a gross of \$7.3 million, behind Superman II (\$10.9 million). In its sixth week, it regained the number one position with \$6.4 million. The film spent most of the following nine weeks as the number one film, and forty-weeks straight as one of the top ten highest-grossing films. It was declared the top box office film of the summer by early September, with a total approximate gross of \$125 million. Of this figure, \$72 million was estimated to have been returned to the studio; the profit-sharing deal with Spielberg and Lucas meant that after marketing costs, Paramount had earned \$23 million in profit.
The film remained a steady success; six months after its release, industry executives joked Raiders would be the year's big Christmas film. The film officially left theaters on March 18, 1982, although some were still playing it by July. Raiders earned an approximate total box office gross of \$212.2 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 1981, ahead of On Golden Pond (\$119.3 million), Superman II (\$108.1 million), and Stripes (\$85.3 million). An estimate by Box Office Mojo suggests over 77 million tickets were bought to see the film. Raiders remains the "leggiest" film ever released, referring to the difference between the highest-weekend gross and the time taken to achieve the overall total gross.
Outside the U.S. and Canada, Raiders earned a further \$141.7 million, making it the highest-grossing film ahead of For Your Eyes Only (\$140.5 million) and Superman II (\$82.2 million). In total, the film earned a worldwide gross of \$354 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 1981 worldwide, again ahead of For Your Eyes Only (\$195.3 million) and Superman II (\$190.4 million).
Raiders has been re-released several times, first in July 1982, when it earned an additional \$21.4 million and again in March 1983, when the film earned an additional \$11.4 million. A remastered IMAX version, supervised by Spielberg, was released in 267 U.S. and Canadian theaters. The success of the release led to the run being extended to 300 additional theaters. These releases have raised the film's worldwide theatrical gross to an estimated \$389.9 million.
The record \$1.95 billion summer box-office of 1981 represented a 15.6% increase over 1980, with a 22.5% increase in ticket sales. This success was attributed mainly to Raiders and Superman II. The most successful film genres of the year offered fun, comedy, and escapism. Superman II broke box office records, but it was Raiders that earned the most money and played in theaters for over a year. The New York Times reported that audiences considered other films only if both Superman II and Raiders were sold out. It became one of the top-four highest-grossing films ever, a list dominated by Lucas and Spielberg with The Empire Strikes Back, Jaws, and Star Wars.
## Reception
### Critical response
Raiders of the Lost Ark was released to general acclaim by critics and audiences. The National Board of Review and critic Vincent Canby listed it as one of the ten best films of the year. Canby labeled the film an "instant classic" and one of the most humorous and stylish American films ever made. He described it as having refined the old serial films into their most perfect form for a modern audience. Roger Ebert called it a series of "breathless and incredible" adventures inspired by and celebrating childhood stories told in comic books and movies. He concluded the film was successful in its singular goal of entertaining, creating an adventure epic in the vein of Star Wars, the James Bond films, and Superman. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Arthur Knight said a constant stream of thrills kept the film moving at a steady pace. Writing for Variety, Stephen Klain called the film "exhilarating escapist entertainment". He continued that the film successfully balanced action, comedy, and suspense with mystical mythologies. Michael Sragow described it as the "ultimate Saturday action matinee". Gene Siskel said it was as entertaining as a "commercial movie" could be, the kind of film that makes children excited about cinema.
Richard Schickel called it a return to form for Spielberg, demonstrating a competence not seen since Jaws. He described it as a film Walt Disney would have made were he still alive, featuring an "enchanting" combination of fantasy and cinematic movement. Stanley Kauffmann said while the film's thrills did work on him, the frequency eventually irritated him. He criticized the film's reliance on nostalgia and updating older films instead of innovating new ideas. Pauline Kael was critical of the film, saying Lucas and Spielberg had thought like marketers in creating a film that would appeal to the broadest masses. Kael said though Raiders was a sophisticated update of older serials, avoiding cliches with clever editing, it was too focused on surpassing each previous action spectacle to the detriment of characterization or plot progression. She opined the failure of 1941 had made Spielberg too cautious, and scenes evidenced he was rushing and not achieving the best possible take as in his previous work. Lucas later named a villain in his 1988 fantasy film Willow after Kael. Dave Kehr said the constant rush between setpieces felt monotonous. He also criticized the story for allowing the hero to choose to rescue the Ark over his romantic interest on multiple occasions, believing it made Indiana Jones difficult to support.
Ebert said the amusing and unusual characters elevated the film beyond just a technical accomplishment. He described Ford's performance as taciturn and stubborn character in the vein of Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but with the ability to laugh at himself. Klain said Ford's performance was "riveting", marking a major career highlight. Canby described Ford and Allen as both "endearingly resilient". Ebert said Allen gives Marion a charming toughness. Knight appreciated Marion did not become idiotic when the male star was in danger. His review concluded the character was the definition of an activist. Sragow said Allen's physical performance made her every bit the equal of Ford, and her vitality provided a positive counter to Ford's deadpan performance. Kael was critical of many cast performances, feeling they were stilted and heavily scripted. She singled out Freeman for praise, however, for continuing his performance after a fly crawled into his mouth; Freeman jokingly called it the best review of his career. Klain called Lacey's Toht one of the most offensive Nazi stereotypes seen in cinema since World War II. However, he praised Rhys-Davies' and Elliott's performances.
Canby, Knight and Variety singled out the opening of the Ark as one of the film's best special effects. Knight said the effects artists deserved a "special accolade" for their work. Canby described it as a visual display as "dazzling" as the denouement of Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ebert said the truck chase stunt was the best he had ever seen, ahead of those in films like Bullitt (1968) and The French Connection (1971). Aljean Harmetz, Klain, and Siskel asserted the film's PG rating—meaning any child could see it unsupervised—was too lenient for such a scary film filled with a variety of on-screen deaths. An intermediate rating between PG and R, PG-13, would not be introduced until 1984, in part a response to the violence of the Indiana Jones prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Some children were reported to have suffered nightmares afterward.
### Awards and accolades
At the 1982 Academy Awards, Raiders of the Lost Ark received five awards: Best Art Direction (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Michael D. Ford); Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn); Best Sound (Bill Varney, Steve Maslow, Gregg Landaker, and Roy Charman); Best Sound Editing (Ben Burtt and Richard L. Anderson); and Best Visual Effects (Richard Edlund, Kit West, Bruce Nicholson, and Joe Johnston). The film received a further four nominations: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Cinematography; and Best Original Score. It tied with the drama film Ragtime for the third-most nominations, behind On Golden Pond and Reds.
For the 39th Golden Globe Awards, Raiders received one nomination for Best Director. At the 9th Saturn Awards, Raiders won seven awards, including Best Fantasy Film, Best Actor (Ford), Best Actress (Allen), Best Director, Best Music (Williams), Best Writing (Kasdan), and Best Special Effects (Edlund). Spielberg received a Directors Guild Award nomination.
The 35th British Academy Film Awards earned the film one award for Best Production Design (Reynolds), and a further six nominations: Best Film; Best Supporting Actor for Elliott; Best Original Music; Best Cinematography; Best Editing; and Best Sound for Charman, Burtt, and Bill Varney. The film also received a Grammy Award for Williams' score, a People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture, a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 34th Writers Guild of America Awards.
## Post-release
### Home media
In the early 1980s, the videocassette recorder (VCR) home video market was rapidly gaining popularity. In previous years, VHS sales were not a revenue source for studios, but by 1983 they could generate up to 13% of a film's total revenue; the U.S. and Canadian cassette rights could generate \$500,000 alone. In November 1983, Paramount released a record 500,000 home video copies of Raiders, priced at \$39.95. Paramount priced their home videos significantly lower than their competition, reasoning it would broaden the sales audience and promote home video watching. By September 1985, over one million copies of the film had sold, making it the bestselling VHS of its time. In 1991, McDonald's launched possibly "the largest video sales promotion...to date" during which videocassettes of the first three Indiana Jones movies were sold at their restaurants for \$5.99 each. Almost 10 million cassettes of the Indiana Jones series had been sold by this point. This promotion was expected to sell at least 5 million more. By 2000, the film was marketed as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark for consistency with other titles in the franchise.
In 2003, the film was released on DVD as a bundle with the other two films in the franchise. Like the VHS, it was a success, selling over one million units and becoming the fastest-selling DVD box set. This set introduced additional materials including Making the Films, a two-hour documentary about the making of the films including deleted scenes, and Behind the Scenes, a series of archival featurettes. The film and its sequels were released as a collection on Blu-ray disc in 2012, as Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures. Spielberg worked on the films' restoration for the higher-quality format. This release included the additional content of previous releases. For its 40th anniversary in 2021, the film was released in a remastered 4K resolution Ultra HD Blu-ray based on the original film negative, as part of a boxset including the series' other films. This version will be released individually in 2023.
### Other media
Raiders of the Lost Ark has been represented across a wide variety of merchandise, including comic books, video games, novels, Lego sets, action figures and vehicles, playsets, candles, and board games.
It has received several game adaptations. Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in 1982 for the Atari 2600 console. A pinball game, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure, was released in 1993, and a platform game, Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System the following year. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999) includes a bonus level that returns players to the Peruvian temple. The Lego-themed adventure game Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures (2008) and its 2009 sequel Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues represent the film and its sequels. A 1984 boardgame, The Adventures of Indiana Jones role playing game, was poorly received, and when the manufacturer lost the license later that decade, all remaining copies had to be burned. All that remained from the destruction were encased in plastic and turned into the Diana Jones Award—"...diana Jones" being the only legible part of the burnt remains.
A novelization of the film, written by Campbell Black, was released in 1981. The book was a worldwide sales success and included details not present in the film. Among them is Marion was aged 15 when she and Jones began their relationship, the staff of Ra headpiece has explicit instructions not to look at the opened Ark, and Brody finds Jones at home after having just entertained one of his students. Black, who was paid \$35,000 plus royalties, sued Lucasfilm in 2005 for not paying him his percentage of the book sales profits. Marvel Comics produced a comic book adaptation of the film shortly after its release.
The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! is a live amusement show at Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, that has been in operation since 1989. It features several live stunts based on set pieces from the film. Raiders of the Lost Ark was also one of several films that made up the Great Movie Ride (1989–2017).
## Themes and analysis
### Rejection of Nazism
Raiders can be interpreted as a Jewish fantasy about punishing the Nazis for the Holocaust. Spielberg is Jewish, and the Ark is a Jewish artifact described as holding the Ten Commandments passed down to the Jewish people by God. In biblical descriptions, the Ark is a gold-plated wooden box that must be carried with poles because it is too holy to be touched. Although the Nazi regime persecuted the Jewish people, in the film, they needed to use a Jewish artifact to subjugate the world; however, the artifact was too pure and holy for them to touch and actively rejected them by destroying their symbol emblazoned on the Ark's transportation crate while leaving the crate itself unharmed. Eventually, it also destroys the Nazi forces that open it. The Nazis are stopped by the literal intervention of Godly power that leaves the perceived protagonists unharmed.
In another scene, Jones falls underneath a moving truck when its hood-ornament, a Mercedes logo, snaps, mocking Mercedes' involvement in aiding the Nazis. Elizabeth Hirschman identified elements of the metaphysical, believing the standard heroic quest was offset by the religious importance of the Ark, an item of Judeo-Christian belief. The image of God is one that is inherently on the side of the good, and the destruction of the Nazi villains draws parallels to Yahweh visiting plagues on Egypt for enslaving the Israelites.
### Cinematic homage
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a pastiche of cinematic history, inspired by and referencing many films. Spielberg stated explicitly the film is about movies and designed as a tribute to filmmaking. Alongside directly referenced inspirations like early 20th-century serials, the film contains references to Citizen Kane (1941), the film noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955), the samurai film Yojimbo (1961), and the epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962), among others. Citizen Kane is referenced directly in Raiders's last scene where the Ark is secured in a vast warehouse, a fate similar to that of the beloved childhood sled belonging to Citizen Kane's principal character. Raiders also references several of Lucas' own films: the translation of the German U-boat announcement is "1138", a reference to science fiction film THX 1138 (1971); and numerous nods to Star Wars including the characters of R2-D2 and C-3PO appearing as hieroglyphics inside the Well of Souls. Richard Crinkley recounted audience members of King David (1985) associated its use of the Ark explicitly with Raiders instead of its biblical origins. He deemed this an example of "cinemate visual literacy", an increasing number of people educated by visual media rather than text.
### Sociology
One of the film's themes—shared with Superman II (released the same year)—has been interpreted as American security being put at risk. These films are emblematic of their time and the contemporary fears of American citizens. The Nazi characters are based on a former threat to America, and like Superman II, Raiders requires the intervention of a superhuman character to prevent destruction at the hands of enemy forces—a character audiences can admire, but never possibly emulate. Janet Maslin argues that the fantasy of these films and the larger-than-life characters are designed to satisfy audiences who do not want to reflect on the world around them. Jones is striving to recover the Ark both to stop the Nazis but also for personal glory, but the film never dwells on the regular people around the world who would be affected by an invincible Nazi army.
Raiders offers a counter to the American national embarrassments of the controversial Vietnam War (1955–1975), the Watergate scandal (1972), a recession, and the growing influence of foreign nations. The period setting of the film also presents audiences with a time tinged in romantic nostalgia and filled with the possibility for adventure. Robin Wood wrote that Raiders, Superman, and Star Wars provide a familiar, comforting content using the nostalgic memories of the older serial films of which they are derivative, presenting an idealized vision of older traditional values. Wood opined the purpose of this was to subdue contemporary radical social movements eager for change. Jennifer Barker suggested that Raiders offers audiences what they want, and does not challenge their values or beliefs as anything but correct.
The macho male action hero archetype of the era, conveyed by Jones, can also be seen as reinforcing traditional masculinity in the face of growing feminism. Describing the typical interpretation of this archetype, Latham Hunter said films such as Raiders, Lethal Weapon (1987), and Die Hard (1988) evolve the everyman character into someone who can overcome impossible odds and promote American might. Jones is an American hero who steps in reluctantly to save the world by overcoming almost exclusively foreign enemies. Barker argues that Jones is an individualist placed in opposition to a fascist or totalitarian regime, making Raiders a "conservative serial fantasy" film. Hunter believed this focus on masculinity was short-sighted, and these films succeeded because they offered escapism from reality, and presented an outclassed hero who reflected the audiences' own feelings of powerlessness.
Jones has been criticized as a poor portrayal of an archaeologist and that his actions amount to theft. Archaeologist Winifred Creamer described Jones as the "worst thing to happen to archaeology" as he "walks a fine line between what's an archaeologist and what's a professional looter." Kevin McGeough wrote that the archetypal film archaeologist in older films was never the hero, but often a subject to be saved or conquered by the actual hero. Jones is imbued with the self-reliance and physical competence of the traditional hero, but with an intelligence that is recognized and celebrated, setting him apart from older heroes. Even so, Jones is hunting the Ark, in part, for personal glory attached to its recovery. When given the opportunity to destroy it to prevent its misuse, Belloq calls his bluff and Jones backs down. Belloq suggests he is a skewed reflection of Jones, and only a small change would turn Jones into Belloq.
In her argument that the film is about colonialism, Tatiana Prorokova identified Jones and the Nazis as all-Caucasian males invading foreign lands, belonging to people of color, to steal a local treasure for their own personal benefit. In dismissing the supernatural aspects of the Ark, Jones also dismisses its cultural significance, rendering it a prize to be collected for his sake. As the hero, Jones represents the United States' unfettered right to protect the Ark from others. Although according to Lucas the character of Indiana is named after his childhood dog, Prorokova insists that the hero is named for the U.S. state of Indiana, a state named after wars against Native Americans by colonizers. Raiders is set at a time when much of the world lived under colonial rule, and the film presents the non-white characters either as subjugated by the Nazis and reliant on a white American for aid or as collaborating with the Nazis.
## Legacy
Raiders of the Lost Ark has had a lasting impact on popular culture. It is considered a touchstone of modern cinema, creating a film framework still emulated by other films. Spielberg has said he considers it the most perfect film of the series because he never wanted to modify it or change anything about it.
Ford's performance led to his casting in the 1982 science fiction cult classic film Blade Runner. Kasdan became one of the most in-demand writers in Hollywood, and helped write Lucas' Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Despite opening new opportunities for Allen, she expressed disappointment with the film because her character was motivated more by her relationship with Jones and financial gain than with her father and his obsession with the Ark. She unsuccessfully lobbied for rewrites to address this and explore her character further. Even so, Allen affirmed that many women and girls had appreciated and been inspired by her character. Forty years after the film's release, Allen affirmed she still received positive feedback from young women. Shortly after the film's release, Stanley Rader and Robert Kuhn filed a lawsuit against the filmmakers for \$210 million alleging the film was based on Ark, a screenplay and unpublished novel by Kuhn. The outcome of this lawsuit is unknown.
The film led to an increase in students studying archaeology, and many modern archaeologists have cited the film as an inspiration. Rhys-Davies said he had met over 150 lecturers, professors, and archaeologists who told him their interest in the field began with the film. The original Indiana Jones costume hat and jacket were stored indiscriminately after filming, at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, until 2012. Nadoolman Landis recovered the items to be exhibited as part of a Hollywood costume display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
### Cultural impact
In 1999, the United States Library of Congress selected the film to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Assessing the film's legacy in 1997, Bernard Weinraub, opined "the decline in the traditional family G-rated film, for 'general' audiences, probably began..." with Raiders of the Lost Ark. He continued, "whether by accident or design... the filmmakers made a comic nonstop action film intended mostly for adults but also for children". Lucas' frequent collaborator Gary Kurtz said that Raiders of the Lost Ark marked the turning point where Lucas became convinced that audiences cared more about "the roller-coaster ride" than the story.
Several authors and filmmakers have spoken of their appreciation for Raiders of the Lost Ark or cited it as an inspiration in their own careers, including Chris Carter, Simon Kinberg, Jon Turteltaub, Dan Brown, and Joe Johnston. The experience had an explicit influence on Johnston's directorial effort Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), including character designs. Director Steven Soderbergh released a black-and-white edit of the film in 2014, removing all the original sounds, intending for viewers to focus on Spielberg's staging and editing. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it was among the action films director James Gunn recommended people watch, and one of the 35 films recommended by The Independent.
The film has inspired or been referenced in other media including film, television shows, and video games. Between 1982 and 1989, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, children Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb made an amateur remake of the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Spielberg congratulated the trio on their accomplishment.
### Critical reassessment
Raiders of the Lost Ark is considered one of the greatest films ever made. As part of his The Great Movies series, Ebert said while the special effects had not aged well, they were perfect for this type of film. He concluded it was a "whiz-bang slamarama" made with "heedless joy". The British Film Institute called it one of the 10 greatest action films of all time, saying "for all its barnstorming staging and boy's-own-adventure larks, it's refreshing Indy's greatest foil comes in three dimensions ... the hard-drinking, wise-cracking, upstagingly brilliant Karen Allen". A 2014 poll of 2,120 entertainment-industry members by The Hollywood Reporter ranked it the thirteenth best film ever made. It is also listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a approval rating from the aggregated reviews of critics, with an average rating of . The consensus reads, "Featuring bravura set pieces, sly humor, and white-knuckle action, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most consummately entertaining adventure pictures of all time." The film has a score of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In 2005, the Writers Guild of America's (WGA) listed the film's screenplay as the forty-second greatest screenplay of the preceding 75 years on their 101 Greatest Screenplays list. Empire listed the film at number two on its 2008 list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, behind the 1972 crime film The Godfather. They said, "no adventure movie is quite so efficiently entertaining". In 1997, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Raiders number 60 on its 100 Years...100 Movies list recognizing the best American films. They reassessed to number 66 in the 2007 anniversary edition. On the AFI's list of the 100 Best Thrills, the film was ranked number 10, and the 2003 list of the 100 Best Heroes & Villains ranked the Indiana Jones character as the number two hero, behind Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
Several publications have ranked it as one of the greatest films of all time, including number two by Empire, number five by Time Out, and number 19 by MSN. It has also appeared on lists of the best action films, including number two by IGN, number nine by Time Out (down from number two in an earlier ranking) and number 11 by The Guardian and The Telegraph. IGN also named it the best action film of the 1980s. Rotten Tomatoes and Esquire have labeled it one of the greatest adventure films.
Channel 4 viewers in the United Kingdom ranked Raiders as the 20th best family film of all time in 2005. In the 2010s, Empire magazine readers named it the seventh-best film of all time, and it was ranked the sixteenth best film of all time, based on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes user votes and critical ratings. Readers of the Los Angeles Times voted it the number one summer film, ahead of competition including Jaws and Alien (1979).
A 2013 episode of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory ("The Raiders Minimization") argues that Jones accomplishes nothing in Raiders, as the Nazis would have eventually found the Ark, opened it, and died regardless of Jones' actions. An essay by Esquire's Matt Pomroy agreed, with the caveat that Marion would have almost certainly died at Toht's hands, and the Ark would have been flown to Germany on the Flying Wing and opened for Hitler, likely killing him. However, Jones' involvement ensures the Americans secure the Ark, preventing the Germans from using it.
## Sequels and spin-offs
The success of Raiders of the Lost Ark has spawned four sequel films. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was in development by 1982, while the original was still in theaters. A narrative prequel to Raiders, Temple of Doom follows Jones's quest to recover sacred stones and liberate the slaves of a Thuggee cult leader. The film became one of the highest-grossing films of 1984 and broke box office records, but fared less well with critics who accused it of racism, sexism, and containing content inappropriate for child audiences.
A narrative sequel to Raiders, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was released in 1989. It serves as the final film of the original trilogy and follows Jones and his father, portrayed by Sean Connery, on a quest to recover the Holy Grail. Like its predecessor, The Last Crusade broke box office records, becoming one of the year's highest-grossing films. It was also well received by critics. Spielberg has said the film was, in part, an "apology" for the reception to Temple of Doom. Following the conclusion of the film series, Lucas developed a television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1993), featuring Ford and other actors as Jones at different ages.
A fourth film was released in 2008, titled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It features the return of Allen as Marion Ravenwood and introduces Shia LaBeouf as her and Jones' son. The setting moved from the 1930s to the 1950s, pitting Jones against Russians to recover a crystal skull. The film was a financial success but polarized critics and fans. As with Temple of Doom, Lucas and Spielberg have defended the film and apologized for its reception. A fifth film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was released in June 2023.
Novels, comic books, and video games have also been released detailing the further adventures of Indiana Jones and his supporting cast from the films. Often set before and after the events of the films, these globe-spanning tales depict Jones' first marriage, and his adventures to discover the Spear of Destiny, Merlin, an Infernal Machine in the Tower of Babel, the Covenant of Buddha, the staff of Moses, the Philosopher's Stone, dinosaurs, a Unicorn horn, the Oracle of Delphi, the secrets of the Sphinx, Noah's Ark, and the fate of Atlantis. Jones is sometimes aided by Sallah in his conflicts against Belloq and Lao Che (from Temple of Doom), among others.
|
11,370 |
FIFA World Cup
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Men's international association football competition
|
[
"FIFA World Cup",
"FIFA competitions for national teams",
"July sporting events",
"June sporting events",
"Quadrennial sporting events",
"Recurring sporting events established in 1930",
"World championships in association football"
] |
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition between the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 due to the Second World War. The reigning champions are Argentina, who won their third title at the 2022 tournament.
The contest starts with the qualification phase, which takes place over the preceding three years to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase. In the tournament phase, 32 teams compete for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over the course of about a month. The host nation(s) automatically qualify for the group stage of the tournament. The next FIFA World Cup is scheduled to expand to 48 teams for the 2026 tournament.
As of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 22 final tournaments have been held since the event's inception in 1930, and a total of 80 national teams have competed. The trophy has been won by eight national teams. Brazil, with five wins, are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Germany and Italy, with four titles each; Argentina, with three titles; France and inaugural winner Uruguay, each with two titles; and England and Spain, with one title each.
The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed single sporting event in the world. The viewership of the 2018 World Cup was estimated to be 3.57 billion, close to half of the global population, while the engagement with the 2022 World Cup was estimated to be 5 billion, with about 1.5 billion people watching the final match.
Seventeen countries have hosted the World Cup, most recently Qatar, who hosted the 2022 event. The 2026 tournament will be jointly hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico, which will give Mexico the distinction of being the first country to host games in three World Cups.
## History
### Previous international competitions
The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England. The first international tournament for nations, the inaugural British Home Championship, took place in 1884 and included games between England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the start of the 20th century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics; however, the International Olympic Committee has retroactively upgraded their status to official events, as well as the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been unsuccessful.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official Olympic sport. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England's football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm.
With the Olympic event continuing to be a contest between amateur teams only, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup, and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. Prior to the Lipton competition, from 1876 to 1904, games that were considered to be the "football world championship" were meetings between leading English and Scottish clubs, such as the 1895 game between Sunderland A.F.C. and the Heart of Midlothian F.C., which Sunderland won.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event. This paved the way for the world's first intercontinental football competition for nations, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and 13 European teams, and won by Belgium. Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928. Those were also the first two open world championships, as 1924 was the start of FIFA's professional era, and is the reason why Uruguay is allowed to wear 4 stars.
### World Cups before World War II
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet as the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides, especially in the midst of the Great Depression. As such, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total, 13 nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe, and two from North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July 1930, and were won by France and the United States, who defeated Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of 93,000 spectators in Montevideo, and became the first nation to win the World Cup. After the creation of the World Cup, FIFA and the IOC disagreed over the status of amateur players; football was dropped from the 1932 Summer Olympics. After the IOC and FIFA worked out their differences, Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 World Cup and all North and South American nations except Brazil and Cuba boycotted the 1938 tournament. Brazil was the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions, which Germany and Brazil sought to host, were cancelled due to World War II.
### World Cups after World War II
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British football associations. Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland had withdrawn from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football. The teams rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation. The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again after defeating the host nation Brazil, in the match called "Maracanazo" (Portuguese: Maracanaço).
In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria was absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland, and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams. Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: United States, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; North Korea, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.
### Expansion to 24 and 32 teams
The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982, and then to 32 in 1998, allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. Since then, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, with several having reached the quarter-finals: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; South Korea, finishing in fourth place in 2002; Senegal, along with USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002; Ghana, quarter-finalists in 2010; Costa Rica, quarter-finalists in 2014; and Morocco, finishing in fourth place in 2022. European and South American teams continue to dominate, e.g., the quarter-finalists in 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2018 were all from Europe or South America and so were the finalists of all tournaments so far.
Two hundred teams entered the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualification rounds. 198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. A record 204 countries entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
### Expansion to 48 teams
In October 2013, Sepp Blatter spoke of guaranteeing the Caribbean Football Union's region a position in the World Cup. In the edition of 25 October 2013 of the FIFA Weekly Blatter wrote that: "From a purely sporting perspective, I would like to see globalisation finally taken seriously, and the African and Asian national associations accorded the status they deserve at the FIFA World Cup. It cannot be that the European and South American confederations lay claim to the majority of the berths at the World Cup." Those two remarks suggested to commentators that Blatter could be putting himself forward for re-election to the FIFA Presidency.
Following the magazine's publication, Blatter's would-be opponent for the FIFA Presidency, UEFA President Michel Platini, responded that he intended to extend the World Cup to 40 national associations, increasing the number of participants by eight. Platini said that he would allocate an additional berth to UEFA, two each to the Asian Football Confederation and the Confederation of African Football, two shared between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, and a guaranteed place for the Oceania Football Confederation. Platini was clear about why he wanted to expand the World Cup. He said: "[The World Cup is] not based on the quality of the teams because you don't have the best 32 at the World Cup ... but it's a good compromise. ... It's a political matter so why not have more Africans? The competition is to bring all the people of all the world. If you don't give the possibility to participate, they don't improve."
In October 2016, FIFA president Gianni Infantino stated his support for a 48-team World Cup in 2026. On 10 January 2017, FIFA confirmed the 2026 World Cup will have 48 finalist teams.
### 2015 FIFA corruption case
By May 2015, the games were under a particularly dark cloud because of the 2015 FIFA corruption case, allegations and criminal charges of bribery, fraud and money laundering to corrupt the issuing of media and marketing rights (rigged bids) for FIFA games, with FIFA officials accused of taking bribes totaling more than \$150 million over 24 years. In late May, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a 47-count indictment with charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against 14 people. Arrests of over a dozen FIFA officials were made since that time, particularly on 29 May and 3 December. By the end of May 2015, a total of nine FIFA officials and five executives of sports and broadcasting markets had already been charged on corruption. At the time, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced he would relinquish his position in February 2016.
On 4 June 2015, Chuck Blazer while co-operating with the FBI and the Swiss authorities admitted that he and the other members of FIFA's then-executive committee were bribed in order to promote the 1998 and 2010 World Cups. On 10 June 2015, Swiss authorities seized computer data from the offices of Sepp Blatter. The same day, FIFA postponed the bidding process for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in light of the allegations surrounding bribery in the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. Then-secretary general Jérôme Valcke stated, "Due to the situation, I think it's nonsense to start any bidding process for the time being." On 28 October 2015, Blatter and FIFA VP Michel Platini, a potential candidate for presidency, were suspended for 90 days; both maintained their innocence in statements made to the news media.
On 3 December 2015 two FIFA vice-presidents were arrested on suspicion of bribery in the same Zurich hotel where seven FIFA officials had been arrested in May. An additional 16 indictments by the US Department of Justice were announced on the same day.
### Biennial World Cup proposition
A biennial World Cup plan was first proposed by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation at the 71st FIFA Congress on 21 May 2021 and prominently backed by former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger and national federations in Africa and Asia. Continental confederations such as UEFA and CONMEBOL are not on board with the plan but, in total, the idea is supported by 166 of the 210 member associations of FIFA.
### Other FIFA tournaments
An equivalent tournament for women's football, the FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991 in China. The women's tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men's, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
Men's football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games except 1896 and 1932. Unlike many other sports, the men's football tournament at the Olympics is not a top-level tournament, and since 1992, an under-23 tournament with each team allowed three over-age players. Women's football made its Olympic debut in 1996.
The FIFA Confederations Cup was a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country. The first edition took place in 1992 and the last edition was played in 2017. In March 2019, FIFA confirmed that the tournament would no longer be active owing to an expansion of the FIFA Club World Cup in 2021.
FIFA also organises international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup). The latter three do not have a women's version, although a FIFA Women's Club World Cup has been proposed.
The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is held biannually, including the year before each Women's World Cup. Both tournaments were awarded in a single bidding process on three occasions, with the U-20 tournament serving as a dress rehearsal for the larger competition each time (2010, 2014 and 2018).
## Trophy
From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winning team. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil's third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983 and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb).
The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory."
This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy only until the post-match celebration is finished. They are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original immediately afterwards.
All members (players, coaches, and managers) of the top three teams receive medals with an insignia of the World Cup Trophy; winners' (gold), runners-up' (silver), and third-place (bronze). In the 2002 edition, fourth-place medals were awarded to hosts South Korea. Before the 1978 tournament, medals were only awarded to the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the final and the third-place match. In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners' medals.
Since 2006, winners of the competition are also awarded the right to wear the FIFA Champions Badge, up until the time at which the winner of the next competition is decided.
## Format
### Qualification
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament. They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, and Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations' teams.
The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone entered a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations receive automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, were the first defending champions to play qualifying matches.
### Final tournament
The final tournament format since 1998 has had 32 national teams competing over the course of a month in the host nations. There are two stages: the group stage, followed by the knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded, including the hosts, with the other seeded teams selected using a formula based on the FIFA World Rankings or performances in recent World Cups, and drawn to separate groups. The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation.
Each group plays a round-robin tournament in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. This means that a total of six matches are played within a group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (before, winners received two points).
Considering all possible outcomes (win, draw, loss) for all six matches in a group, there are 729 (= 3<sup>6</sup>) combinations possible. However, 207 of these combinations lead to ties between the second and third places. In such case, the ranking among these teams is determined by:
1. Greatest combined goal difference in all group matches
2. Greatest combined number of goals scored in all group matches
3. If more than one team remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined as follows:
1. Greatest number of points in head-to-head matches among those teams
2. Greatest goal difference in head-to-head matches among those teams
3. Greatest number of goals scored in head-to-head matches among those teams
4. Fair play points, defined by the number of yellow and red cards received in the group stage:
1. Yellow card: minus 1 point
2. Indirect red card (as a result of a second yellow card): minus 3 points
3. Direct red card: minus 4 points
4. Yellow card and direct red card: minus 5 points
4. If any of the teams above remain level after applying the above criteria, their ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots
The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the round of 16 (or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.
On 10 January 2017, FIFA approved a new format, the 48-team World Cup (to accommodate more teams), which was to consist of 16 groups of three teams each, with two teams qualifying from each group, to form a round of 32 knockout stage, to be implemented by 2026. On 14 March 2023, FIFA approved a revised format of the 2026 tournament, which features 12 groups of four teams each, with the top 8 third-placed teams joining the group winners and runners-up in a new round of 32.
## Hosts
### Selection process
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The locations were controversial because South America and Europe were by far the two centres of strength in football and travel between them required three weeks by boat. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing. The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these in France was disputed, as the South American countries understood that the location would alternate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the 1938 FIFA World Cup.
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the first tournament with multiple hosts. South Africa became the first African nation to host the World Cup in 2010. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since Argentina 1978, and was the first occasion where consecutive World Cups were held outside Europe.
The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Council. This is done under an exhaustive ballot system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a "Hosting Agreement" from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. There have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as was the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were awarded to Russia and Qatar, with Qatar becoming the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament.
For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament was rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany's victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation did not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018. This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup was chosen to be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, marking the first time a World Cup has been shared by three host nations. The 2026 tournament will be the biggest World Cup ever held, with 48 teams playing 104 matches. Sixty matches will take place in the US, including all matches from the quarter-finals onward, while Canada and Mexico will host 10 games each.
### Selection results
- West Germany was the host of the 1974 Cup, and (reunited) Germany host to the one in 2006
### Performances
Six of the eight champions have won one of their titles while playing in their own homeland, the exceptions being Brazil, who finished as runners-up after losing the deciding match on home soil in 1950 and lost their semi-final against Germany in 2014, and Spain, which reached the second round on home soil in 1982. England (1966) won its only title while playing as a host nation. Uruguay (1930), Italy (1934), Argentina (1978), and France (1998) won their first titles as host nations but have gone on to win again, while Germany (1974) won their second title on home soil.
Other nations have also been successful when hosting the tournament. Switzerland (quarter-finals 1954), Sweden (runners-up in 1958), Chile (third place in 1962), South Korea (fourth place in 2002), Russia (quarter-finals 2018), and Mexico (quarter-finals in 1970 and 1986) all have their best results when serving as hosts. So far, South Africa (2010) and Qatar (2022) failed to advance beyond the first round.
## Attendance
`Source: FIFA`
`The best-attended single match has been the final in 11 of the 21 World Cups as of 2018`<sup>`[update]`</sup>`. Another match or matches drew more attendance than the final in 1930, 1938, 1958, 1962, 1970–1982, 1990, and 2006.`
## Broadcasting and promotion
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world. The cumulative viewership of all matches of the 2006 World Cup was estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of the tournament, almost a ninth of the entire population of the planet. The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers. The World Cup attracts major sponsors such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Adidas. For these companies and many more, being a sponsor strongly impacts their global brands. Host countries typically experience a multimillion-dollar revenue increase from the month-long event.
The governing body of the sport, FIFA, generated \$4.8 billion in revenue from the 2014 tournament, and \$6.1 billion from the 2018 tournament.
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot or logo. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot. World Cups feature official match balls specially designed for each tournament. After Slazenger produced the ball for the 1966 World Cup Adidas became the official supplier to FIFA. Each World Cup also has an official song, which have been performed by artists ranging from Shakira to Will Smith. Other songs, such as “Nessun dorma”, performed by The Three Tenors at four World Cup concerts, have also become identified with the tournament.
Forming a partnership with FIFA in 1970, Panini published its first sticker album for the 1970 World Cup. Since then, collecting and trading stickers and cards has become part of the World Cup experience, especially for the younger generation. FIFA has licensed World Cup video games since 1986, sponsored by Electronic Arts.
## Results
Notes
In all, 80 nations have played in at least one World Cup. Of these, eight national teams have won the World Cup, and they have added stars to their badges, with each star representing a World Cup victory. (Uruguay, however, choose to display four stars on their badge, representing their two gold medals at the 1924 and 1928 Summer Olympics, which are recognised by FIFA as World Championships, and their two World Cup titles in 1930 and 1950).
With five titles, Brazil are the most successful World Cup team and also the only nation to have played in every World Cup (22) to date. Brazil were also the first team to win the World Cup for the third (1970), fourth (1994) and fifth (2002) time. Italy (1934 and 1938) and Brazil (1958 and 1962) are the only nations to have won consecutive titles. West Germany (1982–1990) and Brazil (1994–2002) are the only nations to appear in three consecutive World Cup finals. Germany has made the most top-four finishes (13), medals (12), as well as the most finals (8).
### Teams reaching the top four
### Best performances by confederations
To date, the final of the World Cup has only been contested by teams from the UEFA (Europe) and CONMEBOL (South America) confederations. European nations have won twelve titles, while South American nations have won ten. Only three teams from outside these two continents have ever reached the semi-finals of the competition: United States (North, Central America and Caribbean) in 1930; South Korea (Asia) in 2002; and Morocco (Africa) in 2022. Only one Oceanian qualifier, Australia in 2006, has advanced to the second round, a feat they later reaccomplished in 2022.
Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Germany are the only teams to win a World Cup hosted outside their continental confederation; Brazil came out victorious in Europe (1958), North America (1970 and 1994) and Asia (2002). Argentina won a World Cup in North America in 1986 and in Asia in 2022. Spain won in Africa in 2010. In 2014, Germany became the first European team to win in the Americas. Only on five occasions have consecutive World Cups been won by teams from the same continent; the longest streak of tournaments won by a single confederation is four, with the 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 tournaments all won by UEFA teams (Italy, Spain, Germany, and France, respectively).
## Records and statistics
Five players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico's Antonio Carbajal (1950–1966) and Rafael Márquez (2002–2018); Germany's Lothar Matthäus (1982–1998); Argentina's Lionel Messi (2006–2022); and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo (2006–2022) all played in five tournaments with Ronaldo also being the first and only player to score in five tournaments. Messi has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 26 appearances. Brazil's Djalma Santos (1954–1962), West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer (1966–1974), and Germany's Philipp Lahm (2006–2014) are the only players to be named to three World Cup All-Star Teams.
Miroslav Klose of Germany (2002–2014) is the all-time top scorer at the World Cup with 16 goals. He broke Ronaldo of Brazil's record of 15 goals (1998–2006) during the 2014 semi-final match against Brazil. West Germany's Gerd Müller (1970–1974) is third, with 14 goals. The fourth-placed goalscorer, France's Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup; all his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.
In November 2007, FIFA announced that all members of World Cup-winning squads between 1930 and 1974 were to be retroactively awarded winners' medals. This made Brazil's Pelé the only player to have won three World Cup winners' medals (1958, 1962, and 1970, although he did not play in the 1962 final due to injury), with 20 other players who have won two winners' medals. Seven players have collected all three types of World Cup medals (winners', runner- ups', and third-place); five players were from West Germany's squad of 1966–1974: Franz Beckenbauer, Jürgen Grabowski, Horst-Dieter Höttges, Sepp Maier, and Wolfgang Overath (1966–1974), Italy's Franco Baresi (1982, 1990, 1994) and the most recent has been Miroslav Klose of Germany (2002–2014) with four consecutive medals.
Brazil's Mário Zagallo, West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer and France's Didier Deschamps are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach. Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach, and Deschamps repeated the feat in 2018, after having won in 1998 as captain. Italy's Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups (1934 and 1938). All World Cup-winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.
Among the national teams, Germany and Brazil have played the most World Cup matches (109), Germany appeared in the most finals (8), semi-finals (13), and quarter-finals (16), while Brazil has appeared in the most World Cups (21), has the most wins (73) and has scored the most goals (229). The two teams have played each other twice in the World Cup, in the 2002 final and in the 2014 semi-final.
### Top goalscorers
Individual
Players in bold are still active.
Country
## Awards
At the end of each World Cup, awards are presented to the players and teams for accomplishments other than their final team positions in the tournament.
- There are five post-tournament awards from the FIFA Technical Study Group:
- - the Golden Ball (named for its sponsor "Adidas Golden Ball") for best player, first awarded in 1982;
- the Golden Boot (named for its sponsor "Adidas Golden Boot", formerly known as the "adidas Golden Shoe" from 1982 to 2006) for top goalscorer, first awarded in 1982;
- the Golden Glove (named for its sponsor "Adidas Golden Glove", formerly known as the "Lev Yashin Award" from 1994 to 2006) for best goalkeeper, first awarded in 1994;
- the FIFA Young Player Award (formerly known as the "Best Young Player Award" from 2006 to 2010) for best player under 21 years of age at the start of the calendar year, first awarded in 2006;
- the FIFA Fair Play Trophy for the team that advanced to the second round with the best record of fair play, first awarded in 1970.
- There is currently one award voted on by fans during the tournament.:
- the Player of the Match (currently commercially termed "Budweiser Player of the Match", formerly known as the "Man of the Match" from 2002 to 2018) for outstanding performance during each match of the tournament, first awarded in 2002.
- There are two awards voted on by fans after the conclusion of the tournament:
- the Goal of the Tournament, (currently commercially termed "Hyundai Goal of the Tournament") for the fans' best goal scored during the tournament, first awarded in 2006;
- the Most Entertaining Team during the World Cup final tournament, as determined by a poll of the general public.
- One other award was given between 1994 and 2006:
- an All-Star Team comprising the best players of the tournament chosen by the FIFA Technical Study Group. From 2010 onwards, all Dream Teams or Statistical Teams are unofficial, as reported by FIFA itself.
## See also
- List of FIFA World Cup finals
- FIFA World Cup records and statistics
- FIFA World Cup awards
- FIFA U-20 World Cup
- FIFA U-17 World Cup
- FIFA Club World Cup
- FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
- FIFA Futsal World Cup
- FIFA Confederations Cup
- List of association football competitions
## Cited works
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169,071 |
Smilodon
| 1,173,630,550 |
Extinct genus of saber-toothed cat
|
[
"Apex predators",
"Fossil taxa described in 1842",
"Holocene extinctions",
"Pleistocene carnivorans",
"Pleistocene first appearances",
"Pleistocene genus extinctions",
"Pleistocene mammals of North America",
"Pleistocene mammals of South America",
"Prehistoric carnivoran genera",
"Smilodon",
"Smilodontini",
"Taxa named by Peter Wilhelm Lund"
] |
Smilodon is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the best known saber-toothed predators and one of the most famous prehistoric mammals. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats. Smilodon lived in the Americas during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 mya – 10,000 years ago). The genus was named in 1842 based on fossils from Brazil; the generic name means "scalpel" or "two-edged knife" combined with "tooth". Three species are recognized today: S. gracilis, S. fatalis, and S. populator. The two latter species were probably descended from S. gracilis, which itself probably evolved from Megantereon. The hundreds of specimens obtained from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles constitute the largest collection of Smilodon fossils.
Overall, Smilodon was more robustly built than any extant cat, with particularly well-developed forelimbs and exceptionally long upper canine teeth. Its jaw had a bigger gape than that of modern cats, and its upper canines were slender and fragile, being adapted for precision killing. S. gracilis was the smallest species at 55 to 100 kg (120 to 220 lb) in weight. S. fatalis had a weight of 160 to 280 kg (350 to 620 lb) and height of 100 cm (39 in). Both of these species are mainly known from North America, but remains from South America have also been attributed to them. S. populator from South America was the largest species, at 220 to 436 kg (485 to 961 lb) in weight and 120 cm (47 in) in height, and was among the largest known felids. The coat pattern of Smilodon is unknown, but it has been artistically restored with plain or spotted patterns.
In North America, Smilodon hunted large herbivores such as bison and camels, and it remained successful even when encountering new prey species in South America. Smilodon is thought to have killed its prey by holding it still with its forelimbs and biting it, but it is unclear in what manner the bite itself was delivered. Scientists debate whether Smilodon had a social or a solitary lifestyle; analysis of modern predator behavior as well as of Smilodon's fossil remains could be construed to lend support to either view. Smilodon probably lived in closed habitats such as forests and bush, which would have provided cover for ambushing prey. Smilodon died out at the same time that most North and South American megafauna disappeared, about 10,000 years ago. Its reliance on large animals has been proposed as the cause of its extinction, along with climate change and competition with other species, but the exact cause is unknown.
## Taxonomy
During the 1830s, Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund and his assistants collected fossils in the calcareous caves near the small town of Lagoa Santa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Among the thousands of fossils found, he recognized a few isolated cheek teeth as belonging to a hyena, which he named Hyaena neogaea in 1839. After more material was found (including canine teeth and foot bones), Lund concluded the fossils instead belonged to a distinct genus of felid, though transitional to the hyenas. He stated it would have matched the largest modern predators in size, and was more robust than any modern cat. Lund originally wanted to name the new genus Hyaenodon, but realizing this had recently become preoccupied by another prehistoric predator, he instead named it Smilodon populator in 1842. He explained the Ancient Greek meaning of Smilodon as σμίλη (smilē), "scalpel" or "two-edged knife", and οδόντος (odóntos), "tooth". This has also been translated as "tooth shaped like double-edged knife". He explained the species name populator as "the destroyer", which has also been translated as "he who brings devastation". By 1846, Lund had acquired nearly every part of the skeleton (from different individuals), and more specimens were found in neighboring countries by other collectors in the following years. Though some later authors used Lund's original species name neogaea instead of populator, it is now considered an invalid nomen nudum, as it was not accompanied with a proper description and no type specimens were designated. Some South American specimens have been referred to other genera, subgenera, species, and subspecies, such as Smilodontidion riggii, Smilodon (Prosmilodon) ensenadensis, and S. bonaeriensis, but these are now thought to be junior synonyms of S. populator.
Fossils of Smilodon were discovered in North America from the second half of the 19th century onwards. In 1869, American paleontologist Joseph Leidy described a maxilla fragment with a molar, which had been discovered in a petroleum bed in Hardin County, Texas. He referred the specimen to the genus Felis (which was then used for most cats, extant as well as extinct) but found it distinct enough to be part of its own subgenus, as F. (Trucifelis) fatalis. The species name means "deadly". In an 1880 article about extinct American cats, American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope pointed out that the F. fatalis molar was identical to that of Smilodon, and he proposed the new combination S. fatalis. Most North American finds were scanty until excavations began in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, where hundreds of individuals of S. fatalis have been found since 1875. S. fatalis has junior synonyms such as S. mercerii, S. floridanus, and S. californicus. American paleontologist Annalisa Berta considered the holotype of S. fatalis too incomplete to be an adequate type specimen, and the species has at times been proposed to be a junior synonym of S. populator. Nordic paleontologists Björn Kurtén and Lars Werdelin supported the distinctness of the two species in an article published in 1990. A 2018 article by the American paleontologist John P. Babiarz and colleagues concluded that S. californicus, represented by the specimens from the La Brea Tar Pits, was a distinct species from S. fatalis after all and that more research is needed to clarify the taxonomy of the lineage.
In his 1880 article about extinct cats, Cope also named a third species of Smilodon, S. gracilis. The species was based on a partial canine, which had been obtained in the Port Kennedy Cave near the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania. Cope found the canine to be distinct from that of the other Smilodon species due to its smaller size and more compressed base. Its specific name refers to the species' lighter build. This species is known from fewer and less complete remains than the other members of the genus. S. gracilis has at times been considered part of genera such as Megantereon and Ischyrosmilus. S. populator, S. fatalis and S. gracilis are currently considered the only valid species of Smilodon, and features used to define most of their junior synonyms have been dismissed as variation between individuals of the same species (intraspecific variation). One of the most famous of prehistoric mammals, Smilodon has often been featured in popular media and is the state fossil of California.
### Evolution
Long the most completely known saber-toothed cat, Smilodon is still one of the best-known members of the group, to the point where the two concepts have been confused. The term "saber-tooth" itself refers to an ecomorph consisting of various groups of extinct predatory synapsids (mammals and close relatives), which convergently evolved extremely long maxillary canines, as well as adaptations to the skull and skeleton related to their use. This includes members of Gorgonopsia, Thylacosmilidae, Machaeroidinae, Nimravidae, Barbourofelidae, and Machairodontinae. Within the family Felidae (true cats), members of the subfamily Machairodontinae are referred to as saber-toothed cats, and this group is itself divided into three tribes: Metailurini (false saber-tooths); Homotherini (scimitar-toothed cats); and Smilodontini (dirk-toothed cats), to which Smilodon belongs. Members of Smilodontini are defined by their long slender canines with fine to no serrations, whereas Homotherini are typified by shorter, broad, and more flattened canines, with coarser serrations. Members of Metailurini were less specialized and had shorter, less flattened canines, and are not recognized as members of Machairodontinae by some researchers.
The earliest felids are known from the Oligocene of Europe, such as Proailurus, and the earliest one with saber-tooth features is the Miocene genus Pseudaelurus. The skull and mandible morphology of the earliest saber-toothed cats was similar to that of the modern clouded leopards (Neofelis). The lineage further adapted to the precision killing of large animals by developing elongated canine teeth and wider gapes, in the process sacrificing high bite force. As their canines became longer, the bodies of the cats became more robust for immobilizing prey. In derived smilodontins and homotherins, the lumbar region of the spine and the tail became shortened, as did the hind limbs. Based on mitochondrial DNA sequences extracted from fossils, the lineages of Homotherium and Smilodon are estimated to have diverged about 18 Ma ago. The earliest species of Smilodon is S. gracilis, which existed from 2.5 million to 500,000 years ago (early Blancan to Irvingtonian ages) and was the successor in North America of Megantereon, from which it probably evolved. Megantereon itself had entered North America from Eurasia during the Pliocene, along with Homotherium. S. gracilis reached the northern regions of South America in the Early Pleistocene as part of the Great American Interchange. S. fatalis existed 1.6 million–10,000 years ago (late Irvingtonian to Rancholabrean ages), and replaced S. gracilis in North America. S. populator existed 1 million–10,000 years ago (Ensenadan to Lujanian ages); it occurred in the eastern parts of South America.
Despite the colloquial name "saber-toothed tiger", Smilodon is not closely related to the modern tiger (which belongs in the subfamily Pantherinae), or any other extant felid. A 1992 ancient DNA analysis suggested that Smilodon should be grouped with modern cats (subfamilies Felinae and Pantherinae). A 2005 study found that Smilodon belonged to a separate lineage. A study published in 2006 confirmed this, showing that the Machairodontinae diverged early from the ancestors of modern cats and were not closely related to any living species. The following cladogram based on fossils and DNA analysis shows the placement of Smilodon among extinct and extant felids, after Rincón and colleagues, 2011:
## Description
### Skeleton
Smilodon was around the size of modern big cats, but was more robustly built. It had a reduced lumbar region, high scapula, short tail, and broad limbs with relatively short feet. Smilodon is most famous for its relatively long canine teeth, which are the longest found in the saber-toothed cats, at about 28 cm (11 in) long in the largest species, S.populator. The canines were slender and had fine serrations on the front and back side. The skull was robustly proportioned and the muzzle was short and broad. The cheek bones (zygomata) were deep and widely arched, the sagittal crest was prominent, and the frontal region was slightly convex. The mandible had a flange on each side of the front. The upper incisors were large, sharp, and slanted forwards. There was a diastema (gap) between the incisors and molars of the mandible. The lower incisors were broad, recurved, and placed in a straight line across. The p3 premolar tooth of the mandible was present in most early specimens, but lost in later specimens; it was only present in 6% of the La Brea sample. There is some dispute over whether Smilodon was sexually dimorphic. Some studies of S. fatalis fossils have found little difference between the sexes. Conversely, a 2012 study found that, while fossils of S. fatalis show less variation in size among individuals than modern Panthera, they do appear to show the same difference between the sexes in some traits.
S. gracilis was the smallest species, estimated at 55 to 100 kg (120 to 220 lb) in weight, about the size of a jaguar. It was similar to its predecessor Megantereon of the same size, but its dentition and skull were more advanced, approaching S. fatalis. S. fatalis was intermediate in size between S. gracilis and S. populator. It ranged from 160 to 280 kg (350 to 620 lb). and reached a shoulder height of 100 cm (39 in) and body length of 175 cm (69 in). It was similar to a lion in dimensions, but was more robust and muscular, and therefore had a larger body mass. Its skull was also similar to that of Megantereon, though more massive and with larger canines. S. populator was among the largest known felids, with a body mass range from 220 kg (490 lb) to over 400 kg (880 lb), and one estimate suggesting up to 470 kg (1,040 lb). A particularly large S. populator skull from Uruguay measuring 39.2 cm (15.4 in) in length indicates this individual may have weighed as much as 436 kg (961 lb). It stood at a shoulder height of 120 cm (47 in). Compared to S. fatalis, S. populator was more robust and had a more elongated and narrow skull with a straighter upper profile, higher positioned nasal bones, a more vertical occiput, more massive metapodials and slightly longer forelimbs relative to hindlimbs. Large tracks from Argentina (for which the ichnotaxon name Smilodonichium has been proposed) have been attributed to S. populator, and measure 17.6 cm (6.9 in) by 19.2 cm (7.6 in). This is larger than tracks of the Bengal tiger, to which the footprints have been compared.
### External features
Smilodon and other saber-toothed cats have been reconstructed with both plain-colored coats and with spotted patterns (which appears to be the ancestral condition for feliforms), both of which are considered possible. Studies of modern cat species have found that species that live in the open tend to have uniform coats while those that live in more vegetated habitats have more markings, with some exceptions. Some coat features, such as the manes of male lions or the stripes of the tiger, are too unusual to predict from fossils.
Traditionally, saber-toothed cats have been artistically restored with external features similar to those of extant felids, by artists such as Charles R. Knight in collaboration with various paleontologists in the early 20th century. In 1969, paleontologist G. J. Miller instead proposed that Smilodon would have looked very different from a typical cat and similar to a bulldog, with a lower lip line (to allow its mouth to open wide without tearing the facial tissues), a more retracted nose and lower-placed ears. Paleoartist Mauricio Antón and coauthors disputed this in 1998 and maintained that the facial features of Smilodon were overall not very different from those of other cats. Antón noted that modern animals like the hippopotamus are able to open their mouths extremely wide without tearing tissue due to a folded orbicularis oris muscle, and such a muscle arrangement exists in modern large felids. Antón stated that extant phylogenetic bracketing (where the features of the closest extant relatives of a fossil taxon are used as reference) is the most reliable way of restoring the life-appearance of prehistoric animals, and the cat-like Smilodon restorations by Knight are therefore still accurate. A 2022 study by Antón and colleagues concluded that the upper canines of Smilodon would have been visible when the mouth was closed, while those of Homotherium would have not, after examining fossils and extant big cats.
## Paleobiology
### Diet
An apex predator, Smilodon primarily hunted large mammals. Isotopes preserved in the bones of S. fatalis in the La Brea Tar Pits reveal that ruminants like bison (Bison antiquus, which was much larger than the modern American bison) and camels (Camelops) were most commonly taken by the cats there. In addition, isotopes preserved in the tooth enamel of S. gracilis specimens from Florida show that this species fed on the peccary Platygonus and the llama-like Hemiauchenia. Isotopic studies of dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) and American lion (Panthera atrox) bones show an overlap with S. fatalis in prey, which suggests that they were competitors. More detailed isotope analysis however, indicates that Smilodon fatalis preferred forest-dwelling prey such as tapirs, deer and forest-dwelling bison as opposed to the dire wolves' preferences for prey inhabiting open areas such as grassland. The availability of prey in the Rancho La Brea area was likely comparable to modern East Africa.
As Smilodon migrated to South America, its diet changed; bison were absent, the horses and proboscideans were different, and native ungulates such as toxodonts and litopterns were completely unfamiliar, yet S. populator thrived as well there as its relatives in North America. Isotopic analysis for S. populator suggests that its main prey species included Toxodon platensis, Pachyarmatherium, Holmesina, species of the genus Panochthus, Palaeolama, Catonyx, Equus neogeus, and the crocodilian Caiman latirostris. This analysis of its diet also indicates that S. populator hunted both in open and forested habitats. The differences between the North and South American species may be due to the difference in prey between the two continents. Smilodon may have avoided eating bone and would have left enough food for scavengers. Coprolites assigned to S. populator recovered from Argentina preserve Mylodon osteoderms and a Lama scaphoid bone. In addition to this unambiguous evidence of bone consumption, the coprolites suggest that Smilodon had a more generalist diet than previously thought. Examinations of dental microwear from La Brea further suggests that Smilodon consumed both flesh and bone. Smilodon itself may have scavenged dire wolf kills. It has been suggested that Smilodon was a pure scavenger that used its canines for display to assert dominance over carcasses, but this theory is not supported today as no modern terrestrial mammals are pure scavengers.
### Predatory behavior
The brain of Smilodon had sulcal patterns similar to modern cats, which suggests an increased complexity of the regions that control the sense of hearing, sight, and coordination of the limbs. Felid saber-tooths in general had relatively small eyes that were not as forward-facing as those of modern cats, which have good binocular vision to help them move in trees. Smilodon was likely an ambush predator that concealed itself in dense vegetation, as its limb proportions were similar to modern forest-dwelling cats, and its short tail would not have helped it balance while running. Unlike its ancestor Megantereon, which was at least partially scansorial and therefore able to climb trees, Smilodon was probably completely terrestrial due to its greater weight and lack of climbing adaptations. Tracks from Argentina named Felipeda miramarensis in 2019 may have been produced by Smilodon. If correctly identified, the tracks indicate that the animal had fully retractible claws, plantigrade feet, lacked strong supination capabilities in its paws, notably robust forelimbs compared to the hindlimbs, and was probably an ambush predator.
The heel bone of Smilodon was fairly long, which suggests it was a good jumper. Its well-developed flexor and extensor muscles in its forearms probably enabled it to pull down, and securely hold down, large prey. Analysis of the cross-sections of S. fatalis humeri indicated that they were strengthened by cortical thickening to such an extent that they would have been able to sustain greater loading than those of extant big cats, or of the extinct American lion. The thickening of S. fatalis femurs was within the range of extant felids. Its canines were fragile and could not have bitten into bone; due to the risk of breaking, these cats had to subdue and restrain their prey with their powerful forelimbs before they could use their canine teeth, and likely used quick slashing or stabbing bites rather than the slow, suffocating bites typically used by modern cats. On rare occasions, as evidenced by fossils, Smilodon was willing to risk biting into bone with its canines. This may have been focused more towards competition such as other Smilodon or potential threats such as other carnivores than on prey.
Debate continues as to how Smilodon killed its prey. Traditionally, the most popular theory is that the cat delivered a deep stabbing bite or open-jawed stabbing thrust to the throat, killing the prey very quickly. Another hypothesis suggests that Smilodon targeted the belly of its prey. This is disputed, as the curvature of their prey's belly would likely have prevented the cat from getting a good bite or stab. In regard to how Smilodon delivered its bite, the "canine shear-bite" hypothesis has been favored, where flexion of the neck and rotation of the skull assisted in biting the prey, but this may be mechanically impossible. However, evidence from comparisons with Homotherium suggest that Smilodon was fully capable of and utilized the canine shear-bite as its primary means of killing prey, based on the fact that it had a thick skull and relatively little trabecular bone, while Homotherium had both more trabecular bone and a more lion-like clamping bite as its primary means of attacking prey. The discovery, made by Figueirido and Lautenschlager et al., published in 2018 suggests extremely different ecological adaptations in both machairodonts. The mandibular flanges may have helped resist bending forces when the mandible was pulled against the hide of a prey animal.
The protruding incisors were arranged in an arch, and were used to hold the prey still and stabilize it while the canine bite was delivered. The contact surface between the canine crown and the gum was enlarged, which helped stabilize the tooth and helped the cat sense when the tooth had penetrated to its maximum extent. Since saber-toothed cats generally had a relatively large infraorbital foramen (opening) in the skull, which housed nerves associated with the whiskers, it has been suggested the improved senses would have helped the cats' precision when biting outside their field of vision, and thereby prevent breakage of the canines. The blade-like carnassial teeth were used to cut skin to access the meat, and the reduced molars suggest that they were less adapted for crushing bones than modern cats. As the food of modern cats enters the mouth through the side while cutting with the carnassials, not the front incisors between the canines, the animals do not need to gape widely, so the canines of Smilodon would likewise not have been a hindrance when feeding. A study published in 2022 of how machairodonts fed revealed that wear patterns on the teeth of S. fatalis also suggest that it was capable of eating bone to a similar extent as lions. This and comparisons with bite marks left by the contemporary machairodont Xenosmilus suggest that Smilodon and its relatives could efficiently de-flesh a carcass of meat when feeding without being hindered by their long canines.
Despite being more powerfully built than other large cats, Smilodon had a weaker bite. Modern big cats have more pronounced zygomatic arches, while these were smaller in Smilodon, which restricted the thickness and therefore power of the temporalis muscles and thus reduced Smilodon's bite force. Analysis of its narrow jaws indicates that it could produce a bite only a third as strong as that of a lion (the bite force quotient measured for the lion is 112). There seems to be a general rule that the saber-toothed cats with the largest canines had proportionally weaker bites. Analyses of canine bending strength (the ability of the canine teeth to resist bending forces without breaking) and bite forces indicate that the saber-toothed cats' teeth were stronger relative to the bite force than those of modern big cats. In addition, Smilodon's gape could have reached over 110 degrees, while that of the modern lion reaches 65 degrees. This made the gape wide enough to allow Smilodon to grasp large prey despite the long canines. A 2018 study compared the killing behavior of Smilodon fatalis and Homotherium serum, and found that the former had a strong skull with little trabecular bone for a stabbing canine-shear bite, whereas the latter had more trabecular bone and used a clamp and hold style more similar to lions. The two would therefore have held distinct ecological niches.
### Natural traps
Many Smilodon specimens have been excavated from asphalt seeps that acted as natural carnivore traps. Animals were accidentally trapped in the seeps and became bait for predators that came to scavenge, but these were then trapped themselves. The best-known of such traps are at La Brea in Los Angeles, which have produced over 166,000 Smilodon fatalis specimens that form the largest collection in the world. The sediments of the pits there were accumulated 40,000 to 10,000 years ago, in the Late Pleistocene. Though the trapped animals were buried quickly, predators often managed to remove limb bones from them, but they were themselves often trapped and then scavenged by other predators; 90% of the excavated bones belonged to predators.
The Talara Tar Seeps in Peru represent a similar scenario, and have also produced fossils of Smilodon. Unlike in La Brea, many of the bones were broken or show signs of weathering. This may have been because the layers were shallower, so the thrashing of trapped animals damaged the bones of previously trapped animals. Many of the carnivores at Talara were juveniles, possibly indicating that inexperienced and less fit animals had a greater chance of being trapped. Though Lund thought accumulations of Smilodon and herbivore fossils in the Lagoa Santa Caves were due to the cats using the caves as dens, these are probably the result of animals dying on the surface, and water currents subsequently dragging their bones to the floor of the cave, but some individuals may also have died after becoming lost in the caves.
### Social life
Scientists debate whether Smilodon was social. One study of African predators found that social predators like lions and spotted hyenas respond more to the distress calls of prey than solitary species. Since S. fatalis fossils are common at the La Brea Tar Pits, and were likely attracted by the distress calls of stuck prey, this could mean that this species was social as well. One critical study claims that the study neglects other factors, such as body mass (heavier animals are more likely to get stuck than lighter ones), intelligence (some social animals, like the American lion, may have avoided the tar because they were better able to recognize the hazard), lack of visual and olfactory lures, the type of audio lure, and the length of the distress calls (the actual distress calls of the trapped prey animals would have lasted longer than the calls used in the study). The author of that study ponders what predators would have responded if the recordings were played in India, where the otherwise solitary tigers are known to aggregate around a single carcass. The authors of the original study responded that though effects of the calls in the tar pits and the playback experiments would not be identical, this would not be enough to overturn their conclusions. In addition, they stated that weight and intelligence would not likely affect the results as lighter carnivores are far more numerous than heavy herbivores and the social (and seemingly intelligent) dire wolf is also found in the pits.
Another argument for sociality is based on the healed injuries in several Smilodon fossils, which would suggest that the animals needed others to provide them food. This argument has been questioned, as cats can recover quickly from even severe bone damage and an injured Smilodon could survive if it had access to water. However, a Smilodon suffering hip dysplasia at a young age that survived to adulthood suggests that it could not have survived to adulthood without aid from a social group, as this individual was unable to hunt or defend its territory due to the severity of its congenital issue. The brain of Smilodon was relatively small compared to other cat species. Some researchers have argued that Smilodon's brain would have been too small for it to have been a social animal. An analysis of brain size in living big cats found no correlation between brain size and sociality. Another argument against Smilodon being social is that being an ambush hunter in closed habitat would likely have made group-living unnecessary, as in most modern cats. Yet it has also been proposed that being the largest predator in an environment comparable to the savanna of Africa, Smilodon may have had a social structure similar to modern lions, which possibly live in groups primarily to defend optimal territory from other lions (lions are the only social big cats today).
Whether Smilodon was sexually dimorphic has implications for its reproductive behavior. Based on their conclusions that Smilodon fatalis had no sexual dimorphism, Van Valkenburgh and Sacco suggested in 2002 that, if the cats were social, they would likely have lived in monogamous pairs (along with offspring) with no intense competition among males for females. Likewise, Meachen-Samuels and Binder concluded in 2010 that aggression between males was less pronounced in S. fatalis than in the American lion. Christiansen and Harris found in 2012 that, as S. fatalis did exhibit some sexual dimorphism, there would have been evolutionary selection for competition between males. Some bones show evidence of having been bitten by other Smilodon, possibly the result of territorial battles, competition for breeding rights or over prey. Two S. populator skulls from Argentina show seemingly fatal, unhealed wounds which appear to have been caused by the canines of another Smilodon (though it cannot be ruled out they were caused by kicking prey). If caused by intraspecific fighting, it may also indicate that they had social behavior which could lead to death, as seen in some modern felines (as well as indicating that the canines could penetrate bone). It has been suggested that the exaggerated canines of saber-toothed cats evolved for sexual display and competition, but a statistical study of the correlation between canine and body size in S. populator found no difference in scaling between body and canine size concluded it was more likely they evolved solely for a predatory function.
A set of three associated skeletons of S. fatalis found in Ecuador and described in 2021 by Reynolds, Seymour, and Evans suggests that there was prolonged parental care in Smilodon. The two subadult individuals uncovered share a unique inherited trait in their dentaries, suggesting they were siblings; a rare instance of familial relationships being found in the fossil record. The subadult specimens are also hypothesized to have been male and female, respectively, while the adult skeletal remains found at the site are believed to have belonged to their mother. The subadults were estimated to have been around two years of age at the time of their deaths, but were still growing. The structure of the hyoid bones suggest that Smilodon could roar like modern big cats, which may have implications for their social life.
### Development
Smilodon started developing its adult saber-teeth when the animal reached between 12 and 19 months of age, shortly after the completion of the eruption of the cat's baby teeth. Both baby and adult canines would be present side by side in the mouth for an approximately 11-month period, and the muscles used in making the powerful bite were developed at about one-and-a-half years old as well, eight months earlier than in a modern lion. After Smilodon reached 23 to 30 months of age, the infant teeth were shed while the adult canines grew at an average growth rate of 7 mm (0.3 in) per month during a 12-month period. They reached their full size at around 3 years of age, later than modern species of big cats. Juvenile and adolescent Smilodon specimens are extremely rare at Rancho La Brea, where the study was performed, indicating that they remained hidden or at denning sites during hunts, and depended on parental care while their canines were developing.
A 2017 study indicates that juveniles were born with a robust build similar to the adults. Comparison of the bones of juvenile S. fatalis specimens from La Brea with those of the contemporaneous American lion revealed that the two cats shared a similar growth curve. Felid forelimb development during ontogeny (changes during growth) has remained tightly constrained. The curve is similar to that for modern cats such as tigers and cougars, but shifts more towards the robust direction of the axes than is seen in modern felids. Examinations by Reynolds, Seymour, and Evans (2021) suggest that Smilodon had a unique and fast growth rate similar to a tiger, but that there was a prolonged period of growth in the genus similar to what is seen in lions, and that the cubs were reliant on their parents until this growth period ended.
### Paleopathology
Several Smilodon fossils show signs of ankylosing spondylitis, hyperostosis and trauma. One study of 1,000 Smilodon skulls found that 36% of them had eroded parietal bones, which is where the largest jaw muscles attach. They also showed signs of microfractures, and the weakening and thinning of bones possibly caused by mechanical stress from the constant need to make stabbing motions with the canines. Bony growths where the deltoid muscle inserted in the humerus is a common pathology for a La Brea specimen, which was probably due to repeated strain when Smilodon attempted to pull down prey with its forelimbs. Sternum injuries are also common, probably due to collision with prey. The frequency of trauma in S. fatalis specimens was 4.3%, compared to 2.8% in the dire wolf, which implies the ambush predatory behavior of the former led to greater risk of injury than the pursuit predatory behavior of the latter. Smilodon remains exhibit relatively more shoulder and lumbar vertebrae injuries. A 2023 study documented a high degree of subchondral defects in joint surfaces of S. fatalis and dire wolf specimens from the La Brea Tar pits that resembled osteochondrosis dissecans. As modern dogs with this disease are inbred, the researchers suggested this would have been the case for the prehistoric species as well as they approached extinction, but cautioned that more research was needed to determine if this was also the case in specimens from other parts of the Americas.
## Distribution and habitat
Smilodon lived during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 mya–10,000 years ago), and was perhaps the most recent of the saber-toothed cats. It probably lived in closed habitat such as forest or bush. Fossils of the genus have been found throughout the Americas. The northernmost remains of the genus are S. fatalis fossils from Alberta, Canada. The habitat of North America varied from subtropical forests and savannah in the south, to treeless mammoth steppes in the north. The mosaic vegetation of woods, shrubs, and grasses in southwestern North America supported large herbivores such as horses, bison, antelope, deer, camels, mammoths, mastodons, and ground sloths. North America also supported other saber-toothed cats, such as Homotherium and Xenosmilus, as well as other large carnivores including dire wolves, short-faced bear (Arctodus simus) and the American lion. Competition from such carnivores may have prevented North American S. fatalis from attaining the size of South America's S. populator. The similarity in size of S. fatalis and the American lion suggests niche overlap and direct competition between these species, and they appear to have fed on similarly sized prey.
S. gracilis entered South America during the early to middle Pleistocene, where it probably gave rise to S. populator, which lived in the eastern part of the continent. S. fatalis also entered western South America in the late Pleistocene, and the two species were thought to be divided by the Andes mountains. However, in 2018, a skull of S. fatalis found in Uruguay east of the Andes was reported, which puts the idea that the two species were allopatric (geographically separated) into question. The American interchange resulted in a mix of native and invasive species sharing the prairies and woodlands in South America; North American herbivores included proboscideans, horses, camelids and deer, South American herbivores included toxodonts, litopterns, ground sloths, and glyptodonts. Native metatherian predators (including the saber-toothed thylacosmilids) had gone extinct by the Pliocene, and were replaced by North American carnivores such as canids, bears, and large cats.
S. populator was very successful, while Homotherium never became widespread in South America. The extinction of the thylacosmilids has been attributed to competition with Smilodon, but this is probably incorrect, as they seem to have disappeared before the arrival of the large cats. The phorusrhacid "terror birds" may have dominated the large predator niche in South America until Smilodon arrived. S. populator may have been able to reach larger size than S. fatalis due to a lack of competition in Pleistocene South America; S. populator arrived after the extinction of Arctotherium angustidens, one of the largest carnivores ever, and could therefore assume the niche of mega-carnivore. S. populator preferred large prey from open habitats such as grassland and plains, based on evidence gathered from isotope ratios that determined the animal's diet. In this way, the South American Smilodon species was probably similar to the modern lion. S. populator probably competed with the canid Protocyon there, but not with the jaguar, which fed primarily on smaller prey.
## Extinction
Along with most of the Pleistocene megafauna, Smilodon became extinct 10,000 years ago in the Quaternary extinction event. Its extinction has been linked to the decline and extinction of large herbivores, which were replaced by smaller and more agile ones like deer. Hence, Smilodon could have been too specialized at hunting large prey and may have been unable to adapt. A 2012 study of Smilodon tooth wear found no evidence that they were limited by food resources. Other explanations include climate change and competition with Homo sapiens (who entered the Americas around the time Smilodon disappeared), or a combination of several factors, all of which apply to the general Pleistocene extinction event, rather than specifically to the extinction of the saber-toothed cats.
Writers of the first half of the twentieth century theorized that the last saber-toothed cats, Smilodon and Homotherium, became extinct through competition with the faster and more generalized felids that replaced them. It was even proposed that the saber-toothed predators were inferior to modern cats, as the ever-growing canines were thought to inhibit their owners from feeding properly. Yet fast felids, such as the American lion and the American cheetah (Miracinonyx), also became extinct during the Late Pleistocene. The fact that saber-teeth evolved many times in unrelated lineages also attests to the success of this feature.
The latest Smilodon fatalis specimen recovered from the Rancho La Brea tar pits has been dated to 13,025 years ago. A specimen of S. fatalis from Iowa dates to 13,605–13,455 years Before Present (BP). The latest Smilodon populator remains found in the cave of Cueva del Medio, near the town of Soria, northeast Última Esperanza Province, Magallanes Region in southernmost Chile have been dated to 10,935–11,209 years ago. The most recent carbon-14 date for S. fatalis reported was 10,200 years BP for remains from the First American Cave in 1971; however, the most recent "credible" date has been given as 11,130 BP.
## See also
- List of largest carnivorans
- List of largest prehistoric carnivorans
- Megafauna
- Quaternary extinction event
|
520,349 |
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
| 1,166,726,645 |
Dungeons & Dragons module by Gary Gygax
|
[
"Greyhawk modules",
"Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1980",
"Science fantasy"
] |
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a 1980 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game written by Gary Gygax. While Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is typically a fantasy game, the adventure includes elements of science fiction, and thus belongs to the science fantasy genre. It takes place on a downed spaceship; the ship's crew has died of an unspecified disease, but functioning robots and strange creatures still inhabit the ship. The player characters fight monsters and robots, and gather the futuristic weapons and colored access cards that are necessary for advancing the story.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was first played at the Origins II convention in 1976, where it was used to introduce Dungeons & Dragons players to the science fiction game Metamorphosis Alpha. In 1980, TSR published the adventure, updated for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The adventure was not updated for later rules systems, but a Wizards.com article did provide a conversion to Future Tech. It included a separate booklet of illustrations, in both color and black and white. The adventure is an old-time favorite of many Dungeons & Dragons fans, including Stephen Colbert. It was ranked the fifth-best Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and received positive reviews from White Dwarf and The Space Gamer magazines. The other adventures in the S series include S1 Tomb of Horrors, S2 White Plume Mountain, and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
## Plot summary
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks takes place on a spaceship in the Barrier Peaks mountain range of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. In the adventure's introduction, it is explained that the Grand Duchy of Geoff is under constant attack by a succession of monsters that have been emerging from a cave in the mountains. The Grand Duke of Geoff has hired the characters to discover the origin of the creatures, and stop their incursions.
The cave is actually an entrance to a downed spacecraft whose inhabitants have succumbed to a virus, leaving them dead. Many of the ship's robots are still functioning, however, and the players must either avoid or defeat them; some may also be ignored. As later seen in video games, "plot coupons" need to be collected. The adventure requires the players to gather colored access cards (the "coupons") to advance to the next story arc: entering restricted areas, commanding robots, and other actions are all dependent on the cards. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks comes with a booklet of 63 numbered illustrations, depicting the various monsters, high tech devices, and situations encountered in the adventure. Much of the artwork for the adventure, including the cover, was produced by Erol Otus. Several of his contributions were printed in full color. Jeff Dee, Greg K. Fleming, David S. LaForce, Jim Roslof and David C. Sutherland III provided additional illustrations for the adventure.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks's 32-page adventure guide is divided into six sections. These describe the crew's quarters, the lounge area, the gardens and menagerie, and the activity deck. Along the way, the characters find colored access cards and futuristic devices such as blaster rifles and suits of powered armor that they can use to aid their journey. The first two sections involve various monsters, vegepygmys—short humanoid plant creatures—who have commandeered the crew's quarters, and a repair robot that follows instructions before its batteries run out. There is also a medical robot trying in vain to find a cure for the virus that killed the ship's crew. In the lounge area, a "Dining Servo Robot" still works, although the "food" it serves is now moldy poison.
The gardens and menagerie area includes an encounter with a "cute little bunnyoid on the stump". It looks like a horned rabbit on a tree stump, but when approached, the stump develops fangs and its roots become tentacles, which it then uses to attack the characters. The next encounter involves a froghemoth, a large alien frog-like creature with tentacles and three eyes on an eyestalk. In the sixth and final section, the activity deck, the players' characters must contend with various sports robots, including a "boxing and wrestling trainer" and a "karate master". If the characters can communicate with the karate master and tell it that boxing is superior to karate, it will attack the boxing robot until both are destroyed, else they will both attack the characters. The last area of the activity deck is the loading area, where the characters can leave the spaceship. The adventure then ends, with no postscript.
## Publication history
While D&D is a fantasy roleplaying game, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks introduces science fiction elements into the game. Work on the adventure began in 1976, when TSR was considering publishing a science fantasy role playing game. James M. Ward had shown them his rough notes on Metamorphosis Alpha. Gary Gygax thought it would be a good idea to introduce science fiction/science fantasy concepts to D&D players through the use of a tournament scenario at the 1976 Origins II gaming convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Gygax started with his old Greyhawk Castle campaign material and added a spaceship, which Rob Kuntz helped him populate with monsters. Kuntz is further credited for "inspiration" for the module; his "Machine Level" having been incorporated into Greyhawk Castle and Tim Kask having played in a D&D game with science fantasy content run by Kuntz at GenCon VII in 1974.
According to Gygax, both the scenario that became Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Metamorphosis Alpha were successful at the convention. Although Metamorphosis Alpha became available to the general public in mid-1976, only a few copies of the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks tournament adventure survived after the convention.
When Metamorphosis Alpha was updated and expanded into Gamma World, it seemed the right time for Gygax to reintroduce Expedition to the Barrier Peaks to the public. Said Gygax, "What could be more logical than to make available a scenario which blends the two role playing approaches into a single form?" Gygax updated the scenario to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules, hoping it could serve as a primer on how to integrate science into one's fantasy role playing game. In 1980, the updated version was published as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. At the time of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks'''s release, each Dungeons & Dragons module was marked with an alphanumeric code indicating the series to which it belonged. The 32-page adventure bears the code S3 ("S" for "special"). The module included a 36-page book and a 32-page book, with two outer folders; it was one of the first deluxe scenario modules, and included a book of illustrations intended to be shown to the players during the game, including four color paintings. This module was included as part of the Realms of Horror abridged compilation produced in 1987. Although an article on the Wizards.com web site did provide a conversion to Future Tech, the adventure never received an official sequel and was not updated for the D&D version 3.5 rules (Wizards of the Coast periodically alters the rules of Dungeons & Dragons and releases a new version). The adventure has also been referenced in the Nodwick comic series. Unlike the other S series adventures, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was not included in the Dungeon Survival Guide by author Bill Slavicsek because to him it was a "wonderful adventure", but not "a D&D adventure. Once you add ray guns and power armor to the game, you have a fundamentally different experience." Other products that have introduced futuristic elements into D&D include the adventure City of the Gods (1987) and the novel Tale of the Comet (1997).
All four modules of the S-series were included as part of the Dungeons of Dread hardcover collection, released on March 19, 2013. Lawrence Schick wrote in the foreword: "Vegepygmies and robots. What more could you need to hear? Let’s go! S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was Gary in full-on funhouse mode, having a high old time mixing elements of Jim Ward's Gamma World with fantasy to create a rollicking and memorable AD&D adventure."
As part of Extra Life 2018, Wizards of the Coast released Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, a new adventure set in the Barrier Peaks, which has story connections to the original Expedition to the Barrier Peaks adventure and was inspired by its mix of fantasy and technology.
In December 2019, Goodman Games published Original Adventures Reincarnated \#3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks under license from Wizards of the Coast. This hardback contains reprints of the 1980 and 1981 editions, and a 5th edition update of the adventure.
## Reception
In the August 1980 edition of The Space Gamer (Issue No. 30), Tim Byrd gave a favourable review, stating that it "successfully combines fantasy with SF" and that it was "extremely fun to play [...] one of the best modules TSR has published". Six issues later, in the February 1981 edition of The Space Gamer (Issue 36), Kirby Griffis noted that the adventure was full of "surprises and new monsters", and felt that its one drawback was that Gygax presented standard D&D monsters as natives of other planets. In summary, he found it interesting and "full of spice and flavor", and recommended it to anyone interested in "something new" or wanting to include science fiction in their D&D game.
In the August 1981 edition of White Dwarf (Issue \#26), Marcus L. Rowland said in that he found the adventure "very enjoyable, with ideas and creatures eminently suitable for wider use". He gave it 9/10 overall, but complained that some of the maps were printed on both sides of the same sheet, making them useless as a Dungeon Master's shield (a visual barrier that allows dice rolls and other activities to be conducted without the players knowing the outcome.)He recommended at least a week's study by the Dungeon Master before attempting to play it. He also noted that the cover "reveals the secret of the creatures".
In 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the publication of D&D, Dungeon magazine published a list of The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time and ranked Expedition to the Barrier Peaks as 5th. Judge Bill Slavicsek felt the adventure was a "classic clash of genres". It was not something he felt should be done often, but it made a "memorable diversion". Judge Mike Mearls described how he felt the first time he read Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. "I had this terrible, terrible conflict within myself to immediately tell my friends about it at war with a maniacal, desperate drive to keep it hidden at all costs." Judge Keith Baker was most impressed with the adventure's art. He liked that it came with a separate book of art; in particular the before and after illustrations of the carnivorous plant with a "built-in bunny lure". This was later featured in a Wizards.com "Ask Wizards" segment. According to the Dungeon editors, the adventure's defining moment was its froghemoth creature, and its full-page color illustration.
According to Creighton Broadhurst, author of Exemplars of Evil: Deadly Foes to Vex Your Heroes, the adventure is one of the most popular "old time" Greyhawk adventures. Game designer Daniel Kaufman remembers "the famous backward-firing guns" as one of the adventure's highlights. Television personality Stephen Colbert, who played Dungeons & Dragons as a child, chose this adventure as his personal favorite.
Aaron Starr for Black Gate said "The best 'official' genre bending I ever saw was an adventure module for AD&D [...] called Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. In this module the players would pit their magic and fantasy know-how against the contents of a huge derelict spaceship. This caused a few problems, in practice, since A.) everyone usually knew they were playing this module, and B.) suppressing their knowledge of technology is pretty hard to do. Pretending dangerous ignorance for your characters is tough sledding, as it turned out, and exhausting to boot. Expedition'', for all its promise, is one module I remember getting consistently poor results with."
|
25,491,108 |
Oryzomys peninsulae
| 1,107,926,554 |
Species of rodent from western Mexico
|
[
"Endemic fauna of the Baja California Peninsula",
"Endemic mammals of Mexico",
"Mammals described in 1897",
"Oryzomys",
"Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas"
] |
Oryzomys peninsulae, also known as the Lower California rice rat, is a species of rodent from western Mexico. Restricted to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, it is a member of the genus Oryzomys of family Cricetidae. Only about twenty individuals, collected around 1900, are known, and subsequent destruction of its riverine habitat may have driven the species to extinction.
Medium in size for its genus, it was first described as a separate species, but later lumped into other, widespread species until it was reinstated as separate in 2009. It is distinctive in fur color—grayish brown on the forequarters and reddish brown on the hindquarters—and in some dimensions of its skull, with a high braincase, robust zygomatic arches (cheekbones), and long incisive foramina (perforations of the palate between the incisors and the molars).
## Taxonomy
Oryzomys peninsulae was first collected in 1896 and Oldfield Thomas described it in 1897 as a full species of Oryzomys. It was retained as a distinct species related to O. couesi and O. palustris until 1971, when Philip Hershkovitz swept it, and other outlying populations of the same species group, as subspecies under an expanded concept of O. palustris. Raymond Hall concurred in the second edition (1981) of Mammals of North America, arguing that O. peninsulae differed less from mainland Oryzomys populations (currently classified as O. couesi mexicanus) than some other forms he included in O. palustris differed from each other. After studies of the contact zone between North American O. palustris and Central American O. couesi in southern Texas and northeastern Tamaulipas (by Benson and Gehlbach in 1979 and Schmidt and Engstrom in 1994) made clear that the two are distinct from each other, O. peninsulae remained as a subspecies of O. couesi. In 2009, Michael Carleton and Joaquín Arroyo-Cabrales reviewed the classification of western Mexican Oryzomys and used morphological and morphometrical data to characterize four distinct Oryzomys species in the region. O. peninsulae and another isolated population, O. nelsoni from the Islas Marías, were both retained as separate species, as was O. albiventer from montane mainland Mexico. They kept the population in the coastal lowlands as a subspecies, O. couesi mexicanus, of Oryzomys couesi.
The genus Oryzomys currently includes about eight species distributed from the eastern United States (O. palustris) into northwestern South America (O. gorgasi). O. peninsulae is part of the O. couesi section, which is centered on the widespread Central American O. couesi and also includes various other species with more limited and peripheral distributions. Many aspects of the systematics of this section remain unclear and it is likely that the current classification underestimates the group's true diversity. Oryzomys was previously a much larger genus, but most species were progressively removed in various studies, culminating in contributions by Marcelo Weksler and coworkers in 2006 that excluded more than forty species from the genus. Oryzomys and many of the species removed from it are classified in the tribe Oryzomyini ("rice rats"), a diverse assemblage of American rodents of over a hundred species, and on higher taxonomic levels in the subfamily Sigmodontinae of family Cricetidae, along with hundreds of other species of mainly small rodents.
## Description
Oryzomys peninsulae is a medium-sized member of the genus, smaller than O. albiventer but larger than O. couesi mexicanus. Its fur is grayish-brown on the forequarters, but reddish-brown on the hindquarters; this coloration pattern is unique among western Mexican Oryzomys. The underparts are a dirty white, the feet white above, and the tail dark or brownish above and dirty white below.
In the skull, the braincase is high, the zygomatic arches (cheekbones) are broad and squared, and the incisive foramina, which perforate the palate between the incisors and the molars, are long and broad. The upper incisors are orthodont, with their cutting edge nearly vertical. Morphometrically, the skull of O. peninsulae is sharply distinct from other western Mexican Oryzomys.
In fourteen specimens measured by Carleton and Arroyo-Cabrales, total length was 227 to 305 mm (8.9 to 12.0 in), averaging 265.6 mm (10.46 in); head and body length was 113 to 152 mm (4.4 to 6.0 in), averaging 128.9 mm (5.07 in); tail length was 114 to 156 mm (4.5 to 6.1 in), averaging 136.8 mm (5.39 in); hindfoot length was 29 to 34 mm (1.1 to 1.3 in), averaging 32.0 mm (1.26 in); and occipitonasal length (a measure of total skull length) was 27.8 to 34.3 mm (1.09 to 1.35 in), averaging 31.5 mm (1.24 in).
## Distribution, ecology, and status
Twenty-one specimens of O. peninsulae are known: six were caught at Santa Anita in 1896 by D. Coolidge, and Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman obtained fifteen additional individuals in 1906 at San José del Cabo. The two localities, which are about 13 km (8.1 mi) apart, were both located along the Río San José, a river in southernmost Baja California Sur, near the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Like other Oryzomys species, O. peninsulae is semiaquatic, spending much of its time in the water, but suitable habitat for such a species is estimated to be no more than 13 km<sup>2</sup> (5.0 sq mi) on the arid Baja California peninsula.
Río San José no longer exists, having fallen prey to irrigation projects, and touristic development of its estuary has resulted in pollution. Biologists working in the area in 1979 and from 1991 to 1993 failed to find O. peninsulae, casting doubt on its continued existence. The lack of records for over a century, small distribution, and destruction of the only known habitat led Carleton and Arroyo-Cabrales to consider the conservation status of O. peninsulae as "critically endangered, if not extinct". They noted that the status of the species had previously been obscured because it had been lumped for decades with O. couesi, a widely distributed and secure species.
## Origin
It is uncertain how Oryzomys peninsulae arrived at its recent locale in Baja California Sur. In 1922, Nelson suggested that it may have been introduced from another part of Mexico in a shipment of farm products, but this hypothesis is disproved by the clear differentiation from other western Mexican Oryzomys that the species exhibits.
The species's range may be relictual in nature: while Oryzomys is currently found along the eastern coast of the Gulf of California only as far north as coastal southern Sonora, the past distribution of the genus may have extended further northward, perhaps even into the southwestern United States, and from there south into Baja California. Subsequent disappearance of Oryzomys from the northern regions would have led to its observed disjunct distribution, with O. peninsulae isolated on the peninsula. This possibility is supported by the relatively close resemblance between O. peninsulae and O. couesi mexicanus, from coastal western Mexico.
Alternatively, the ancestor of Oryzomys peninsulae may have arrived by rafting during the late Miocene, about six million years ago, when the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula was an island located near what is now Nayarit and Jalisco in western Mexico. Some plants and birds from the area may have a similar biogeographic heritage.
|
26,194,797 |
John Manners (cricketer)
| 1,169,673,564 |
English cricketer and naval officer (1914–2020)
|
[
"1914 births",
"2020 deaths",
"20th-century English male writers",
"20th-century English non-fiction writers",
"Combined Services cricketers",
"Cricketers from Exeter",
"English centenarians",
"English cricketers",
"English male non-fiction writers",
"English people of Australian descent",
"Free Foresters cricketers",
"Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College",
"Hampshire cricketers",
"Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers",
"Men centenarians",
"Photographers from Wiltshire",
"Recipients of Russian military awards and decorations",
"Recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)",
"Royal Navy officers of World War II"
] |
John Errol Manners DSC (25 September 1914 – 7 March 2020) was an English first-class cricketer and Royal Navy officer. The son of Admiral Sir Errol Manners, his naval career spanned from 1932 to 1958. He served in the Second World War and held several commands, earning the Distinguished Service Cross for his role in the sinking of the German submarine U-1274 in April 1945 while commanding the destroyer HMS Viceroy.
As a first-class cricketer, Manners was a hard-hitting right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler. He began his playing career with Hampshire in 1936, but found his availability limited due to his commitments as a naval officer. With his career further interrupted by the war, Manners returned to first-class cricket in 1947 after securing a shore-based position at Sandhurst. He played county cricket for Hampshire in 1947 and 1948, but played most of his first-class cricket after the war for the Combined Services cricket team. He scored over 1,000 runs in his first-class career, which included four centuries.
Following his retirement from the navy, Manners worked for 18 years as the bursar at Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire. He was also a photographer who contributed to Country Life, and he had an interest in traditional country crafts, on which he wrote several books. In September 2018 he became the longest-lived first-class cricketer, surpassing the previous record of 103 years and 344 days held by Jim Hutchinson.
## Early life
The son of the admiral and theologian Sir Errol Manners (1883–1953) and his Australian wife, Florence Maud Harrison (1883–1926), John Errol Manners was born in Exeter on 25 September 1914. He was the middle of three brothers: Errol Rodney Manners (1910–1988) and Errol Adrian 'Sherard' Manners (1920–1990); there was also a sister, Angela (born 1918). He was descended from John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland. He was educated at Ferndown School, before attending Britannia Royal Naval College as a cadet from the age of 13, following in a family tradition of studying in Dartmouth, Devon. His time as a cadet saw him visit the West Indies and appear for the college in the schools' match at Lord's in 1930. A year prior to attending Britannia, his mother died. Manners would later remark that she had been ill for most of his childhood and that he had few memories of her.
## Early naval and cricket career
Manners was appointed as a midshipman in the Royal Navy in September 1932, before being made an acting-sub-lieutenant in January 1935. In September of the same year, he was promoted to the rank in full. He played cricket for the United Services in 1935, against a strong Hampshire Club & Ground side, scoring 20 runs and taking four wickets. Manners served aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert at Portsmouth in 1936, though with King Edward unwilling to travel to Cowes, this left Manners with more shore time. He played for the Royal Navy as captain against the British Army cricket team in a two-day match at Lord's in July of that year, where he scored 23 and 47, impressing Christopher Heseltine, then president of Hampshire County Cricket Club, who recommended to Manners that he play for the county. He was allowed by the navy to play county cricket for Hampshire in August, making his debut in first-class cricket against Gloucestershire at the United Services Ground in the County Championship, scoring 81 runs in his first innings before he was dismissed by Reg Sinfield and thus falling short of becoming the first Hampshire batsman to make a century on their first-class debut. In the fortnight following this match, he made four further first-class appearances, scoring 212 runs at an average of 35.33. He headed Hampshire's batting averages in 1936 and impressed future Test Match Special commentator John Arlott, with Arlott commenting, "no player in Hampshire’s modern history was more intriguing", and went on to remark "not only was he potentially prolific, but his strokeplay was brilliant". Others suggested he had the technique for Test cricket.
As an amateur his cricket after 1936 was heavily curtailed by his commitments with the navy. His status as an amateur afforded Manners the freedom to largely choose he wanted to play for, enjoying a distinguished public life and lashings of top-class cricket, enabling him to play exhibition matches at venues such as Stansted Park, often followed by black-tie dinners with leading cricketers of the day. In December 1937, he was promoted to lieutenant, with seniority antedated to July of that year. From 1937, he served aboard torpedo boats in the Mediterranean and the Far East. Manners was admitted to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1937, after the club waived their usual membership qualification rules to admit him after recognising it was hard for to play county cricket whilst serving overseas in Madras. Prior to the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, Manners had been saving his leave in order to have a full summer playing for Hampshire in 1940, but the subsequent declaration would mean it would be more than ten years before he played first-class cricket again, having last played in 1936.
## Second World War service
Prior to war being declared, Manners was serving as a watch-keeping officer aboard HMS Birmingham at China Station in Hong Kong. With war looking likely Birmingham sailed for Singapore, where she patrolled the Sunda Strait When war was declared, Birmingham left for Japan, but did not enter its territorial waters. Manners was recalled to Britain in December 1939 aboard HMS Falmouth and the troopship SS Strathallan.
Returning to Southampton in early January 1940, Manners spent a month on leave at the family home at Alverstoke, before being assigned to the destroyer HMS Eglinton which was under construction at the Walker Yard on the Tyne in Newcastle. Manners was not one of the officers based at Newcastle to be sent to assist with the Dunkirk evacuation and spent the summer escorting convoys down the east coast following the Eglinton's commissioning. While at Newcastle, he met Mary Downes (1917–1995), an actress with the Newcastle Repertory Company. The couple married in October 1940 at Marylebone and narrowly avoided being killed on their wedding night when a German bomb hit the Hyde Park Hotel when they were in its restaurant, but failed to detonate. In the same month, Eglinton was chosen to take part in Operation Lucid, a plan to use fire ships to attack German invasion barges in ports in German-occupied northern France, however while escorting an oil tanker to Boulogne the command ship HMS Hambledon struck an acoustic mine, resulting in the cancellation of the operation.
Six months later, with Eglinton based at Harwich, Manners and his wife again avoided death under similar circumstances, when their rented house was hit by a bomb while they were in the bathroom; although they were unscathed, four other occupants of the house were killed. Manners served as a lieutenant aboard Eglinton until February 1942, after which he held a brief command aboard HMS Fame which was being repaired at Chatham. After a few weeks commanding Fame, Manners was sent to HMS Eskimo at Falmouth, after her first lieutenant, Edward Peregrine Stuart Russell had fallen overboard and drowned. He served aboard Eskimo in Operation Harpoon during the siege of Malta in June 1942, subsequently seeing action in the relief of Malta, for which he was later mentioned in dispatches. In September 1942, Eskimo formed part of Convoy PQ 18 escorting supply ships in the Arctic on their way to the Soviet Union, before returning to the Mediterranean to take part in the Operation Torch landings. Manners was made commanding officer of Eskimo in May 1943, with the ship taking part in the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, during which she was bombed and severely damaged.
He took command of the destroyer HMS Viceroy in December 1943, while she was being refitted at Jarrow. After a few weeks aboard Viceroy, Manners was seconded to HMS Watchman at Derry, after her captain had fallen ill and an officer with experience was required to replace him. He returned to command Viceroy after six weeks, with the destroyer joining the Rosyth Escort Force on anti-aircraft and anti-E-boat duties escorting convoys in the North Sea which were carrying supplies from the Firth of Forth to London. Viceroy was escorting a convoy on 11 April 1945, when the tanker SS Athelduke which was carrying 12,600 long tons (12,800 t) of molasses was hit by a torpedo from the German submarine U-1274 near the Farne Islands, causing two detonations to rock the ship. The water being too deep for mines made the cause of the explosions a submarine's torpedoes, with him realising the convoy was under attack from a U-boat he turned the ship to port and took off in pursuit, obtaining a contact at 2,200 yards (1.3 mi). Manners commanded an urgent attack with depth charges set to “shallow”, the detonation of which temporarily knocked out the electrics aboard Viceroy. Ten minutes later power was restored and a second attack on the U-boat was made, which brought oil to the surface. Reckoning that the U-boat had been sunk at a depth of 250 metres (820 ft), a third depth-charge set to "deep" caused a prolonged detonation and brought more oil to the surface. He proceeded to deploy a marker buoy and set off to catch up with the remainder of the convoy.
Two weeks passed with no confirmation of the kill. This lead Manners, aboard Viceroy, and another officer, aboard HMS Vivien to return to the scene of the sinking. Once there, the kill was confirmed by further exploratory charges which were dropped and bought to the surface wreckage, documents, and a grey cylinder containing 72 bottles of brandy made in Heilbronn. One of the recovered bottles was sent by a Captain Ruck-Keene to Winston Churchill in a wooden casket made by Viceroy's carpenter, for which Churchill conveyed his thanks and congratulations in a letter to those who had taken part in the successful attack; U-1274 was to be the last German U-boat to be sunk by a surface ship during the war. His actions in the sinking saw him mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for gallantry, determination and skill. His younger brother, Sherard, also served in the Royal Navy during the war and was awarded the DSC on the same page of the London Gazette for actions undertaken aboard HMS Bedouin whilst escorting a convoy to Malta. As the war neared its conclusion, Manners took part in Operation Conan, the Royal Navy's contribution to the liberation of Norway following the formal German surrender at Oslo in May 1945. He was the British naval officer in charge in Trondheim, where he received the German surrender and entertained Crown Prince Olav aboard Viceroy. Having been an acting lieutenant commander since May 1945, he achieved the war-substantive rank in July 1945.
## Later career and return to cricket
Upon leaving Viceroy in July 1945, Manners was assigned to the troop ship for its voyage to Australia, where he was to be loaned to the Royal Australian Navy. When the ship arrived in Australia, which was the birthplace of his mother, it docked at Melbourne and shortly thereafter Manners sailed for Sydney, with him describing his stay there as one of the dullest periods of his life. With no prospect of being assigned aboard a ship, he flew back to Melbourne aboard a Royal Air Force Dakota, where his uncle found him work at a sheep station in the Western District of Victoria. After a fortnight at the sheep station, Manners received a phonecall and was assigned to HMS King George V in October 1945. The ship spent the majority of the next two months in dry dock at Sydney, during which Manners entertained himself by playing in cricket matches involving Sydney's leading public schools, including Cranbrook School whose headmaster was the Oxford Blue Brian Hone. He remained aboard King George V until May 1946.
Returning to England, he was appointed the naval liaison officer at Sandhurst, which allowed him to resume playing for Hampshire. He played his first first-class match since 1936 when he played for the Combined Services cricket team against Gloucestershire at Bristol in 1947. His first match back for Hampshire saw him score his maiden first-class century with 121 at almost a run a ball against Kent at Canterbury. Wisden described the innings as “perfect stroke play, drives, cuts and hooks”. He played three further first-class matches for Hampshire in the 1948 County Championship, in addition to playing for the Combined Services against Hampshire and Gloucestershire in that same year. Against Gloucestershire, he recorded what would be his highest first-class score of 147. His commitments as an officer still limited his availability for Hampshire, with Manners not playing for the county after 1948. He did continue to play first-class matches for the Combined Services until 1953, making twelve appearances. He made 123 against the touring New Zealanders at Gillingham in 1949, and scored 75 against the touring South Africans in 1950. Manners also appeared for the MCC and the Free Foresters in a first-class match apiece in 1953.
He returned to sea in 1953, ending his first-class playing days, before retiring from the navy with the rank of lieutenant commander in April 1958 to become the bursar at Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire. His time at Dauntsey's was not without controversy, when in 1964 he was temporarily suspended after pupils organised a strike to protest the food they were being served. However, he was reinstated after a week following a letter of support, signed by all but one of the teaching staff. He retired after eighteen years at Dauntsey's. In Wiltshire, he played club cricket for Wiltshire Queries Cricket Club, whom he would play for into his sixties. His club cap, and one presented to him by Wiltshire County Cricket Club, are held in the MCC collection.
Manners was also a photographer who contributed to Country Life. He had an interest in crafts, and was the author of the books Country Crafts Today (1974), Country Crafts in Pictures (1976), Crafts of the Highlands and Islands (1978), and Irish Crafts and Craftsmen (1982). His collection of rural photographs and his research files are held at the Museum of English Rural Life at the University of Reading. Manners also donated his wartime photography collection to the National Maritime Museum.
## Later life and death
His wife, with whom he had a son and two daughters, died in April 1995. His memoirs dating from 1938 to 1946 were published in 2010, whilst some of his private papers are archived at the Imperial War Museum. Manners was invited to the Russian Embassy in London in 2014, where he was decorated with the Medal of Ushakov for his service in the Arctic convoys. In September 2017, at the age of 103, Manners took part in the ITV documentary 100 Year Old Driving School, but gave up driving after his appearance. The documentary also featured the England women's cricketer Eileen Whelan, at the time the oldest living women's Test cricketer. Shortly after this he suffered a fall and injured his shoulder, which stopped him from visiting his daughter, Diana, who had emigrated to Australia and whom Manners would visit each Christmas. In September 2018, he became the longest-lived first-class cricketer, surpassing Jim Hutchinson's (1896–2000) record of 103 years and 344 days. Paying tribute, Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove said: "Everyone involved in Hampshire Cricket, past and present, salutes John Manners for his terrific innings and hopes that he holds the record as the oldest living first-class cricketer for a very long time."
In November 2019, Manners was presented with a commemorative medal by the Norwegian Defence Attaché John Andreas Olsen for his role as British naval officer in charge of Trondheim during the German surrender in 1945. Manners died on 7 March 2020 at the age of 105 at a nursing home in Newbury, Berkshire. He was survived by three children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. His funeral service was held eleven days after his death at St Lawrence's Parish Church in Hungerford.
## See also
- List of centenarians (sportspeople)
- Lists of oldest cricketers
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Hoysala architecture
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Medieval Hindu temple style
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"Architecture of Karnataka",
"Hindu temple architecture",
"Hoysala Empire",
"Indian architectural history",
"Indian architectural styles"
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Hoysala architecture is the building style in Hindu temple architecture developed under the rule of the Hoysala Empire between the 11th and 14th centuries, in the region known today as Karnataka, a state of India. Hoysala influence was at its peak in the 13th century, when it dominated the Southern Deccan Plateau region. Large and small temples built during this era remain as examples of the Hoysala architectural style, including the Chennakesava Temple at Belur, the Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebidu, and the Kesava Temple at Somanathapura. Other examples of Hoysala craftsmanship are the temples at Belavadi, Amruthapura, Hosaholalu, Mosale, Arasikere, Basaralu, Kikkeri and Nuggehalli. Study of the Hoysala architectural style has revealed a negligible Indo-Aryan influence while the impact of Southern Indian style is more distinct.
Temples built prior to Hoysala independence in the mid-12th century reflect significant Western Chalukya influences, while later temples retain some features salient to Western Chalukya architecture but have additional inventive decoration and ornamentation, features unique to Hoysala artisans. Some three hundred temples are known to survive in present-day Karnataka state and many more are mentioned in inscriptions, though only about seventy have been documented. The greatest concentration of these are in the Malnad (hill) districts, the native home of the Hoysala kings.
Hoysala architecture is classified by the influential scholar Adam Hardy as part of the Karnata Dravida tradition, a trend within Dravidian architecture in the Deccan that is distinct from the Tamil style of further south. Other terms for the tradition are Vesara, and Chalukya architecture, divided into early Badami Chalukya architecture and the Western Chalukya architecture which immediately preceded the Hoysalas. The whole tradition covers a period of about seven centuries began in the 7th century under the patronage of the Chalukya dynasty of Badami, developed further under the Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta during the 9th and 10th centuries and the Western Chalukyas (or Later Chalukyas) of Basavakalyan in the 11th and 12th centuries. Its final development stage and transformation into an independent style was during the rule of the Hoysalas in the 12th and 13th centuries. Medieval inscriptions displayed prominently at temple locations give information about donations made toward the maintenance of the temple, details of consecration and on occasion, even architectural details.
## Temple deities
Hinduism is a combination of secular and sacred beliefs, rituals, daily practices and traditions that has evolved over the course of over two thousand years and embodies complex symbolism combining the natural world with philosophy.
Hindu temples began as simple shrines housing a deity and by the time of the Hoysalas had evolved into well-articulated edifices in which worshippers sought transcendence of the daily world. Hoysala temples were not limited to any specifically organised tradition of Hinduism and encouraged pilgrims of different Hindu devotional movements. The Hoysalas usually dedicated their temples to Shiva or to Vishnu (two of the popular Hindu gods), but they occasionally built some temples dedicated to the Jain faith as well. Worshippers of Shiva are called Shaivas and worshippers of Vishnu are called Vaishnavas. While King Vishnuvardhana and his descendants were Vaishnava by faith, records show that the Hoysalas maintained religious harmony by building as many temples dedicated to Shiva as they did to Vishnu.
Most of these temples have secular features with broad themes depicted in their sculptures. This can be seen in the famous Chennakesava Temple at Belur dedicated to Vishnu and in the Hoysaleswara temple at Halebidu dedicated to Shiva. The Kesava temple at Somanathapura is different in that its ornamentation is strictly Vaishnava. Generally Vaishnava temples are dedicated to Keshava (or to Chennakeshava, meaning "Beautiful Vishnu") while a small number are dedicated to Lakshminarayana and Lakshminarasimha (Narayana and Narasimha both being Avatars, or physical manifestations, of Vishnu) with Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu, seated at his feet. Temples dedicated to Vishnu are always named after the deity.
The Shaiva temples have a Shiva linga, symbol of fertility and the universal symbol of Shiva, in the shrine. The names of Shiva temples can end with the suffix eshwara meaning "Lord of". The name "Hoysaleswara", for instance, means "Lord of Hoysala". The temple can also be named after the devotee who commissioned the construction of the temple, an example being the Bucesvara temple at Koravangala, named after the devotee Buci. The most striking sculptural decorations are the horizontal rows of mouldings with detailed relief, and intricately carved images of gods, goddesses and their attendants on the outer temple wall panels.
The Doddagaddavalli Lakshmi Devi ("Goddess of Wealth") Temple is an exception as it is dedicated to neither Vishnu nor Shiva. The defeat of the Jain Western Ganga Dynasty (of present-day south Karnataka) by the Cholas in the early 11th century and the rising numbers of followers of Vaishnava Hinduism and Virashaivism in the 12th century was mirrored by a decreased interest in Jainism. However, two notable locations of Jain worship in the Hoysala territory were Shravanabelagola and Kambadahalli. The Hoysalas built Jain temples to satisfy the needs of its Jain population, a few of which have survived in Halebidu containing icons of Jain tirthankaras. They constructed stepped wells called Pushkarni or Kalyani, the ornate tank at Hulikere being an example. The tank has twelve minor shrines containing Hindu deities.
The two main deities found in Hoysala temple sculpture are Shiva and Vishnu in their various forms and avatars (incarnations). Shiva is usually shown with four arms holding a trident and a small drum among other emblems that symbolise objects worshiped independently of the divine image with which they are associated. Any male icon portrayed in this way is Shiva although a female icon may sometimes be portrayed with these attributes as Shiva's consort, Parvati. Various depictions of Lord Shiva exist: showing him naked (fully or partially), in activities such as slaying a demon (Andhaka) or dancing on the head of a slain elephant (Gajasura) and holding its skin up behind his back. He is often accompanied by his consort Parvati or shown with Nandi the bull. He may be represented as Bhairava, another of Shiva's many manifestations.
A male figure depicted holding certain objects such as a conch (symbol of eternal, heavenly space) and a wheel (eternal time and destructive power) is Vishnu. If a female figure is depicted holding these objects, she is seen as his consort, Lakshmi. In all the depictions Vishnu is holding four objects: a conch, a wheel, a lotus and a Kaumodaki (mace). These can be held in any of the icon's hands, making possible twenty-four different forms of Vishnu, each with a unique name. Apart from these, Vishnu is depicted in any of his ten avataras, which include Vishnu sitting on Anantha (the celestial snake and keeper of life energy also known as Shesha), Vishnu with Lakshmi seated on his lap (Lakshminarayana), with the head of a lion disembowelling a demon on his lap (Lakshminarasimha), with head of a boar walking over a demon (Varaha), in the Krishna avatar (as Venugopala or the cow herder playing the Venu (flute), dancing on the head of the snake Kaliya, lifting a hill such as Govardhana), with his feet over head of a small figure (Vamana), along with Indra riding an elephant, with Lakshmi seated on Garuda, and the eagle (stealing the parijata tree).
## Temple complex
The focus of a temple is the centre or sanctum sanctorum (garbhagriha) where the image of the deity resides, so temple architecture is designed to move the devotee from outside to the garbhagriha through ambulatory passageways for circumambulation and halls or chambers (mantapas) that become increasingly sacred as the deity is approached. Hoysala temples have distinct parts that are merged to form a unified organic whole, in contrast to the temples of Tamil country where different parts of a temple stand independently. Although superficially unique, Hoysala temples resemble each other structurally. They are characterised by a complex profusion of sculpture decorating all the temple parts chiselled of soft soapstone (chloritic schist), a good material for intricate carving, executed mostly by local craftsmen, and exhibit architectural features that distinguish them from other temple architectures of South India.
Most Hoysala temples have a plain covered entrance porch supported by lathe turned (circular or bell-shaped) pillars which were sometimes further carved with deep fluting and moulded with decorative motifs. The temples may be built upon a platform raised by about a metre called a "jagati". The jagati, apart from giving a raised look to the temple, serves as a pradakshinapatha or "circumambulation path" for circumambulation around the temple, as the garbagriha (inner sanctum) provides no such feature. Such temples will have an additional set of steps leading to an open mantapa (open hall) with parapet walls. A good example of this style is the Kesava Temple at Somanathapura. The jagati which is in unity with the rest of the temple follows a star-shaped design and the walls of the temple follow a zig-zag pattern, a Hoysala innovation.
Devotees can first complete a ritual circumambulation on the jagati starting from the main entrance by walking in a clockwise direction (towards the left) before entering the mantapa, following the sculptural clockwise-sequenced reliefs on the outer temple walls depicting a sequence of epic scenes from the Hindu epics. Temples that are not built on a jagati can have steps flanked by elephant balustrades (parapets) that lead to the mantapa from ground level. An example of a temple that does not exhibit the raised platform is the Bucesvara temple in Korvangla, Hassan District. In temples with two shrines (dvikuta), the vimanas (the shrines or cellae) may be placed either next to each other or on opposite sides. The Lakshmidevi temple at Doddagaddavalli is unique to Hoysala architecture as it has four shrines around a common centre and a fifth shrine within the same complex for the deity Bhairava (a form of Shiva). In addition, four minor shrines exist at each corner of the courtyard (prakaram).
## Architectural elements
### Mantapa
The mantapa is the hall where groups of people gather during prayers. The entrance to the mantapa normally has a highly ornate overhead lintel called a makaratorana (makara is an imaginary beast and torana is an overhead decoration). The open mantapa which serves the purpose of an outer hall (outer mantapa) is a regular feature in larger Hoysala temples leading to an inner small closed mantapa and the shrines. The open mantapas which are often spacious have seating areas (asana) made of stone with the mantapa's parapet wall acting as a back rest. The seats may follow the same staggered square shape of the parapet wall. The ceiling here is supported by numerous pillars that create many bays. The shape of the open mantapa is best described as staggered-square and is the style used in most Hoysala temples. Even the smallest open mantapa has 13 bays. The walls have parapets that have half pillars supporting the outer ends of the roof which allow plenty of light making all the sculptural details visible. The mantapa ceiling is generally ornate with sculptures, both mythological and floral. The ceiling consists of deep and domical surfaces and contains sculptural depictions of banana bud motifs and other such decorations.
If the temple is small it will consist of only a closed mantapa (enclosed with walls extending all the way to the ceiling) and the shrine. The closed mantapa, well decorated inside and out, is larger than the vestibule connecting the shrine and the mantapa and has four lathe-turned pillars to support the ceiling, which may be deeply domed. The four pillars divide the hall into nine bays. The nine bays result in nine decorated ceilings. Pierced stone screens (Jali or Latticework) that serve as windows in the navaranga (hall) and Sabhamantapa (congregation hall) is a characteristic Hoysala stylistic element.
A porch adorns the entrance to a closed mantapa, consisting of an awning supported by two half-pillars (engaged columns) and two parapets, all richly decorated. The closed mantapa is connected to the shrines by a vestibule, a square area that also connects the shrines. Its outer walls are decorated, but as the size the vestibule is not large, this may not be a conspicuous part of the temple. The vestibule also has a short tower called the sukanasi or "nose" upon which is mounted the Hoysala emblem. In Belur and Halebidu, these sculptures are quite large and are placed at all doorways.
The outer and inner mantapa (open and closed) have circular lathe-turned pillars having four brackets at the top. Over each bracket stands sculptured figures called salabhanjika or madanika. The pillars may also exhibit ornamental carvings on the surface and no two pillars are alike. This is how Hoysala art differs from the work of their early overlords, the Western Chalukyas, who added sculptural details to the circular pillar base and left the top plain. The lathe-turned pillars are 16, 32, or 64-pointed; some are bell-shaped and have properties that reflect light. The Parsvanatha Basadi at Halebidu is a good example. According to Brown, the pillars with four monolithic brackets above them carry images of salabhanjikas and madanikas (sculpture of a woman, displaying stylised feminine features). This is a common feature of Chalukya-Hoysala temples. According to Sastri, the shape of the pillar and its capital, the base of which is square and whose shaft is a monolith that is lathe turned to render different shapes, is a "remarkable feature" of Hoysala art.
### Vimana
The vimana, also called the cella, contains the most sacred shrine wherein resides the image of the presiding deity. The vimana is often topped by a tower which is quite different on the outside than on the inside. Inside, the vimana is plain and square, whereas outside it is profusely decorated and can be either stellate ("star-shaped") or shaped as a staggered square, or feature a combination of these designs, giving it many projections and recesses that seem to multiply as the light falls on it. Each projection and recess has a complete decorative articulation that is rhythmic and repetitive and composed of blocks and mouldings, obscuring the tower profile. Depending on the number of shrines (and hence on the number of towers), the temples are classified as ekakuta (one), dvikuta (two), trikuta (three), chatushkuta (four) and panchakuta (five). Most Hoysala temples are ekakuta, dvikuta or trikuta, the Vaishnava ones mostly being trikuta. There are cases where a temple is trikuta but has only one tower over the main shrine (in the middle). So the terminology trikuta may not be literally accurate. In temples with multiple disconnected shrines, such as the twin temples at Mosale, all essential parts are duplicated for symmetry and balance.
The highest point of the temple (kalasa) has the shape of a water pot and stands on top of the tower. This portion of the vimana is often lost due to age and has been replaced with a metallic pinnacle. Below the kalasa is a large, highly- sculptured structure resembling a dome which is made from large stones and looks like a helmet. It may be 2 m by 2 m in size and follows the shape of the shrine. Below this structure are domed roofs in a square plan, all of them much smaller and crowned with small kalasas. They are mixed with other small roofs of different shapes and are ornately decorated. The tower of the shrine usually has three or four tiers of rows of decorative roofs while the tower on top of the sukanasi has one less tier, making the tower look like an extension of the main tower (Foekema calls it the "nose"). One decorated roof tier runs on top of the wall of a closed mantapa above the heavy eaves of an open mantapa and above the porches.
Below the superstructure of the vimana are temple "eaves" projecting half a meter from the wall. Below the eaves two different decorative schemes may be found, depending on whether a temple was built in the early or the later period of the empire. In the early temples built prior to the 13th century, there is one eave and below this are decorative miniature towers. A panel of Hindu deities and their attendants are below these towers, followed by a set of five different mouldings forming the base of the wall. In the later temples there is a second eave running about a metre below the upper eaves with decorative miniature towers placed between them. The wall images of gods are below the lower eaves, followed by six different mouldings of equal size. This is broadly termed "horizontal treatment". The six mouldings at the base are divided in two sections. Going from the very base of the wall, the first horizontal layer contains a procession of elephants, above which are horsemen and then a band of foliage. The second horizontal section has depictions of the Hindu epics and Puranic scenes executed with detail. Above this are two friezes of yalis or makaras (imaginary beasts) and hamsas (swans). The vimana (tower) is divided into three horizontal sections and is even more ornate than the walls.
### Sculpture
In Hoysala art Hardy identifies two conspicuous departures from the more austere Western (Later) Chalukya art:ornamental elaboration and a profusion of iconography with figure sculptures, both of which are found in abundance even on the superstructure over the shrine. Their medium, the soft chlorite schist (Soapstone) enabled a virtuoso carving style. Hoysala artists are noted for their attention to sculptural detail be it in the depiction of themes from the Hindu epics and deities or in their use of motifs such as yali, kirtimukha (gargoyles), aedicula (miniature decorative towers) on pilaster, makara (aquatic monster), birds (hamsa), spiral foliage, animals such as lions, elephants and horses, and even general aspects of daily life such as hair styles in vogue.
Salabhanjika, a common form of Hoysala sculpture, is an old Indian tradition going back to Buddhist sculpture. Sala is the sala tree and bhanjika is the chaste maiden. In the Hoysala idiom, madanika figures are decorative objects put at an angle on the outer walls of the temple near the roof so that worshipers circumambulating the temple can view them.
The sthamba buttalikas are pillar images that show traces of Chola art in the Chalukyan touches. Some of the artists working for the Hoysalas may have been from Chola country, a result of the expansion of the empire into Tamil-speaking regions of Southern India. The image of mohini on one of the pillars in the mantapa (closed hall) of the Chennakeshava temple is an example of Chola art.
General life themes are portrayed on wall panels such as the way horses were reined, the type of stirrup used, the depiction of dancers, musicians, instrumentalists, and rows of animals such as lions and elephants (where no two animals are identical). Perhaps no other temple in the country depicts the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics more effectively than the Hoysaleshwara temple at Halebidu.
Erotica was a subject the Hoysala artist handled with discretion. There is no exhibitionism in this, and erotic themes were carved into recesses and niches, generally miniature in form, making them inconspicuous. These erotic representations are associated with the Shakta practice.
Apart from these sculptures, entire sequences from the Hindu epics (commonly the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) have been sculpted in a clockwise direction starting at the main entrance. The right to left sequence is the same direction taken by the devotees in their ritual circumambulation as they wind inward toward the inner sanctum. Depictions from mythology such as the epic hero Arjuna shooting fish, the elephant-headed god Ganesha, the Sun god Surya, the weather and war god Indra, and Brahma with Sarasvati are common. Also frequently seen in these temples is Durga, with several arms holding weapons given to her by other gods, in the act of killing a buffalo (a demon in a buffalo's form) and Harihara (a fusion of Shiva and Vishnu) holding a conch, wheel, and trident. Many of these friezes were signed by the artisans, the first known instance of signed artwork in India.
## Research
According to Settar, surveys in modern times have indicated that 1000–1500 structures were built by the Hoysalas, of which about a hundred temples have survived to date. The Hoysala style is an offshoot of the Western Chalukya style, which was popular in the 10th and 11th centuries. It is distinctively Dravidian, and according to Brown, owing to its features, Hoysala architecture qualifies as an independent style. While the Hoysalas introduced innovative features into their architecture, they also borrowed features from earlier builders of Karnata like the Kadambas, Western Chalukyas. These features included the use of chloritic schist or soapstone as a basic building material.
Other features were the stepped style of vimana tower called the Kadamba shikhara, which was inherited from the Kadambas. Hoysala sculptors made use of the effect of light and shade on carved walls, which poses a challenge for photography of the temples. The artistry of the Hoysalas in stone has been compared to the finesse of an ivory worker or a goldsmith. The abundance of jewellery worn by the sculpted figures and the variety of hairstyles and headdresses depicted give a fair idea of the lifestyles of the Hoysala times.
## Notable craftsmen
While medieval Indian artisans preferred to remain anonymous, Hoysala artisans signed their works, which has given researchers details about their lives, families, guilds, etc. Apart from the architects and sculptors, people of other guilds such as goldsmiths, ivory carvers, carpenters, and silversmiths also contributed to the completion of temples. The artisans were from diverse geographical backgrounds and included famous locals. Prolific architects included Amarashilpi Jakanachari, a native of Kaidala in Tumkur district, who also built temples for the Western Chalukyas. Ruvari Malithamma built the Kesava Temple at Somanathapura and worked on forty other monuments, including the Amruteshwara temple at Amruthapura. Malithamma specialised in ornamentation, and his works span six decades. His sculptures were typically signed in shorthand as Malli or simply Ma.
Dasoja and his son Chavana from Balligavi were the architects of Chennakesava Temple at Belur; Kedaroja was the chief architect of the Hoysaleswara Temple at Halebidu. Their influence is seen in other temples built by the Hoysalas as well. Names of other locals found in inscriptions are Maridamma, Baicoja, Caudaya, Nanjaya and Bama, Malloja, Nadoja, Siddoja, Masanithamma, Chameya and Rameya. Artists from Tamil country included Pallavachari and Cholavachari.
## List of notable temples from the Hoysala era
## See also
- Architecture of India
- Vijayanagara architecture
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62,353,270 |
Portraits of Odaenathus
| 1,164,496,974 |
Artwork identified as King Odaenathus of Palmyra
|
[
"Palmyra",
"Palmyrene Empire"
] |
Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from , has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces. His city was part of the Roman Empire, and he came to dominate the Roman East when in 260 he defeated Shapur I, the Sasanian emperor of Persia, who had invaded the Roman Empire. Odaenathus besieged the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon in 263, and although the city did not fall, the campaign led to a full restoration of Roman provinces taken by Shapur I. In the aftermath of his Persian war, Odaenathus assumed the title King of Kings, which was a challenge to the Persian monarch's claims of authority in the region. Odaenathus ruled the Roman East unopposed with imperial consent. In 267, he was assassinated alongside his eldest son Herodianus while conducting a campaign against Germanic raiders in Bithynia; he was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of the widow queen Zenobia.
Palmyrene portraits were usually abstract, depicting little individuality. Most reported portraits of Odaenathus are undated and have no inscriptions, making identification speculative. Generally, the criteria for determining whether a piece represents the king are its material (imported marble, in contrast to local limestone) and iconography, such as the presence of royal attributes (crowns or diadems). Several limestone head portraits from Palmyra were identified by several twentieth-century scholars as depicting Odaenathus, based on criteria such as the size of the portrait and the presence of a wreath; the latter element was not special in Palmyrene portraits, as priests were also depicted with wreaths. More recent research on the limestone portraits indicates that these pieces were probably funerary objects depicting private citizens.
Two marble heads, both reflecting a high level of individuality, are more likely to be portraits of the king. The first marble sculpture depicts a man in a royal diadem, and the second shows the king in an eastern royal tiara. Two Palmyrene tesserae, depicting a bearded king wearing a diadem and an earring, are also likely to be depictions of Odaenathus, and two mosaic panels have been identified as possibly depicting him: one of them portrays a rider (probably Odaenathus) killing a Chimera, which fits a prophecy in the thirteenth Sibylline Oracle that includes an account contemporary to Odaenathus, prophesying that he will kill Shapur I, who is described as a beast.
## Background
Odaenathus belonged to an important Palmyrene family and was elected as "ras" (lord) of Palmyra by the city's council in the 240s. As a Roman city on the borders with Persia, Palmyra was affected by the constant war between the two empires, which culminated in 260 with the defeat and capture of the Roman emperor Valerian by the Persian Sasanian emperor Shapur I in the Battle of Edessa. Following the defeat of Rome, Odaenathus declared himself king of Palmyra, and attacked Shapur I causing him to retreat from Syria. Odaenathus was made the effective ruler of the Roman East by Gallienus, the son and successor of Valerian, who appointed Odaenathus a Corrector totius orientis (righter of the entire East). In 263 Odaenathus besieged the Persian capital Ctesiphon, and evicted the Persians from the Roman provinces they had conquered. In the same year he assumed the title of King of Kings and declared his son Herodianus co-ruler. The title was traditionally held by Near Eastern Parthian and Sassanian monarchs, and by adopting it Odaenathus indicated that he considered his dynasty (not the Sassanian) the legitimate successor of the Parthians. Odaenathus was assassinated alongside Herodianus in 267 while campaigning against Germanic raiders in Heraclea Pontica, a city in Bithynia; the perpetrator and motives are unclear. Odaenathus' widow, Zenobia, declared herself regent to their son Vaballathus, who succeeded his father.
Clearly attributed busts or statues of Odaenathus have not survived, and the king did not mint coins bearing his image. A few small clay tesserae were found in Palmyra with impressions of the king and his name, but no large-scale portrait has been confirmed through inscriptions (limiting knowledge of Odaenathus' appearance). In general, Palmyrene sculptures are rudimentary portraits; although individuality was not abandoned, most pieces exhibit little difference among figures of a similar age and gender.
## Limestone sculptures
Several large head sculptures have been suggested by scholars to be depictions of the king:
### In Copenhagen and Istanbul
Two head sculptures, one at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen (code NCG 1121) and the other at the İstanbul Archaeology Museums (code D111.6), are nearly identical and appear to have been crafted by the same sculptor. Both portraits are made of limestone; the Copenhagen head is 42 centimetres (17 in) tall and the Istanbul piece is 40 centimetres (16 in) in height. Both heads are worked in the round; the Copenhagen sculpture is more detailed at the back than the Istanbul one, and both depict their subject wearing a wreath. The Copenhagen sculpture has a miniature bust in the middle of the wreath; although the Istanbul sculpture probably had the same feature, it is uncertain due to a deep abrasion. The eyes of the Copenhagen head (in which the eyelashes are depicted with very thin incisions) are hollowed, to hold glass paste or other material; the irises and pupils are engraved in the Istanbul head. Inlaid eyes are rare in Palmyrene sculptures.
The columns of the Great Colonnade at Palmyra had consoles which held statues of notable Palmyrenes. The Danish rabbi and scholar David Jakob Simonsen proposed that the Copenhagen head was part of a console statue of a Palmyrene who was honoured by the city. The archaeologist Frederik Poulsen considered that the wreath on the Copenhagen head is reminiscent of portraits of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, and the long face is similar to portraits of Emperor Maximinus Thrax. The archaeologist Valentin Müller, based on the Copenhagen head's moving posture, forehead, and a characteristic fold between the nose and mouth, proposed that it was sculpted during the time of Emperor Decius (reigned 249–251).
King Odaenathus was the son of Hairan, as attested by many inscriptions. In earlier scholarship, a character designated "Odaenathus I", whose existence was deduced from a sepulchral inscription in Palmyra recording the lineage of the tomb's owner (the supposed Odaenathus I), was considered the father of Hairan and grandfather of King Odaenathus (who was designated Odaenathus II). In a 1976 article, the archaeologist Harald Ingholt proposed a date range of 230–250 for the Copenhagen and Istanbul heads, a decade earlier or later also possible. Ingholt concluded that the heads should be dated to 250, and represented Odaenathus I, without excluding the possibility that they might represent Odaenathus II or his father Hairan. In 1985, the archaeologist Michael Gawlikowski proved that Odaenathus I was identical to King Odaenathus, which is confirmed by an inscription securely attributed to the king, recording his lineage, the same as that mentioned in the earlier known sepulchral inscription. Based on the conclusions of Gawlikowski, the archaeologist Ernest Will assigned the Copenhagen portrait to King Odaenathus.
The archaeologist Klaus Parlasca rejected Ingholt's hypothesis regarding the honorary function of the portraits, and considered the two heads fragments of a funeral kline (sarcophagus lid). The archaeologist Jean-Charles Balty noted the relative incompleteness of the rear of both portraits and the thickness of the necks, indicating that the heads were not intended to be seen in profile. This supports Parlasca's theory that the heads were part of a monumental, frontal kline in the exedra (semicircular recess) of a tomb; an example of such composition is the hypogeum (underground tomb) of the Palmyrene noble Shalamallat, which has a similar sculpture on the lid of a sarcophagus. The historian Udo Hartmann considered Ingholt's arguments unconvincing, and his identification arbitrary. The archaeologist Eugenia Equini Schneider agreed with Simonsen and Ingholt that the heads had an honorary function, but (based on their iconography) dated them to the late second or early third century.
### From the hexagonal tomb
Three head sculptures were excavated in 1994 from a hexagonal tomb in Palmyra's northern necropolis by its head of antiquities, Khaled al-As'ad, and moved to the city's museum. According to Balty, the heads are full replicas, intended to represent the same person; their similarities are not the result of a workshop's standards. They resemble the heads in the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums, chiefly differing in hairstyle.
One of the hexagonal tomb portraits, code B2726/9163, is 45 centimetres (18 in) tall and was identified as a portrait of the king by the archaeologist Michel Fortin. Balty disagreed with Fortin's identification, stating that their discovery in a tomb and their material (limestone) support identification as funerary portraits. Gawlikowski suggested that the heads depicted three men from the same family, and considered that their excavation from a tomb, and their remarkable resemblance to the portraits in Copenhagen and Istanbul, confirm that the latter two were also funerary, and not honorary, objects.
### In Damascus museum
The sculpted head (code C1519) can be compared with dated Palmyrene funerary portraits and contemporary Roman portraiture and suggests a mid-third-century crafting date. It is 33 centimetres (13 in) tall, and the nose and most of the mouth are abraded. The sculpture represents an older man, with deep wrinkles on the forehead. The face is impersonal; the engraved eyes look straight at the viewer but are motionless, distant, and devoid of expression. The head is crowned by a laurel wreath with a cabochon gem in its centre. The sculpture has a minimum of individuality: the modelling of the face lacks articulation, the eyes are expressionless, and the facial hair is rigid and stylized. The portrait is influenced by a standard artistic model. The massive square skull is similar to the model used for Emperor Gallienus' portraits, so Gallienus' model may have been modified to incorporate features typical of Palmyrene portraiture. The piece was tentatively identified as depicting the king by the archaeologist Johannes Kollwitz, but Parlasca considered it a fragment of a funeral kline.
### Benaki Museum
A limestone head sculpture, 30 centimetres (12 in) tall, is at the Benaki Museum in Athens under inventory number 36361. The head was acquired commercially in 1989, and no information about its exact excavation location in Syria is known; it was moved to the museum a decade later. The limestone material and many similarities to the portraits in Copenhagen and Istanbul make Palmyra the most likely place of origin.
The face is severely damaged, and many parts of the wreath and nose are broken. The portrait is characterized by the proportions and elongated construction of the head. Its laurel wreath is incomplete, stopping just behind the ears. A miniature bust whose head is damaged is in the centre of the wreath, above the forehead. The eyes are large, and framed by sharp eyelids. The facial features of the man depicted indicate advanced age, and his expression is reminiscent of portraits depicting Roman emperors, philosophers and priests. The back of the portrait is unfinished and the neck is massive and thick. Due to the resemblance of the Benaki head to the portraits at the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums, the archaeologist Stavros Vlizos proposed that the man belonged to the family of Odaenathus.
### Limestone portraits: conclusion
According to Gawlikowski, the wreaths appearing on the limestone portraits such as those in the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums do not necessarily indicate Roman corona civica honours; much headgear worn by Palmyrene priests had wreaths without Roman connotations. Many funerary portraits used as headstones in Palmyrene tombs depicted the deceased with wreaths whose meaning, in a Palmyrene context, is unclear.
Gawlikowski, agreeing with Parlasca, maintained that most of the oversized limestone heads with thick necks were connected to funeral practices such as sarcophagus lids; this includes the portraits from the hexagonal tomb and the Copenhagen and Istanbul museums. As for Simonsen's suggestion that the Copenhagen portrait belonged to an honorary statue set on a bracket (console) atop a column in the city's streets, Palmyrene honorary statues that stood on the columns consoles were made of bronze, and it is doubtful that the brackets could support the weight of stone statues; such honorary portraits in Palmyra stood on bases on the ground. According to Gawlikowski, there is no reason to believe that the portraits are of the same person, despite their similarities; the limestone portraits were not depictions of the king or his family, and they appear to be funerary in function.
## Marble portraits
Marble was a symbol of political and social prestige, and had to be imported to Palmyra; most of Palmyra's sculptures were made of limestone, and the use of marble is noteworthy.
### Tiara portrait
This portrait was found in 1940 in the vicinity of the Palmyrene agora at the same time that five headless marble statues, depicting two men and three women, were found in a building considered to be the senate (also near the agora); it is uncertain if the tiara portrait was found in the same building. Although the portrait is lost and was never published, photographs of it survive in the archives of l'Institut Français d'Archéologie du Proche-Orient (IFAPO). The face is oval and a long, drooping, curved moustache joins the beard. The lower part of the face is broken, only the first row of beard curls surviving. The nose is also broken; the eyes are wide open and the lower eyelids are a little heavy, giving intensity to the expression. Two vertical folds at the beginning of the nose accentuate the eyes, which are topped with strong eyebrows. The forehead is high, with two horizontal furrows. The headdress, apparently a turban, is damaged at the back and on the right temple. In the middle of the turban's top, a circular hole apparently housed a dowel which held another headdress piece that would have been framed by the turban's elevated rim.
The portrait's craftsmanship is remarkable, according to Balty, and reflects a nobility of expression. Its face was polished with care; the turban has a rippled surface, partly treated with a gradine (toothed chisel) to accentuate the difference between the fabric headdress and the strands of the hair. Balty concluded that the missing part of the headdress which fit into the turban was a royal tiara or mitre, reminiscent of similar crowns worn by many contemporary Eastern monarchs from Commagene, Hatra, Osroene, several Parthian kings, and seen in some portraits of Ardashir I (the first Sasanian king). A Palmyrene lead token in the National Museum of Damascus has a profile of Odaenathus' son and co-King of Kings, Herodianus, who is beardless and wearing a high conical tiara adorned with a crescent. In Balty's view, the Damascus token confirms that the missing part of the tiara portrait's headdress is a royal tiara, and the sculpture depicts Odaenathus, since Herodianus, who died along his father in 267, is depicted beardless on the token. Gawlikowski also considered this identification highly probable if the missing part of the headdress is a tiara.
### Diadem portrait
A 27-centimetre-tall (11 in) marble head portrait, in the Palmyra Museum (Inv. B 459/1662), apparently was part of a life-sized statue. The piece is poorly preserved and fragmentary. The hair begins on the centre top of the head with long sparse strands, which are carved flat and held by a diadem. The beard binds to the hair at the temples and is placed low on the cheeks with a stiff, clean cut. The forehead is furrowed by deep lines beginning at the top of the nose. The man is depicted in traditional Greek style except for his hair, which resembles Iranian Parthian examples rather than the hairstyle seen on Roman portraits. Balty considered it likely that the portrait depicts Odaenathus, noting the similarities to the tiara portrait: the eyes are also wide open, and the gaze has the same intensity. The most noticeable difference is the simpler hairstyle of the diadem portrait; Balty suggested that if the hairstyle difference makes it necessary to ascribe the diadem portrait to a different man than the tiara portrait, Odaenathus' viceroy Septimius Worod is a suitable candidate since the tiara (a symbol of royalty) is missing.
While lacking the tiara, the portrait depicts its subject wearing a diadem, the main item in the regalia of Hellenistic monarchs; it was used to connect rulers to Alexander the Great, a source of legitimacy for Hellenistic kings. The diadem was probably linked in a Greek context to the god Dionysus, who played a part in royal ideology as a victorious leader, and the headdress became a symbol of monarchy in the East. The Hellenistic Seleucid kings of Syria used a white cloth diadem, and their legacy was a source of legitimacy in the East for early Parthian monarchs against Roman claims (leading to the adoption of their symbols by the Parthian court). The diadem depicted in the portrait is Oriental in style, reminiscent of Parthian iconography. Odaenathus' successor and son, Vaballathus, was depicted wearing a diadem on his coins; this indicated his royal rank to his eastern subjects, and Herodianus was also crowned with a diadem and tiara by his father in 263. Gawlikowski considered it likely that the portrait depicts Odaenathus, and that the lack of a tiara (which made Balty hesitant in his identification of the portrait's subject as Odaenathus) is offset by the royal diadem.
## Tesserae portraits
Palmyrene tesserae are small tokens with a variety of designs, which were probably used as invitation tickets to ritual temple banquets. About 1,000 designs were known in 2019; most are terracotta, but a few are lead, iron, or bronze. The major reference for Palmyrene tesserae is the Recueil des Tessères de Palmyre (RTP). Some depict Odaenathus:
### Tessera RTP 4
This tessera is in the National Museum of Damascus. On one side, a man's head is shown; covering all the available surface, he has a heavily built face, a full beard, and thick hair or a headdress (probably the lion-skin dress of Heracles). The other side of the tessera has the profile of a mature bearded man wearing a royal diadem and a triangular earring. Tesserae are made by pressing a gem into clay; such seals, portraying royals without inscription, can be issued only in the name of the person depicted. Gawlikowski proposed that the king is Odaenathus. If Heracles is depicted, this was meant to glorify the monarch's victory over Persia; the tessera could have been a ticket to the coronation of Odaenathus and his son, Herodianus.
### Tessera RTP 5
This tessera, also in the National Museum of Damascus, depicts a king in a tiara on one side; a ball of hair in chignon style is attached to the back of the head. The king's iconography is similar in style to the portrait of Herodianus on the lead token. The authors of the RTP postulated the presence of a beard, and considered it possible that the king is Odaenathus. Gawlikowski disagreed, as the face depicted is youthful and cannot be a representation of the middle aged Odaenathus. Gawlikowski also disputed the presence of a beard. Although the other side of the tessera is severely damaged, traces of a triangular earring similar to that depicted in tessera RTP 4 can be seen. Gawlikowski concluded that Herodianus is depicted with a tiara and Odaenathus, in the same bearded portrait as RTP 4 with the diadem and earring, must have appeared on the worn-out side.
### Tessera RTP 736
With seven known pieces, this series in the National Museum of Damascus depicts two men reclining on a couch in priestly attire on each side. On one side, the name of Odaenathus' eldest son Hairan (I) is inscribed under the couch. Several scholars, including Udo Hartmann, maintain that Hairan I is Herodianus, and the latter is the Greek version of the local name. The historian David S. Potter argued that the Hairan on tessera RTP 736 is Hairan II (a younger son of Odaenathus, whom Potter identified with Herodianus). On the other side of the tessera, the name of Vaballathus is inscribed; on both sides, the name of Odaenathus is inscribed to the left of the men. The tesserae depict the king on both sides, his eldest son on one side and his eventual successor on the other. Since no royal attributes are shown, the tesserae might date to the late 250s.
## Mosaic
In 2003, a 9.6-by-6.3-metre (31 by 21 ft) mosaic floor was discovered in Palmyra; based on the border style, it dates to the second half of the third century. The mosaic floor is a carpet of geometric and symmetrical composition, surrounding a rectangular panel in the centre which is divided into two panels of equal dimensions; Gawlikowski named them La chasse au tigre (The Tiger Hunt) and Le tableau de Bellérophon (The panel of Bellerophon).
### The Tiger Hunt
The panel depicts a galloping rider attacking a rearing tiger, with a smaller tiger (apparently a female) under the horse's hooves. According to Gianluca Serra (a conservation zoologist based in Palmyra at the time of the panel's discovery), both are Caspian tigers, which were once common in the region of Hyrcania in Iran. The composition strongly resembles some Sassanid silver plates, and the rider is wearing Palmyrene military attire.
Above the horse's head is a three-line inscription. The text is Palmyrene cursive and probably the signature of the artist, but the many errors in writing and its incongruous position raise the possibility that it is a secondary addition which attempted to replace an original inscription. The last two letters of the inscription (MR, much larger and more professionally executed than the rest) do not make sense in their current context. Gawlikowski reconstructed them as the word MRN (our lord), a title held in Palmyra by Odaenathus and Herodianus, and interpreted the tiger-hunt scene as a metaphor for Odaenathus' victory over Shapur I; the Hyrcanian tigers may represent the Persians, and the rider may represent Odaenathus.
### The Panel of Bellerophon
Bellerophon is riding Pegasus, piercing the Chimera with his lance. In the Palmyra mosaic, Bellerophon is distinguished from his representation in Europe; instead of being heroically nude, he is dressed in the same manner as the rider in the tiger-hunt scene: pants, tunic, and a kandys. The rider wears a bell-shaped helmet with a floating plume. Two eagles fly at the top of the panel, stretching wreaths on both sides of Bellerophon's head. The costume is known Parthian court attire, recognizable in the paintings of the synagogue of Doura-Europos depicting important figures such as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus. The shape of the helmet has no parallel in contemporary military use, Persian or Roman; it is reminiscent of rare Hellenistic samples from Pergamon, a style adopted in Palmyra for war deities such as Arsu.
The thirteenth Sibylline Oracle, a collection of prophecies probably compiled by Syrian authors to glorify Syrian rulers, includes a prophecy added to the initial text during the reign of Odaenathus: "Then shall come one who was sent by the sun [Odaenathus], a mighty and fearful lion, breathing much flame. Then he with much shameless daring will destroy ... the greatest beast – venomous, fearful and emitting a great deal of hisses [Shapur I]". Gawlikowski proposed that Odaenathus is depicted as Bellerophon, and the Chimera (who fits the description of Shapur I as a great beast in the thirteenth Sibylline Oracle) is a representation of the Persians.
## Painting of Dura-Europos
A wall painting from the temple of Artemis Azzanathkona in Dura-Europos depicts a Roman soldier offering a sacrifice to a deity with a Palmyrene mounted figure to the far left. Michael Rostovtzeff argued that it depicts the celebration of Odaenathus' victory over Shapur I and his recovery of the city; the Roman soldier is making the offering in the presence of the victorious king. The Palmyrene figure's upper body is heavily eroded and the painting is undated and there is no inscription mentioning Odaenathus. Thus, the identification is considered tentative by several scholars such as Hopkins and James.
|
64,269,620 |
Islands: Non-Places
| 1,151,956,061 |
2016 art game
|
[
"2016 video games",
"Art games",
"Indie games",
"Linux games",
"MacOS games",
"Single-player video games",
"Video games developed in the United States",
"Windows games"
] |
Islands: Non-Places is a 2016 abstract art game developed and published independently by artist and animator Carl Burton, best known for the animated GIF illustrations he created for season two of the Serial podcast. The game was released on November 17, 2016, on iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux, and consists of a series of anonymous, liminal environments – the eponymous "non-places". These scenes appear mundane at first, but become increasingly surreal as the player interacts with the scenery.
Each place is rendered in the stylized manner that characterizes Burton's work, with solid monotone colors, dark shadows, and foggy backgrounds. The gameplay is minimal and consists mainly of clicking on the environment and observing what unfolds, a design choice that Burton hoped would engender a sense of slight confusion in the player without overwhelming them with difficult puzzles. In developing Islands, Burton drew inspiration from diverse sources, including the work of anthropologist Marc Augé, the installation art of James Turrell, and the field recordings of Chris Watson.
Critical response was generally positive, and the game was nominated for the Nuovo Award at the 2016 Independent Games Festival. Much of the positive reception focused on the abstract visuals and sound design; on the other hand, some critics were disappointed with the limited scope of the gameplay. Although divided on the precise message the game expresses, many critics described Islands leaving them with a feeling of renewed wonder at mundane things in the real world.
## Gameplay
Islands: Non-Places consists of a series of ten scenes, each of which represents an anonymous, non-descript environment such as a parking lot, hotel lobby, or airport. These spaces are rendered in the stylized manner that characterizes Burton's work, with solid monotone colors, dark shadows, and foggy backgrounds, and although each scene clearly represents a constructed space, they are devoid of any human presence. The overall effect is intended to invoke the feeling of each area being a liminal place or "non-place". The seemingly-mundane environments become increasingly surreal as the player interacts with the scenery. In one scene, an empty bus stop becomes an incubator for eggs; in another, a malfunctioning fountain opens up to reveal a vast underground space beneath it.
The gameplay is minimalist; the camera can be rotated around the scene in a fixed circle, but the player cannot move within it. The only means of interaction is clicking on the environment to prompt the next step of the scene to unfold; once it has played out in its entirety, the game transitions to the next scene. Interactive areas are usually–but not always–noticeably lit up. There are no puzzles to be solved, and no overarching narrative or goal aside from interacting with the current scene. The game is short, and can be completed in less than an hour. Because of its minimal interactivity and emphasis on visuals, it is usually described by critics as an art game.
## Development
The game was developed and published independently by artist and animator Carl Burton, best known for the animated GIF illustrations he created for season two of the Serial podcast. Islands was released on November 17, 2016, on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Linux. Burton estimated that the game had taken six to eight months to develop, using Unity Playmaker and Cinema 4D. Burton described wanting to expand on his animations to allow interaction. He stated that although it is never made explicit in the game, "what you see happening is something that might happen every day in the world of the game. The 'surreal' behavior is mundane from the point of view of the world itself."
In creating the game, Burton was inspired in part by the book Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity (1995), in which French anthropologist Marc Augé coined the term "non-place" to refer to places such as hotel rooms, parking lots, and airports, which are ubiquitous in the modern urban landscape, but feel anonymous and interchangeable. With Islands, Burton sought to explore the strangeness of these mundane environments in a way that was accessible to anyone, so he built the game without challenging game mechanics. In an interview, he explained, "I'm not really interested in puzzles as difficult obstacles. I wanted a more light and realistic sense of momentary confusion, like when you're staying at a friend's house and have to figure out how their shower works."
The installation art of James Turrell, who works with color and light in large built spaces, was an inspiration for the neon palette and haziness of Islands. Discussing the game's palette, Burton said that the colors chosen for each scene were "intuitive" to him, with some being literal ("like a dark purple for night") and others being more abstract, suggesting environmental factors like temperature.
The soundtrack was inspired by field recordings made by experimental musician Chris Watson, and mainly consists of assorted artificial sound effects and ambient environmental sounds such as distant cars or birdsong, which are not always obviously connected with the visuals of a scene. All of the sounds in the game are pre-existing, freely-licensed recordings which Burton found on the internet.
## Reception
Critical reception for Islands was generally positive, and the game was nominated for the Nuovo Award at the 2016 Independent Games Festival. Reviewers gave particular attention to the uncanny, dreamlike atmosphere created by the abstract visuals and ambient soundtrack. The visuals were similar to Burton's previous animated work, with Rob Funnell at TouchArcade noting that the game felt to him like a logical follow-up. Some found the game mesmerizing or hypnotic, while others found it eerie or haunting. Andy Kelly of PC Gamer described Islands as reminiscent of the "nonsensical micro-dreams you have when you’re trying to stay awake while jet-lagged." Similarly, Philippa Warr of Rock Paper Shotgun described the game's transformations as "more of a gentle dreamtime absurdity." An anonymous reviewer at Japanese indie magazine The Massage found that playing the game felt like being "lost in a movie scene," and noted a similarity to the work of American director David Lynch.
Some individual scenes stood out as particularly memorable to reviewers. Warr described one vignette which features a series of potted plants on an escalator, and wrote that seeing "a palm tree masquerading as a serious shopper" made her smile. For Simon Parkin at Eurogamer, the most notable was a vignette that depicts the nighttime routine of an unseen person in a home. He felt the scene had a sense of loneliness and menace, which reminded him of "the jarring asynchronicity of modern life; the cloistered way in which we live in cities, so close, so apart."
Islands drew comparisons to other minimalist art games, such as Flower (2009) by Thatgamecompany, Monument Valley (2014) by Ustwo, and Mountain (2014) by artist David OReilly. Jesse Singal at The Boston Globe compared it favorably to the classic adventure game Myst (1993), finding it less frustrating. Many reviewers felt the minimal gameplay made the game feel less like a traditional video game and more like a piece of interactive art, although there was uncertainty about Burton's intended meaning, or even if there was one. Warr speculated that the game represented "what the objects themselves might be dreaming." Several critics felt that the game left them thinking about the hidden beauty or wonder within mundane things, both within the game and in the real world after playing. Christ Priestman at Kill Screen wrote "the game lures you into seeing these pedestrian spaces as a kind of secret machine... like a car made for James Bond that has taillights that flip to reveal missile launchers."
Campbell Bird at 148Apps scored the gameplay and replay value poorly, but found it interesting as a one-off experience. Allison Meier of Hyperallergic found that the limited gameplay eventually became repetitive, but was impressed overall by the unexpected way each scene unfolded. Both Joshua Wise of Twinfinite and Rob Rich of Gamezebo expressed some frustration with the interaction mechanics, which they noted did not always clearly indicate where to click next. Rich's review was critical of the game as a whole, finding that the environmental fog detracted from the intriguing visuals, and the minimalist tapping-based gameplay was unsatisfying. Parkin's review dismissed those criticisms as "obvious [and] uninteresting," and argued that the lack of traditional gameplay in Islands was what made it appealing.
## See also
- List of art games
- Video games as an art form
|
50,072 |
Battle of Barnet
| 1,173,877,329 |
1471 engagement in the Wars of the Roses
|
[
"1471 in England",
"Battles and military actions in London",
"Battles of the Wars of the Roses",
"Conflicts in 1471",
"Edward IV of England",
"History of the London Borough of Barnet",
"Registered historic battlefields in England",
"Richard III of England"
] |
The Battle of Barnet was a decisive engagement in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic conflict of 15th-century England. The military action, along with the subsequent Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the throne for Edward IV.
On Sunday 14 April 1471, Easter Day, near Barnet, then a small Hertfordshire town north of London, Edward led the House of York in a fight against the House of Lancaster, which backed Henry VI for the throne. Leading the Lancastrian army was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who played a crucial role in the fate of each king. Historians regard the battle as one of the most important clashes in the Wars of the Roses, since it brought about a decisive turn in the fortunes of the two houses. Edward's victory was followed by 14 years of Yorkist rule over England.
Formerly a key figure in the Yorkist cause, Warwick defected to the Lancastrians over disagreements about Edward's nepotism, secret marriage, and foreign policy. Leading a Lancastrian army, the earl defeated his former allies, forcing Edward to flee to Burgundy in October 1470. The Yorkist king persuaded his host, Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, to help him regain the English throne. Leading an army raised with Burgundian money, Edward launched his invasion of England, which culminated at the fields north of Barnet. Under cover of darkness, the Yorkists moved close to the Lancastrians and clashed in a thick fog at dawn. As both armies fought, the Earl of Oxford on the Lancastrian right routed the Yorkists opposite under Lord Hastings, chasing them back to Barnet. On their return to the battlefield, Oxford's men were erroneously shot at by the Lancastrian centre commanded by Lord Montagu. As cries of treason (always a possibility in that chaotic period) spread through their line, Lancastrian morale was disrupted and many abandoned the fight. While retreating, Warwick was killed by Yorkist soldiers.
Warwick had been such an influential figure in 15th-century English politics that, on his death, no one matched him in terms of power and popularity. Deprived of Warwick's support, the Lancastrians suffered their final defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May, which marked the end of the reign of Henry VI and the restoration of the House of York. Three centuries after the Battle of Barnet, a stone obelisk was raised on the spot where Warwick purportedly died.
## Background
The Wars of the Roses were a series of conflicts between various English lords and nobles in support of two different royal families descended from Edward III. In 1461 the conflict reached a milestone when the House of York supplanted its rival, the House of Lancaster, as the ruling royal house in England. Edward IV, leader of the Yorkists, seized the throne from the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, who was captured in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. His wife, Margaret of Anjou, and their son, Edward of Westminster, fled to Scotland and organised resistance. Edward IV crushed the uprisings and pressured the Scottish government to force Margaret out; the House of Lancaster went into exile in France. As the Yorkists tightened their hold over England, Edward rewarded his supporters, including his chief adviser, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, elevating them to higher titles and awarding them land confiscated from their defeated foes. The Earl grew to disapprove of the King's rule, however, and their relationship later became strained.
Warwick had planned for Edward to marry a French princess—Bona of Savoy, sister-in-law to Louis XI of France—to create an alliance between the two countries. The young king, however, favoured ties with Burgundy and, in 1464, further angered the Earl by secretly marrying Elizabeth Woodville; as an impoverished Lancastrian widow, she was regarded by the Yorkists as an unsuitable queen. Edward bestowed gifts of land and titles on her relations and arranged their marriages to rich and powerful families. Eligible bachelors were paired with the Woodville females, narrowing the marriage prospects for Warwick's daughters. Furthermore, the Earl was offended by two matches involving his kin. The first was the marriage of his aunt, Lady Katherine Neville, over 60 years old, to Elizabeth's 20-year-old brother, John Woodville, a pairing considered outside of normal wedlock by many people. The other was his nephew's fiancée, the daughter of Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, who was taken as a bride by the Queen's son, Thomas Grey, with Edward's approval. Exasperated by these acts, Warwick decided the Woodvilles were a malignant influence on his liege. He felt marginalized: his influence over the young king was failing, and he decided to take drastic action to force Edward's compliance. Warwick's alternative plan was to replace the King with his fellow conspirator, the Duke of Clarence, Edward's younger brother.
Instigating several rebellions in the north, Warwick lured the King away from his main bastion of support in the south. Edward found himself outnumbered; while retreating, he learned that Warwick and Clarence had called for open support of the rebellion. After winning the Battle of Edgcote on 26 July 1469, the Earl found the Yorkist king deserted by his followers, and brought him to Warwick Castle for "protection". Lancastrian supporters took advantage of Edward's imprisonment to stage uprisings. Because most Yorkist-aligned warlords refused to rally to Warwick's call, the Earl was pressured to release the King. Back in power, Edward did not openly pursue Warwick's transgressions against him, but the Earl suspected that the King held a grudge. Warwick engineered another rebellion, this time to replace Edward with Clarence. The two conspirators, however, had to flee to France when Edward crushed the uprising—the Battle of Losecoat Field—on 12 March 1470. Through letters in the rebels' possession and confessions from the leaders, the King uncovered the Earl's betrayal. In a deal brokered by the French king, Louis XI, the Earl agreed to serve Margaret and the Lancastrian cause. Warwick invaded England at the head of a Lancastrian army and, in October 1470, forced Edward to seek refuge in Burgundy, then ruled by the King's brother-in-law Charles the Bold. The throne of England was temporarily restored to Henry VI; on 14 March 1471, Edward brought an army back across the English Channel, precipitating the Battle of Barnet a month later.
## Commanders
### Yorkist
Edward IV was normally at the forefront of his armies. Standing 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m), he was an inspiring figure in combat, attacking foes while wearing a suit of gilded armour. Medieval texts describe the King as handsome, finely muscled and with a broad chest. He was personable and charismatic, easily winning people to his cause. Edward was a capable tactician and leader in battles. He frequently spotted and exploited defensive frailties in enemy lines, often with decisive results. By 1471 the young king was a highly respected field commander. He received some criticism, however; after winning the throne in 1461, he proved indecisive about putting down rebellions. Historian Charles Ross praises Edward's leadership and skill in close combat rather than his strategies and tactics.
With his good looks and capable leadership, Edward was popular among the common people, especially compared to Henry VI. His trade policies, which aimed to expand and protect markets for English commerce, pleased local merchants, who were also won over by the Yorkist king's personality. By 1469 Edward's groundswell of popular support had eroded. The euphoria of a change in government had ebbed and the people blamed Edward for failing to "bring the realm of England in[to] great popularity and rest" and allowing Yorkist nobles to go unpunished for abuses. When Edward invaded England in 1471, not many common people openly celebrated his return.
Edward was joined at Barnet by his brothers, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and George, Duke of Clarence. Unlike his eldest brother, Gloucester was slender and seemingly delicate. He was 18 years old at the Battle of Barnet, his first major engagement. His military prowess, however, was well respected; many historians judge him a capable warrior and military leader. Clarence was not as well regarded as his brothers, especially in matters of loyalty. When Edward became king, Clarence became his heir; however, Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville threatened to displace the Duke in the line of succession to the throne. Hence, Clarence participated in Warwick's schemes, marrying the Earl's daughter Isabel, believing he could gain his brother's throne. Clarence lost faith in the Earl when Warwick defected to the Lancastrians and married off his other daughter, Anne, to their prince in order to cement his new allegiance. When Edward launched his campaign to retake England, Clarence accepted his brother's offer of pardon and rejoined the Yorkists at Coventry on 2 April 1471. The last of the Yorkist commanders was William, Lord Hastings, a loyal subject since the start of the wars. Hastings had accompanied the young king in exile and supported his return. The courtier was rewarded for his faithfulness, gaining the lieutenancy of Calais in 1471 and becoming Edward's lord chamberlain and primary confidant.
### Lancastrian
Warwick had fought for the House of York since the early stages of the Wars of the Roses and alongside his cousin, Edward IV, in many of the battles. His years of loyalty earned him the trust of the Yorkists, and his victories—both political and military—and popularity with the common people made him an important figure. He had powerful influence over the line of succession, earning him the nickname "The Kingmaker". Early historians described him as a military genius, but by the 20th century his tactical acumen was reconsidered; Philip Haigh suspects that the Earl largely owed some of his victories, such as the First Battle of St Albans, to being in the right place at the right time. Christopher Gravett believes the Earl was too defensive and lacked mental flexibility.
John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, was less ambitious than his brother Warwick, but a more capable warrior and tactician. In 1464 he commanded a Yorkist force that turned the tables on a Lancastrian ambush at the Battle of Hedgeley Moor and launched a surprise attack at the Battle of Hexham. These victories capped Neville's extensive service in the north, and Edward rewarded him with the Earldom of Northumberland, which bore substantial income. The gift was particularly gratifying for Neville; his family had experienced a deep feud with the former earls of Northumberland, the Percys, who supported the House of Lancaster. However, in March 1470, Edward, trying to win over the Percys' support, reinstated Henry Percy to the earldom. As recompense, Neville received the grander title of Marquess of Montagu; however, the lands accompanying this rank were much poorer than the estate he had lost. The new marquess saw it as an insult—an insubstantial title that was inadequate recognition for his years of faithful service. Montagu did not immediately join Warwick's rebellion, however; he defected later in the year when his brother invaded England.
Not much is known about the early history of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, another Lancastrian commander; the chronicles mention little about him until the Battle of Losecoat Field. His father, the previous earl and a loyal Lancastrian, was executed for a failed plot to assassinate Edward IV. The Yorkist king tried to secure the loyalty of Oxford by knighting him and pardoning his transgressions. This tactic failed; Oxford remained true to the Lancastrian crown and participated in Warwick's effort to dethrone Edward. Historians describe the young Oxford as a decent military leader, exemplified by his conduct in the Battle of Barnet.
Although Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, was of royal blood, he was commonly viewed as a criminal, prone to violence and stupidity. A proven enemy of the Nevilles, Exeter bore a grudge particularly against Warwick for displacing him from his hereditary role of Lord High Admiral in 1457. Nonetheless, when Warwick joined the Lancastrians, Exeter obeyed Margaret and served under the Earl during the invasion of England. Although he supported the Lancastrian cause, Exeter had family ties to the House of York; he was husband to Anne of York, Edward's sister.
## Prelude
On 14 March 1471, Edward's army landed at Ravenspurn. Gathering more men as they went, the Yorkists moved inland towards York. Edward's march was unopposed at the beginning because he was moving through lands that belonged to the Percys, and the Earl of Northumberland was indebted to the Yorkist king for the return of his northern territory. Furthermore, Edward announced that he was returning only to claim his father's title of Duke of York and not to contest the English crown. The ruse was successful: Montagu, who was monitoring Edward's march, could not convince his men to move against the Yorkist king.
Once Edward's force had gathered sufficient strength, he dropped the ruse and headed south towards London. Fighting off Exeter's and Oxford's attacks, he besieged Warwick at Coventry, hoping to engage the earl in battle. Although Warwick's force had more men than Edward's army, the earl refused the challenge. He was waiting for the arrival of Clarence, who wanted to use their combined strength to overwhelm the Yorkists. When he learned of this, Edward sent Gloucester to entreat Clarence to return to the House of York, an offer that Clarence readily accepted. Reconciled, the royal brothers moved towards Coventry, and Clarence urged Warwick's surrender. Infuriated with his son-in-law's treachery, Warwick refused to speak to Clarence. Unable to fight the earl at this time, Edward turned again towards London.
Reinforced by Montagu, Oxford and Exeter a few days later, Warwick followed the Yorkists' trail. He hoped that London, under Somerset's control, would close its gates to Edward, allowing him to catch the Yorkist army in the open. The city, however, welcomed Edward warmly; Somerset had left the city and the London populace preferred the young Yorkist king to Henry VI. The old king greeted his usurper warmly and offered himself into custody, trusting "[his] life to be in no danger in [Edward's] hands." Lancastrian scouts probed Barnet, which lay 19 kilometres (12 mi) north of London, but were beaten off. On 13 April their main army took up positions on a ridge of high ground north of Barnet to prepare for battle the next day. Warwick arrayed his army in a line from east to west, on either side of the Great North Road running through Barnet. Oxford held the right flank and Exeter the left. Montagu commanded the centre, and Warwick readied himself to command from among the reserves. The earl displaced his entire line slightly to the west; a depression at the rear of his left flank could impede Exeter's group if they had to fall back.
Warwick's army heavily outnumbered Edward's, although sources differ on exact numbers. Lancastrian strength ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 men, with 7,000–15,000 on the Yorkist side. Facing this disadvantage, Edward hurried to meet the Lancastrians with a surprise attack. He brought Henry VI along to prevent the Lancastrians from retaking their king. Edward reached Barnet in the evening, and without knowing the precise location of his foes, prepared the battle line. The Yorkist king deployed Hastings on the left and entrusted Gloucester to lead the right flank. Clarence would fight alongside Edward in the centre, although this was not due to faith in his ability—it was easier for the Yorkists to keep an eye on their twice-defected prince there. A contingent of reserves was kept at the rear, ready to deploy at Edward's call. As night fell, Edward put his plan for surprise morning attack in motion. Under a strict order of silence, the Yorkist army crept closer to the Lancastrians. During the night, neither commander spotted the opposing army, an event that proved crucial in the battle the next day.
During the night, Warwick ordered his cannons to continually bombard the estimated position of the Yorkists' encampment. The Yorkists, however, had sneaked in close, and the Lancastrian artillery overshot their enemies. The Yorkist cannon, meanwhile, kept quiet to avoid betraying their location. As the armies settled down to rest, Montagu approached his brother and advised him of the troops' low morale. He suggested that, as the highest-ranking commanders, the brothers should fight on foot throughout the battle instead of riding on horse. The soldiers believed that mounted commanders tended to abandon them when the situation deteriorated. By staying on foot, the Nevilles would show that they were prepared to fight to the death with the men, inspiring the troops to stand and fight harder. Warwick agreed and the horses were tethered to the rear, near Wrotham Wood.
## Fighting in the mist
On 14 April 1471, at around 4 o'clock in the morning, both armies woke. Edward had planned for an early attack, however, and quickly roused his men to engage the Lancastrians. Both sides fired their cannon and arrows before laying into each other with polearms. The morning fog was thick and the night movements of the two forces had displaced them laterally with each other. Neither group was facing the other; each was offset slightly to the right. This displacement meant that the right end of either army could outflank the other by wrapping around the opposing left end. The Lancastrians were the first to exploit this advantage; Oxford's group quickly overwhelmed Hastings'. Yorkist soldiers fled towards Barnet, chased by the Lancastrians. Some of Hastings' men even reached London, spreading tales of the fall of York and a Lancastrian victory. Oxford's group disintegrated as they split off to loot the fallen enemies and plunder Barnet. Yelling and chasing after his men, Oxford rallied 800 of them and led them back to the battle.
Due to the fog, visibility was low and the two main forces failed to notice Oxford's victory over Hastings. Accordingly, the collapse of the Yorkist left wing had little (if any) effect on morale of either side. The fighting between Montagu's and Edward's groups was evenly matched and intense. The Lancastrian left wing, however, was suffering treatment similar to that Oxford had inflicted on its counterpart; Gloucester exploited the misaligned forces and beat Exeter back. Progress for Edward's brother was slow because his group was fighting up a slight slope. Nonetheless, the pressure he exerted on the Lancastrian left wing rotated the entire battle line. Warwick, seeing the shift, ordered most of his reserves to help ease the pressure on Exeter, and took the rest into fighting at the centre. Gradually, the battle line settled to an orientation that slanted north-east to south-west.
Oxford retraced his steps through the fog back to the fight. His group arrived, unexpectedly, at Montagu's rear. Obscured by the fog, Oxford's "star with rays" badge was mistaken by Montagu's men for Edward's "sun in splendour". They assumed their allies were Edward's reserves and unleashed a volley of arrows. Oxford and his men immediately cried treachery; as staunch Lancastrians, they were wary of Montagu's recent defection. They struck back and began withdrawing from the battle. Their shouts of treason were taken up and spread quickly throughout the Lancastrian line, breaking it apart as men fled in anger, panic and confusion. As the fog started to dissipate, Edward saw the Lancastrian centre in disarray and sent in his reserves, hastening its collapse. Cries of Exeter's demise from a Yorkist axe resounded across the battlefield from the Lancastrian left, and amidst the confusion, Montagu was struck in his back and killed by either a Yorkist or one of Oxford's men.
Witnessing his brother's death, Warwick knew the battle was lost. He made for the horses in an attempt to retreat. Edward recognised his victory was at hand, and—deciding that Warwick was more valuable alive than dead—sent the order and dispatched his guards to bring back the earl alive. Several chroniclers have suggested that the king thought Warwick would again be a valuable ally if persuaded back to the Yorkist cause. Historian Michael Hicks, in contrast, suggests that Edward wanted to capture the earl for public execution rather than as a gesture of mercy. Regardless of the king's intent, Warwick died in the Lancastrian rout: when fleeing the field he was struck off his horse and killed.
A miniature model reproduction of the Battle of Barnet can be found at the Battle's natural interpretive centre, The Barnet Museum.
## Post-battle
The battle lasted from two to three hours, and was over by the time the fog lifted in the early morning. As usual in most battles of the time, the routed army suffered far more casualties; fleeing men were cut down from behind. Contemporary sources give various casualty figures; the "Great Chronicle of London" reports 1,500 dead, whereas "Warkworth's Chronicle" states 4,000. Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed, both 16th-century chroniclers, say that at least 10,000 men died in the battle. The Yorkists suffered half as many casualties as the Lancastrians. Royle favours the recorded approximate figures of 500 Yorkists and 1,000 Lancastrians dead.
The bodies of the two Neville brothers were brought back to London. They did not suffer the customary fate accorded to traitors—quartering and display at the city gates. Edward exhibited the brothers' naked corpses in St. Paul's Cathedral for three days to quell any rumours that they had survived, before allowing them to be laid to rest in the family vault at Bisham Abbey.
Although he had defeated the Neville brothers, Edward had little time to rest; Margaret landed at Weymouth on the day of the battle. She feigned a march to London while augmenting her army with recruits from Wales and the Welsh Marches. The Lancastrian queen was disheartened by the news of Warwick's demise, but Somerset suggested that they were better off without the earl. Despite the defeat at Barnet, Lancastrians who fled from the battle looked to the queen to restore their house to the throne. Alerted by his spies to the Lancastrians' true route, Edward intercepted and defeated them at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May. Gloucester, Clarence and Hastings again fought to defend the Yorkist crown.
Exeter had been stripped of his armour and left for dead on the battlefield at Barnet, but he was alive—though gravely injured. His followers found him and took him to Westminster Abbey. On his recovery, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for four years before submitting to Edward's rule. Exeter did not participate in the later battles of the Wars of the Roses. Edward sent him on a Yorkist expedition to France in 1475, and the duke was reported to have fallen overboard and drowned without any witnesses.
After withdrawing from the battle, Oxford fled to France and participated in attacks on English ships, continuing his campaign against Yorkist rule. He was captured in 1473 after seizing St Michael's Mount, an island off the southwest coast of England. Twelve years later Oxford escaped from prison and joined Henry Tudor's fight against the Yorkists, commanding the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.
## Legacy
The Battle of Barnet was an important engagement in the Wars of the Roses: it brought about the death of a prominent figure and secured the throne for another. Despite its importance to history, contemporary records about the battle are rare. The sole chronicle based on an eyewitness account—The Arrivall of Edward IV—was written by someone within Edward's council, which presents a biased account of the battle. Another first-hand observation was found in the Paston Letters, written by the Lancastrian Sir John Paston. Other records, such as The Warkworth Chronicle, offer only bits and pieces about the battle. Therefore, deficits in historical understanding must be filled through field research and discoveries of mediaeval documents.
Historians theorise that had Warwick's force joined Margaret's before challenging Edward, the combined Lancastrian army would have overwhelmed the Yorkists. Instead, Warwick's defeat gave the Yorkists a victory so decisive that it, along with the Battle of Tewkesbury, secured the English throne for Edward IV. Historian Colin Richmond believes that Edward's return to power was assured at Barnet—Tewkesbury was "merely an epilogue". Without having to contend with Warwick's popularity and political influence, the young Yorkist king could fully exert his will and rule the land unchallenged. Ballads composed during Edward's reign celebrated his victory as sanctioned by God: "Man proposes, oftimes in veyn, But God disposes, the boke telleth pleyn". Barnet was a disaster for the Nevilles; their lands given away and their offices reduced. The family never again reached the prominence in English politics that they had enjoyed before the battle.
### Shakespearian dramatisation
The battle is alluded to in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 (1595). The end of Act V, scene one depicts the events leading up to the battle; scenes two and three portray the conclusion, in which the characters discuss the combat and the fates of its participants. Shakespeare uses few details reported by contemporary chroniclers and ignores notable incidents, such as the confusion over Oxford's and Edward's badges. His play is based mostly on poetic and dramatic sources. In the play, Montagu is killed while trying to save his brother (Shakespeare's source material included Hall's 1548 The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke), and Warwick is dragged in by Edward IV and left to speak his dying words to Oxford and Somerset. Warwick's death dominates the scenes, reflecting Hall's vivid portrayal of the earl's passing as a valiant death. Furthermore, whereas several chronicles mention Edward's desire to capture Warwick, Shakespeare has the Yorkist king lustily demand Warwick's skin.
Shakespeare presents the Nevilles as brothers who are willing to die for each other, whereas the three sons of York—Edward, Gloucester, and Clarence—are slowly driven apart by their own goals and ideas. Professor of English John Cox suggests that Shakespeare did not share the impression given in post-battle ballads that Edward's triumph was divinely ordained. He argues that Shakespeare's placement of Clarence's last act of betrayal immediately before the battle suggests that Edward's rule stems from his military aggression, luck, and "policy". Shakespeare also explicitly excludes Edward from action sequences, a departure from Hall's depictions.
### Battlefield
English Heritage, a government body in charge of conservation of historic sites, roughly locates the battlefield in an area 800 to 1600 metres (0.5 to 1.0 mile) north of the town of Barnet. Over the centuries, much of the terrain has changed, and records of the town's boundaries and geography are not detailed enough for English Heritage or historians to conclude the exact location of the battle. Geographical features corresponding to contemporary descriptions allow approximations of where the fighting took place.
English Heritage suggests that a 15th-century letter from a Hanseatic merchant, Gerhard von Wessel, helps to identify the battlefield via geological features. It mentions a "broad green" which corresponds to Hadley Green, and the marsh on the right flank of the Yorkist line is likely to be in the valley of the Monken Mead Brook. The letter also mentions St Albans road, which has remained largely the same, winding through the fields. Urbanisation over the 18th and 19th centuries, however, has populated much of the area with buildings. By the 20th century, the suburb of Monken Hadley covered part of the fields where the Battle of Barnet was fought. A hedge in the local golf course, as suggested by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred H. Burne, is likely the row of shrubs behind which Oxford's men lined up and took cover.
In 1740 Sir Jeremy Sambroke erected an obelisk to commemorate the battle about 200 metres (660 ft) south of the junction between the Great North Road and Kitts End Road. It was later moved just north of the junction on the grass between the two roads. Known as Hadley Highstone, it stands 5.5 metres (18 ft) tall and marks its location with the inscription:
> "Here was fought the Famous Battle Between Edward the 4th and the Earl of Warwick April the 14th ANNO 1471 in which the Earl was Defeated And Slain."
The battle is referred to in the coat of arms of the London Borough of Barnet which display a red and a silver rose in the top of the shield and two crossed swords in the crest.
Every year, the Barnet Medieval Festival is held at the place where the battle is thought to have occurred. It features a re-enactment of the battle and market stalls.
|
22,523,831 |
Effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana
| 1,171,660,809 | null |
[
"1998 Atlantic hurricane season",
"1998 in Louisiana",
"Effects of hurricanes in the United States",
"Hurricane Georges",
"Hurricanes in Louisiana"
] |
The effects of Hurricane Georges in Louisiana included \$30.1 million in damage and three deaths. Forming from a tropical wave over the Atlantic Ocean, Georges attained a peak intensity of 155 mph (249 km/h) on September 20, 1998. Over the following several days, the storm tracked through the Greater Antilles and later entered the Gulf of Mexico on September 28, the Category 2 storm made landfall in Mississippi before dissipating on October 1. Before landfall, about 500,000 residents in Louisiana evacuated from low-lying areas. The mayor of New Orleans declared a state of emergency to allow federal assistance into the state. After nearly 1.5 million people were urged to evacuate coastal areas, officials described the evacuation as "probably the largest [...] we have ever achieved".
Numerous homes located outside the levee system were flooded by the storm surge, and 85 fishing camps on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain were destroyed. An estimated 160,000 residences were left without power due to Georges and severe beach erosion took place due to the slow movement of the hurricane. Precipitation statewide peaked at 2.98 inches (76 mm) in Bogalusa, and wind gusts reached 82 mph (132 km/h). In the wake of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) opened 67 shelters throughout the state, and covered insurance claims totalling \$14,150,532, including from Puerto Rico and Mississippi. The Clinton administration appropriated \$56 million in disaster relief to regions in Louisiana for recovery from Tropical Storm Frances and Hurricane Georges.
## Background
Hurricane Georges began as a tropical wave that moved off the coast of Africa during mid-September 1998. Tracking westward, the wave spawned an area of low pressure two days later, which quickly strengthened into a tropical depression. On September 16, the depression was upgraded to Tropical Storm Georges, and to Hurricane Georges the next day. The storm reached its peak intensity on September 20 with winds of 155 mph (249 km/h), just below Category 5 status on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale.
Over the following five days, the hurricane tracked through the Greater Antilles, causing over 600 fatalities, primarily in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. By September 25, Georges entered the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane. The storm made landfall three days later near Biloxi, Mississippi, with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h). Upon landfall, the hurricane's forward motion slowed to an eastward drift. Georges dissipated on October 1 near the Atlantic coast of Florida.
## Preparations
At 9:00 am Central Daylight Time (CDT) on September 25, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for coastal regions of Louisiana east of Morgan City. The following day, the watch was upgraded to a hurricane warning when the storm neared landfall. A hurricane watch was also issued for areas between Morgan City and Intracoastal City. When forecasts indicated a landfall east of the state, the hurricane watch was canceled and the hurricane warning amended to a tropical storm warning. By September 29, all tropical cyclone warnings and watches were discontinued.
During September 25–26, large-scale evacuations took place in response to forecasts suggesting a landfall near New Orleans. More than 1.5 million people in New Orleans were advised to leave the city. The nine shelters opened throughout the area were collectively capable of accommodating up to 450,000 people. New Orleans mayor Marc Morial declared a State of Emergency to allow federal assistance into the affected areas during the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. A curfew was instituted for those who ignored evacuation orders or could not leave the city.
Approximately 500,000 people evacuated from Jefferson and Orleans Parishes in advance of the hurricane. Elsewhere, about 31,000 others took refuge in shelters set up throughout the state. In Jefferson Parish, roughly 3,900 people evacuated to public shelters, while 20,000 temporarily moved to Orleans Parish, 14,000 of whom were located in the Louisiana Superdome. In Plaquemines Parish, about 15,000 residents evacuated and 2,300 took refuge in public shelters. Grand Isle's 1,500 residents were ordered to evacuate for the fourth time in a month. Due to the large-scale evacuations, 175 off-duty state troopers and 250 national guard troops were deployed to help speed up the process. Only two highways, U.S. Route 90 and Interstate 10 lead in and out of New Orleans; heavy rains from previous storms flooded parts of US 90, hindering preparation efforts. Lt. Col. Ronnie Jones of the Louisiana state police noted that the evacuation was "probably the largest [...] we have ever achieved".
## Impact
Compared to the record-breaking rainfall in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, Hurricane Georges produced relatively little precipitation in Louisiana, peaking at 2.98 inches (76 mm) in Bogalusa. The worst damages were confined to the southeastern portion of the state, concentrated in the Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes. A storm surge of 8.9 ft (2.7 m) was recorded in Gardene Bay before power at the recording station failed. Gale-force winds impacted most of the parish and gusts peaked at 82 mph (132 km/h). The combination of high winds and surge cut power to most of the area and flooded at least 50 homes, all of which were located outside the levee system. A lighthouse on one island was partially submerged in the Gulf of Mexico, nearly 1,200 feet (370 m) from land following severe beach erosion. Six-foot (1.8 m) sand dunes on the islands were completely eroded by the storm, leaving boardwalks formerly situated atop the dunes suspended near the water's surface.
In St. Tammany Parish, the storm's effects were mainly limited to wind damage: gusts reached 48 mph (77 km/h), knocking down trees and power lines. A storm surge of 4.3 ft (1.3 m) flooded 20 homes in the parish. Winds in Jefferson Parish gusted up to 55 mph (89 km/h), causing minor roof damage and power outages. In Orleans Parish, a storm surge of 5.81 ft (1.77 m) destroyed 85 fishing camps constructed on wooden pilings. Winds gusting up to 68 mph (109 km/h) left 80,000 residences without power in the parish. Throughout the state, a total of 160,000 homes and businesses lost power due to the hurricane. Georges is blamed for three indirect fatalities; two men collapsed and died due to medical conditions aggravated by the stress of the evacuation, and another died as the result of a house fire sparked by an emergency candle that was tipped over. Damages from the storm totaled approximately \$30.1 million.
## Aftermath
Before Hurricane Georges, FEMA issued disaster declarations for Ascension, Assumption, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Plaquemines, Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, Terrebone, Tangipahoa, and Washington Parishes. The declaration allowed residents to receive individual and public assistance. Including relief funds to Puerto Rico and Mississippi associated with Georges, a total of \$14,150,532 insurance claims was paid for by FEMA. The Clinton administration appropriated \$56 million in post-disaster funds for regions impacted Tropical Storm Frances and Hurricane Georges in Louisiana.
Throughout the state, officials opened 67 shelters and deployed 1,200 FEMA personnel to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The day after Georges made landfall, 4,000 of the 14,000 residents who evacuated to the Louisiana Superdome returned to their homes; however, Mayor Marc Morial requested that the residents stay in the Superdome for their own safety. In attempts to prevent major flooding in the aftermath of Georges, the United States National Guard provided the Gulf Coast with 1.25 million sandbags. Rescue teams flew nearly 50 missions in response to calls for help from stranded residents. The United Methodist Committee on Relief deployed its disaster response team on September 29 to the state to assess damages wrought by Georges. Thomas Michot, a United States Geological Survey ecologist, surveyed the islands following the storm and stated that "the single most important line of defense standing between New Orleans and future hurricanes had all but disappeared".
## See also
- 1998 Atlantic hurricane season
- Effects of Hurricane Georges in Florida
- History of New Orleans
|
354,917 |
Silky shark
| 1,161,446,189 |
Species of fish
|
[
"Carcharhinus",
"Extant Miocene first appearances",
"Fish described in 1839",
"Fish of the Dominican Republic",
"Miocene fish of North America",
"Near threatened animals",
"Near threatened biota of Asia",
"Near threatened biota of Mexico",
"Near threatened biota of Oceania",
"Near threatened fauna of North America",
"Pantropical fish",
"Vulnerable biota of Africa"
] |
The silky shark (Carcharhinus falciformis), also known by numerous names such as blackspot shark, gray whaler shark, olive shark, ridgeback shark, sickle shark, sickle-shaped shark and sickle silk shark, is a species of requiem shark, in the family Carcharhinidae, named for the smooth texture of its skin. It is one of the most abundant sharks in the pelagic zone, and can be found around the world in tropical waters. Highly mobile and migratory, this shark is most often found over the edge of the continental shelf down to 50 m (164 ft). The silky shark has a slender, streamlined body and typically grows to a length of 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in). It can be distinguished from other large requiem sharks by its relatively small first dorsal fin with a curving rear margin, its tiny second dorsal fin with a long free rear tip, and its long, sickle-shaped pectoral fins. It is a deep, metallic bronze-gray above and white below.
With prey often scarce in its oceanic environment, the silky shark is a swift, inquisitive, and persistent hunter. It feeds mainly on bony fishes and cephalopods, and has been known to drive them into compacted schools before launching open-mouthed, slashing attacks. This species often trails schools of tuna, a favored prey. Its sense of hearing is extremely acute, allowing it to localize the low-frequency noises generated by other feeding animals, and, by extension, sources of food. The silky shark is viviparous, meaning that the developing embryos are sustained by a placental connection to their mother. Significant geographical variation is seen in its life history details. Reproduction occurs year-round except in the Gulf of Mexico, where it follows a seasonal cycle. Females give birth to litters of up to 16 pups annually or biennially. The newborn sharks spend their first months in relatively sheltered reef nurseries on the outer continental shelf, growing substantially before moving into the open ocean.
The large size and cutting teeth of the silky shark make it potentially dangerous, and it has behaved aggressively towards divers. However, attacks are rare, as few humans enter its oceanic habitat. Silky sharks are valued for their fins, and to a lesser extent their meat, hide, liver oil, and jaws. Because of their abundance, they form a major component of commercial and artisanal shark fisheries in many countries. Furthermore, their association with tuna results in many sharks being taken as bycatch in tuna fisheries. Although slow-reproducing like most other sharks, the wide distribution and large population size of the silky shark was once thought to buffer the species against these fishing pressures. However, data now suggest that silky shark numbers are declining around the world, which prompted the IUCN to reassess its conservation status to Vulnerable in 2017.
## Taxonomy
A scientific description of the silky shark was first published by the German biologists Johannes Müller and Jakob Henle under the name Carcharias (Prionodon) falciformis, in their 1839 Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen. Subsequent authors have assigned this species to the genus Carcharhinus. Because Müller and Henle's type specimen was a 53-cm-long female fetus from Cuba, adult silky sharks were historically not recognized as C. falciformis and were described as a separate species, Carcharhinus floridanus, by Henry Bigelow, William Schroeder, and Stewart Springer in 1943. Jack Garrick, Richard Backus, and Robert Gibbs Jr. synonymized C. floridanus with C. falciformis in 1964.
The specific epithet falciformis is Latin for "sickle-shaped", which refers to the outline of the dorsal and pectoral fins. The silky shark's common name comes from the fine texture of its skin compared to other sharks, a product of its tiny, densely packed dermal denticles. It may also be referred to as blackspot shark (usually used for C. sealei), grey reef shark (usually used for C. amblyrhynchos), grey whaler shark, olive shark, reef shark, ridgeback shark, sickle shark, sickle silk shark, sickle-shaped shark, silk shark, and silky whaler.
## Phylogeny and evolution
Fossilized teeth belonging to the silky shark have been found in North Carolina: from the vicinity of two baleen whales, one in mud dating to the Pleistocene-Holocene (circa 12,000 years ago) and the other in Goose Creek Limestone dating to the Late Pliocene (circa 3.5 million years ago – Mya), as well as from the Pungo River, dating to the Miocene (23–5.3 Mya). Fossil teeth have also been found in Pliocene strata at the Cava Serredi quarry in Tuscany, Italy. Carcharhinus elongatus, an earlier representative of its lineage with smooth-edged teeth, is known from Oligocene (34–23 Mya) deposits in the Old Church formation of Virginia, and the Ashley formation of South Carolina. A set of poorly described, Eocene (56–34 Mya) teeth resembling those of this species are known from Egypt.
Initial efforts to resolve the evolutionary relationships of the silky shark were inconclusive; based on morphology, Jack Garrick in 1982 suggested the blackspot shark (C. sealei) as its closest relative. In 1988, Leonard Compagno assigned it phenetically to an informal "transitional group" also containing the blacknose shark (C. acronotus), the blacktip reef shark (C. melanopterus), the nervous shark (C. cautus), the copper shark (C. brachyurus), and the night shark (C. signatus).
More recently, Gavin Naylor's 1992 phylogenetic analysis, based on allozyme sequence data, found that the silky shark is part of a group containing large sharks with a ridge between the dorsal fins. One branch within this group contains the sandbar shark (C. plumbeus) and the bignose shark (C. altimus), while the silky shark is the basal member of the other branch and the sister taxon to a clade containing the Caribbean reef shark (C. perezi), Galapagos shark (C. galapagensis), oceanic whitetip shark (C. longimanus), dusky shark (C. obscurus), and blue shark (Prionace glauca). Mine Dosay-Abkulut's 2008 ribosomal DNA analysis, which included the silky, blue, and bignose sharks, confirmed the closeness of those three species.
## Distribution and habitat
The silky shark has a cosmopolitan distribution in marine waters warmer than 23 °C (73 °F). In the Atlantic Ocean, it is found from Massachusetts (USA) to Spain in the north, and from southern Brazil to northern Angola in the south, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. In the Mediterranean Sea, it has been recorded first in the Alboran Sea, subsequently in Algerian waters, the Gulf of Gabes (Tunisia) and more recently in the Ligurian Sea. It occurs throughout the Indian Ocean, as far south as Mozambique in the west and Western Australia in the east, including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. In the Pacific Ocean, the northern extent of its range runs from southern China and Japan to southern Baja California and the Gulf of California, while the southern extent runs from Sydney, Australia, to northern New Zealand to northern Chile. Based on life history differences, four distinct populations of silky sharks have been identified in ocean basins worldwide: in the northwestern Atlantic, in the western and central Pacific, in the eastern Pacific, and in the Indian Ocean.
Primarily an inhabitant of the open ocean, the silky shark is most common from the surface to a depth of 200 m (660 ft), but may dive to 500 m (1,600 ft) or more. Tracking studies in the tropical eastern Pacific and northern Gulf of Mexico have found that cruising silky sharks spend 99% of their time within 50 m (160 ft) of the surface, and 80–85% of their time in water with a temperature of 26–30 °C (79–86 °F); the pattern was constant regardless of day or night. This species favors the edges of continental and insular shelves, often over deepwater reefs and around islands. Its range extends farther north and south along continental margins than in oceanic waters. On occasion, it may venture into coastal waters as shallow as 18 m (59 ft). Silky sharks are highly mobile and migratory, though the details of their movements are little-known. Tagging data have recorded individual sharks moving up to 60 km (37 mi) per day, and covering distances up to 1,339 km (832 mi). Larger sharks generally move longer distances than smaller ones. In the Pacific Ocean and possibly elsewhere, it spends the summer at slightly higher latitudes, particularly during warmer El Niño years. In the northern Atlantic, most sharks follow the Gulf Stream northward along the U.S. East Coast. In the Gulf of Aden, it is most common in late spring and summer.
## Description
Slim and streamlined, the silky shark has a fairly long, rounded snout with barely developed flaps of skin in front of the nostrils. The circular, medium-sized eyes are equipped with nictitating membranes (protective third eyelids). Short, shallow furrows are present at the corners of the mouth. 14-16 and 13–17 tooth rows are found on either side of the upper and lower jaws, respectively (typically 15 for both). The upper teeth are triangular and strongly serrated, with a notch in the posterior edge; they are erect at the center and become more oblique towards the sides. The lower teeth are narrow, erect, and smooth-edged. The five pairs of gill slits are moderate in length.
The dorsal and pectoral fins are distinctive and help to distinguish the silky shark from similar species. The first dorsal fin is relatively small, measuring less than a tenth as high as the shark is long, and originates behind the free rear tips of the pectoral fins. It has a rounded apex, an "S"-shaped rear margin, and a free rear tip about half as long as the fin is tall. The second dorsal fin is tiny, smaller than the anal fin, with a drawn-out free rear tip up to three times as long as the fin is tall. A narrow dorsal ridge runs between the dorsal fins. The pectoral fins are narrow and sickle-shaped, and particularly long in adults. The anal fin originates slightly ahead of the second dorsal fin and has a deep notch in the posterior margin. The caudal fin is fairly high with a well-developed lower lobe.
The skin is densely covered by minute, overlapping dermal denticles. Each dermal denticle is diamond-shaped and bears horizontal ridges leading to posterior marginal teeth, which increase in number as the shark grows. The back is metallic golden-brown to dark gray and the belly is snowy white, which extends onto the flank as a faint lighter stripe. The fins (except for the first dorsal) darken at the tips; this is more obvious in young sharks. The coloration quickly fades to a dull gray after death. One of the largest members of its genus, the silky shark commonly reaches a length of 2.5 m (8.2 ft), with a maximum recorded length and weight of 3.5 m (11 ft) and 346 kg (763 lb), respectively. Females grow larger than males.
## Biology and ecology
The silky shark is one of the three most common pelagic sharks along with the blue and oceanic whitetip sharks, and counts among the most numerous large oceanic animals in the world with a population of at least tens of millions. Compared to the other two species, it is less strictly pelagic with the greatest numbers found in offshore waters associated with land, where food is more readily obtained than farther out in the truly open ocean. The silky shark is an active, inquisitive, and aggressive predator, though it will defer to the slower but more powerful oceanic whitetip shark in competitive situations. When approaching something of interest, it may seem inattentive, sedately circling and sometimes swinging its head from side to side. However, it can respond with startling swiftness to any shift in its immediate surroundings. This shark is often found around floating objects such as logs or tethered naval buoys.
Younger silky sharks are known to form large, loosely organized aggregations, possibly for mutual defense. During migrations, over a thousand individuals may gather. These groups are generally segregated by size, and in the Pacific perhaps also by sex. Silky sharks within a group have been observed to "tilt", presenting their full lateral profile towards each other, as well as gape their jaws or puff out their gills. On occasion, sharks have also been seen suddenly charging straight up, veering away just before reaching the surface and gliding back down to deeper water. The significance of these behaviors is unknown. When confronted, the silky shark may perform a threat display, in which it arches its back, drops its tail and pectoral fins, and elevates its head. The shark then proceeds to swim in tight loops with a stiff, jerky motion, often turning broadside towards the perceived threat.
Potential predators of the silky shark include larger sharks and killer whales (Orcinus orca). Known parasites of this shark include the isopod Gnathia trimaculata, the copepod Kroeyerina cortezensis, and the tapeworms Dasyrhynchus variouncinatus and Phyllobothrium sp. Silky sharks frequently intermingle with schools of scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini), and have been known to follow marine mammals. One account from the Red Sea describes 25 silky sharks following a large pod of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), along with 25 grey reef sharks (C. amblyrhynchos) and a lone silvertip shark (C. albimarginatus). Silky sharks are themselves accompanied by juvenile pilot fish (Naucrates ductor), which "ride" the pressure wave ahead of the shark, as well as by jacks, which snatch scraps of food and rub against the shark's skin to scrape off parasites.
### Feeding
The silky shark is an opportunistic predator, feeding mainly on bony fishes from all levels of the water column, including tuna, mackerel, sardines, mullets, groupers, snappers, mackerel scads, sea chubs, sea catfish, eels, lanternfishes, filefishes, triggerfishes, and porcupinefishes. It may also take squid, paper nautilus, and swimming crabs, and fossil evidence indicates it scavenged on whale carcasses. Good feeding opportunities can draw silky sharks in large numbers; one such feeding aggregation in the Pacific has been documented "herding" a school of small fishes into a compact mass (a bait ball) and trapping it against the surface, whereupon the sharks consumed the entire school. When attacking tightly packed fish, silky sharks charge through the ball and slash open-mouthed, catching the prey fish at the corners of their jaws. Although multiple individuals may feed at once, each launches its attack independently.
Studies conducted off the Florida coast and the Bahamas have shown that silky sharks are highly sensitive to sound, in particular low-frequency (10–20 Hz), irregular pulses. Experiments in which these sounds were played underwater attracted sharks from hundreds of meters away. Silky sharks likely orient to these sounds because they are similar to the noise generated by feeding animals such as birds or dolphins, thus indicating promising sources of food. These studies have also demonstrated that a silky shark attracted by one sound will quickly withdraw if that sound abruptly changes in amplitude or character; this change need not be a sound produced by a predator to evoke the reaction. Over repeated exposures, silky sharks habituate to the sound change and stop withdrawing, though it takes them much longer to do so compared to the bolder oceanic whitetip shark.
The bite force of a 2-m-long silky shark has been measured at 890 newtons (200 lbf). A well-established association exists between this species and tuna: off Ghana, almost every tuna school has silky sharks trailing behind, and in the eastern Pacific, these sharks inflict such damage to tuna fishing gear and catches that fishery workers have given them the moniker "net-eating sharks". Silky sharks and bottlenose dolphins compete when both species target the same school of fish; the amount eaten by the dolphins decreases relative to the number of sharks present. If a large number of sharks is present, they tend to remain inside the prey school, while the dolphins consign themselves to the periphery, possibly to avoid incidental injury from the sharks' slashing attacks. Conversely, if a large enough group of dolphins gathers, they become able to chase the sharks away from the prey school. Regardless of which one dominates, the two predators do not engage in any overtly aggressive behavior against each other.
### Life history
Like other members of its family, the silky shark is viviparous: once the developing embryo exhausts its supply of yolk, the depleted yolk sac is converted into a placental connection through which the mother delivers nourishment. Relative to other viviparous sharks, the placenta of the silky shark is less similar to the analogous mammalian structure in that no interdigitation exists between the tissues of the fetus and mother. Furthermore, the fetal red blood cells are much smaller than maternal blood cells, which is opposite the pattern seen in mammals. Adult females have a single functional ovary (on the right side) and two functional uteri, which are divided lengthwise into separate compartments for each embryo.
Silky sharks in most parts of the world are thought to reproduce year-round, whereas mating and birthing in the Gulf of Mexico take place in late spring or early summer (May to August). However, in some cases, the presence of reproductive seasonality may have been obscured by biases in data collection. Females give birth after a gestation period of 12 months, either every year or every other year. The litter size ranges from one to 16 and increases with female size, with six to 12 being typical. The pups are born in reef nursery areas on the outer continental shelf, where ample food supplies and protection from large pelagic sharks occur. The risk of predation has selected for fast growth in young sharks, which add 25–30 cm (9.8–11.8 in) to their length within their first year of life. After a few months (or by the first winter in the Gulf of Mexico), the now-subadult sharks migrate out from the nursery into the open ocean.
The life history characteristics of the silky shark differ across its range (see table). Northwestern Atlantic sharks tend to be larger than those in the western-central Pacific at all ages, while eastern Pacific sharks tend to be smaller than sharks in other regions. Eastern Atlantic and Indian Ocean sharks seem to match or exceed the size of northwestern Atlantic sharks, but the figures are based on relatively few individuals and more data are needed.
The overall growth rate of the silky shark is moderate compared to other shark species and similar for both sexes, though it varies significantly between individuals. One central Pacific study has found females growing much slower than males, but the results may have been skewed by missing data from large females. The highest reported growth rates are from sharks in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and the lowest from sharks off northeastern Taiwan. Males and females reach sexual maturity at ages of 6–10 years and 7–12+ years, respectively. Sharks from more temperate waters may grow slower and mature later than those in warmer regions. The maximum lifespan is at least 22 years.
## Human interactions
Given its formidable size and dentition, the silky shark is regarded as potentially dangerous to humans. However, it only rarely comes into contact with people due to its oceanic habits. Its natural curiosity and boldness may lead it to repeatedly and closely approach divers, and it can become dangerously excited in the presence of food. The silky shark tends to be more aggressive if encountered on a reef than in open water. Cases of individual sharks persistently harassing divers and even forcing them out of the water have been reported. As of May 2009, the International Shark Attack File lists six attacks attributable to the silky shark, three of them unprovoked and none fatal.
Large numbers of silky sharks are caught by commercial and artisanal multispecies shark fisheries operating off Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, the United States, Ecuador, Spain, Portugal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Yemen, and Côte d'Ivoire. Even greater numbers are caught incidentally by tuna longline and purse seine fisheries throughout its range, particularly those using fish aggregating devices. It is the most common shark caught as bycatch in the eastern Pacific and Gulf of Mexico tuna fisheries, and the second-most common shark caught as bycatch (next to the blue shark) overall. The fins are valued as an ingredient in shark fin soup, with captured sharks often finned at sea and the rest of the body discarded. Fins from an estimated one-half to one and a half million silky sharks are traded globally per year; it is the second- or third-most common species auctioned on the Hong Kong fin market, which represents over half the global trade. The meat (sold fresh or dried and salted), skin, and liver oil may also be used, as well as the jaws: this species is the predominant source of dried shark jaw curios sold to tourists in the tropics. Some sport fishers catch silky sharks.
### Conservation
As one of the most abundant and widely distributed sharks on Earth, the silky shark was once thought to be mostly immune to depletion despite heavy fishing mortality. In 1989 alone, some 900,000 individuals were taken as bycatch in the southern and central Pacific tuna longline fishery, seemingly without effect on the total population. Fishery data on this shark are often confounded by under-reporting, lack of species-level separation, and problematic identification. Nevertheless, mounting evidence indicates the silky shark has, in fact, declined substantially worldwide, a consequence of its modest reproductive rate which is unable to sustain such high levels of exploitation. The total annual catch reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization fell steadily from 11,680 tons in 2000 to 4,358 tons in 2004. Regional assessments have found similar trends, estimating declines of some 90% in the central Pacific from the 1950s to the 1990s, 60% off Costa Rica from 1991 to 2000, 91% in the Gulf of Mexico from the 1950s to the 1990s, and 85% (for all large requiem sharks) in the northwestern Atlantic from 1986 to 2005. The silky shark fishery off Sri Lanka reported a drop from a peak catch of 25,400 tons in 1994 to only 1,960 tons in 2006, indicative of a local stock collapse. However, Japanese fisheries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have recorded no change in catch rate between the 1970s and the 1990s, and the validity of the methodologies used to assess declines in the Gulf of Mexico and the northwestern Atlantic have come under much debate.
As of 2017, the silky shark is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a vulnerable species. The silky shark is listed on Annex I, Highly Migratory Species, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, though this has yet to result in any management schemes. The species should benefit from bans on shark finning, which are being increasingly implemented by nations and supranational entities, including the United States, Australia, and the European Union. Organizations such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission have also taken steps to improve fishery monitoring, with the ultimate goal of reducing shark bycatch. However, given the highly migratory nature of the silky shark and its association with tuna, no simple way is known to reduce bycatch without also affecting the economics of the fishery.
|
3,102,555 |
Boring Lava Field
| 1,170,843,880 |
Plio-Pleistocene volcanic field in Oregon, United States
|
[
"Cascade Volcanoes",
"Extinct volcanoes of the United States",
"Geography of Portland, Oregon",
"Lava fields",
"Pleistocene volcanism",
"Pliocene volcanism",
"Subduction volcanoes",
"Volcanic fields of Oregon",
"Volcanic fields of Washington (state)",
"Volcanoes of Oregon",
"Volcanoes of Washington (state)"
] |
The Boring Lava Field (also known as the Boring Volcanic Field) is a Plio-Pleistocene volcanic field with cinder cones, small shield volcanoes, and lava flows in the northern Willamette Valley of the U.S. state of Oregon and adjacent southwest Washington. The field got its name from the town of Boring, Oregon, located 12 miles (20 km) southeast of downtown Portland. Boring lies southeast of the densest cluster of lava vents. The zone became volcanically active about 2.7million years ago, with long periods of eruptive activity interspersed with quiescence. Its last eruptions took place about 57,000 years ago at the Beacon Rock cinder cone volcano; the individual volcanic vents of the field are considered extinct, but the field itself is not.
The Boring Lava Field covers an area of about 1,500 square miles (4,000 km<sup>2</sup>), and has a total volume of 2.4 cubic miles (10 km<sup>3</sup>). This region sustains diverse flora and fauna within its habitat areas, which are subject to Portland's moderate climate with variable temperatures and mild precipitation. The highest elevation of the field is at Larch Mountain, which reaches a height of 4,055 feet (1,236 m).
The Portland metropolitan area, including suburbs, is one of the few places in the continental United States to have extinct volcanoes within a city's limits, and the Boring Lava Field plays an important role in local affairs, including the development of the Robertson Tunnel, recreation, and nature parks. Because of the field's proximity to densely populated areas, eruptive activity would be a threat to human life and property, but the probability for future eruptions affecting the region is very low. The field may also influence future earthquakes in the area, as intrusive rock from its historic eruptions may affect ground movement.
## Geography
The Boring Lava deposits received their name based on their proximity to the town of Boring, which lies 12 miles (20 km) southeast of downtown Portland. The term "Boring Lava" is often used to refer to the local deposits erupted by vents in the field. They are located in the western portion of Oregon. The deposits were given this name by R. Treasher in 1942. In 2002, as geochemical and geochronological information on the Boring deposits accumulated, they were designated part of the larger Boring Lava Field. This grouping is somewhat informal and is based on similarities in age and lithology.
The Boring Lava deposits lie west of the town of Boring. The Global Volcanism Program lists the volcanic field's highest elevation as 4,055 feet (1,236 m), at Larch Mountain; most vents reach an elevation of 660 to 980 feet (200 to 300 m). Located in the Portland Basin, the field consists of monogenetic volcanic cones that appear as hills throughout the area, reaching heights of 650 feet (200 m) above their surroundings. The collection includes more than 80 small volcanic edifices and lava flows in the Portland–Vancouver metropolitan area, with the possibility of more volcanic deposits buried under sedimentary rock layers. The borders for the Boring Lava Field group are clear, except on the eastern side where distinguishing between Boring deposits and those from the major Cascade arc are less clear; many geologists have arbitrarily placed the eastern border at a longitude of 122degrees west. In total, the Boring Lava Field covers an area of about 1,500 square miles (4,000 km<sup>2</sup>), and it has a total volume of 2.4 cubic miles (10 km<sup>3</sup>).
### Physical geography
With a variable topography, the Portland area ranges from river valley floors to terraces reaching elevations of 400 feet (120 m). The Willamette Valley is marked by hills reaching heights of more than 1,000 feet (300 m), and it is also physically separated from the lower Columbia River valley. The Columbia River flows west from the eastern Portland region, merging with the Willamette near Portland before moving north. Tributaries for the Willamette include the Pudding, Molalla, Tualatin, Abernethy, and Clackamas Rivers; tributaries for the Columbia River include the Washougal and Sandy Rivers. The Columbia River has significantly shaped the geology of the area.
Multnomah Creek drains from Larch Mountain, one of the volcanic cones in Boring Lava Field. Local streams near the community of Boring receive seepage from the local aquifer. This unit, part of the greater Troutdale sandstone aquifer, is also made of sandstone and conglomerate and bears water well. It also supplies water to domestic wells in the Mount Norway area. Boring Lava is known to have formed intrusions into local sedimentary rock, and thus it may guide flow of groundwater locally.
Portland's climate is moderate, with long growing seasons, moderate rainfail, mild winters, and warm, dry summer seasons. The area has more than 200 frost-free days annually. Temperature can vary widely, reaching a historic maximum of 107 °F (42 °C), though the usual July maximum is below 80 °F (27 °C), and the average minimum for January is above 32 °F (0 °C). Yearly, precipitation averages between 35 to 45 inches (890 to 1,140 mm) in most river valleys, with a mean of 42.04 inches (1,068 mm) from 1871 through 1952. It shows variability, with a historic low of 26.11 inches (663 mm) at Portland in 1929 and a maximum of 67.24 inches (1,708 mm) in 1882. More than 75 percent of this precipitation occurs between October and March; July and August mark the driest months with means below 1 inch (25 mm), while November, December, and January represent the wettest with averages greater than 6 inches (150 mm). Prevailing winds originate from the south during winter and from the northwest during the summer season, with the exception of prevailing winds at the mouth of the Columbia River Gorge, where winds predominantly move to the east. The southern winds have the highest velocities of the three, only rarely occurring with potentially destructive force.
## Ecology
The Portland area has a moderate climate, and precipitation is not typically very heavy, allowing for significant growth of vegetation, which can hamper fieldwork in the area. Many forests that covered the area were partly cleared for agriculture, timber, or cemetery applications in the early 20th century. These cleared and burned land plots sustain rich stands of secondary forest, featuring gorse, huckleberry, nettles, poison oak, salal, and blackberry. Myriad species of fern, as well as rapid-growth deciduous trees like alder and vine maple are also frequent. Forests support stands of Douglas fir, western hemlock, western redcedar, Pacific dogwood, bigleaf maple, Oregon ash, red alder, cascara buckthorn, Pacific madrone, and Oregon white oak; within swamps and moist areas in creeks, the shrub Devil's club can be observed. Other trees that sometimes dominate forest areas include black cottonwood and red alder. Forest communities have many additional shrubs including Indian plum, western hazel, and snowberry. Ground layer plants include the herbaceous sword fern and stinging nettle.
In contemporary times, clearing of forests for housing development has left about half of the Boring Lava region un-forested. As a result, water quality has decreased due to higher sedimentation and turbidity, and flooding has worsened over time. Streams within the area are of either first or second order, with moderate to low flows and average gradients between 10 and 12percent. Cool and clear, many sustain macroinvertebrates, and a smaller number support amphibians and fish. The riparian zones in the Lava Field area host diverse species, and they are influenced by uplands that serve as migration connections for birds, mammals, reptiles, and some amphibians.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service provided a list of potentially threatened or endangered species in the Boring Lava area, labeling them "sensitive" species. Among plant species, they determined the following species to be sensitive: whitetop aster, golden Indian paintbrush, tall bugbane, pale larkspur, peacock larkspur, Willamette daisy, water howellia, Bradshaw's lomatium, Kincaid's lupine, Howell's montia, Nelson's checkermallow, and Oregon sullivantia. For animal and marine life, northwestern pond turtles, willow flycatchers, long-eared myotises, fringed myotises, long-legged myotises, Yuma myotises, Pacific western big-eared bats, and northern red-legged frogs have been identified as species of concern; pileated woodpeckers, bald eagles, cutthroat trout, and coho salmon are also considered sensitive.
## History
The nearby Portland area was inhabited by the Chinook people, though much of the local indigenous culture is poorly understood as a result of disturbance of archeological sites and artifacts by erosion and human development. Oral history, limited archeological evidence, and ethnographic research inform current knowledge about local Native American communities. The area surrounding Portland constituted one of the most densely populated communities in the Pacific Northwest, made up predominantly of Chinook people including the Multnomah and the Clackamas. In 1805 and 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark documented villages and encampments near what is now East Portland, trading with members of the community and describing their plank houses, language, customs, and material culture. Chinookian villages married amongst themselves and with members of the Tualatin tribe as well as the coastal Tillamook people. They imported slaves, traded among villages, and acted as intermediaries for the English and American fur trade. They also developed skill as craftspeople in making clothing, baskets, tools, and architecture. Local indigenous populations were greatly reduced after forced displacement and disease, but a small Native American community persists in Multnomah County.
The Portland area has historically been a center for trade since it was founded in 1845. With time, commerce has diversified. Iron mining and smelting was common between 1867 and 1894, with paper mills becoming established as an industry in 1885. Plants manufacturing cement and conducting aluminum reduction, and shipyards can be found in the region. Industrial chemical production represents an important industry in Portland. Most of these industries rely on resources outsourced from other areas, except for the paper industry; business is driven by low power costs and the local industrial mineral market. Other important manufacturing industries in the nearby region include food processing and logging.
In 1893 the Kelly Butte Natural Area was designated upon a petition from the Portland City Council. The park, a sect of public land 6 miles (9.7 km) to the southeast of downtown Portland named after a pioneer family, covers an area of 22.63 acres (9.16 ha), including part of the Boring Lava Field. Historically, it sustained a quarry, prompting the creation of the Kelly Butte Jail, which used prisoner labor (under guard supervision) to gather crushed rocks for building roads in Portland until the 1950s. In general, rocks from the Boring Lava Field have been used for masonry projects including retaining walls, garden walls, and rock gardens, especially oxidized and scoriaceous rocks. Despite the prevalence of quarrying activity in historical times, there is no ongoing mineral or aggregate resource mining near the Boring Lava Field.
In 1952, after a local vote, the Kelly Butte Civil Defense Center was built between 1955 and 1956, costing about \$670,000. The center was constructed to host local government agents should a nuclear attack on Portland occur; it had an area of 18,820 square feet (1,748 m<sup>2</sup>), intended to host 250 people in case an emergency government became necessary. It was known throughout the United States as a model facility for local governments, and in 1957, the docudrama A Day Called X included footage of the Defense Center. The center was left obsolete after a 1963 Portland City Council vote to abolish it passed; in 1968, just one permanent employee remained. Eventually the building was converted into an emergency services dispatch center from 1974 through 1994, when it was abandoned due to rising costs for renovation and space limitations. That same year the building was vacated, and then it was sealed off in 2006. A sixty-bed isolation hospital operated at Kelly Butte from September 1920 until 1960, supporting patients with communicable disease. A 10 million-US-gallon (38 millionL) water tank stood in the area from 1968 through 2010, when it was replaced with a 25 million-US-gallon (95 millionL) underground reservoir that cost \$100million, despite opposition from local environmental groups like the Friends of the Reservoirs. Historically, the park has also housed a police firing range, and Kelly Butte remains a recreational space today, administered jointly by Portland Parks and Recreation and the Portland Water Board.
In 1981, the Portland city government built a reservoir at the north end of Powell Butte (part of the Boring Lava Field), which still serves the city. In 1987, Portland government created Powell Butte Nature Park, covering 600 acres (240 ha) of meadows and forest within the city. Planning started in 1995 for a second water reservoir in the area, which was built between 2011 and 2014. The new reservoir is underground, buried under topsoil and native plants, and it has a volume of 50 millionUS gallons (190 million L). With the new reservoir came improvements to the Powell Butte park, including resurfaced and realigned trails, reduced environmental impacts, better accessibility measures, and reduction of steep grades. The government also built a visitor center, caretaker's house, public restrooms, maintenance yard, and a permeable parking area that permitted filtration of rainwater through asphalt to an underground stone bed, where it could be absorbed by the soil and then into the nearest aquifer.
Built between 1993 and 1998, the Robertson Tunnel runs for 2.9 miles (4.7 km) through the Tualatin Mountains. It contains Washington Park station, the deepest train station in North America, located 260 feet (80 m) underground. The station displays a core that exhibits Boring Lava deposits. For the first 3,900 feet (1,200 m) of the tunnel, the core shows Boring lava flows with cinder, breccia, and loess dated from 1.47million to 120,000 years ago, which have been deformed by the Sylvan fault. With the Oatfield fault, the Sylvan fault trends to the northwest, extending 9.3 miles (15 km) northwest and 16 miles (25 km) southeast of the tunnel. It is of Quaternary age and lacks surface expression, possibly as a result of its extensive burial by loess along its length.
In 2000, the nonprofit Friends of Mt. Tabor Park was formed to help maintain the Mount Tabor Park area, located 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east of downtown Portland. They have an organizational website and publish a bi-annual newsletter called the Tabor Times. Membership requires dues, and they also rely on donations and a gift shop for financial support.
In September 2017, the Hogan Butte Nature Park opened in the city of Gresham, encompassing an area of 46 acres (19 ha) that includes the extinct Boring Lava Field volcano Hogan Butte. This park opened after more than 25 years of processing, supported by a 1990 bond from the city and two regional Metro bonds. Collaborators for opening the park include the U.S. Forest Service, local citizens, Metro, The Trust for Public Land, and the Buttes Conservancy organization. Gresham is one of just a few places in the United States with volcanoes contained in its city limits. Mount Sylvania and Mount Scott lie within the limits of Portland, in the southwestern and southeastern parts of the city, respectively.
## Geology
There are 90 volcanic centers within a 20-mile (32 km) radius of Troutdale and more than 32 vents within a 13-mile (21 km) radius of Kelly Butte. Mostly small cinder cone vents, these volcanoes also include some larger lava domes from shield volcanoes at Mount Sylvania, Highland Butte, and Larch Mountain. The Boring Lava Field marks the densest volcanic vicinity in this group, encompassing an area of 36 square miles (93 km<sup>2</sup>). It includes more than 80 known small vents and associated lava flows, with more volcanic deposits likely present under sedimentary rock deposits from the Missoula Floods (also known as the Bretz or Ice Age Floods), which took place between 21,000 and 15,000 years ago and probably destroyed small cinder cones (including those made from tuff) and maar craters, burying them under up to 98 feet (30 m) of silt from slack water. The Global Volcanism Program reports that the field includes somewhere between 32 and 50 shield volcanoes and cinder cones, with many vents concentrated northwest of the town of Boring.
### Regional setting
Considered an outlier of the Cascade Range, the Boring Lava Field lies about 62 miles (100 km) to the west of the major Cascade crest. It marks one of five volcanic fields along the Quaternary Cascade arc, along with Indian Heaven, Tumalo in Oregon, the Mount Bachelor chain, and Caribou in California. Like the Cascade Range, the Boring field was also generated by subduction of the oceanic Juan de Fuca tectonic plate under the North American tectonic plate, but it has a different tectonic position, with its eruptive activity more likely related to tectonic rifting throughout the region. The Boring Lava Field has erupted material derived from hot mantle magma, and the subducting Juan de Fuca plate may be as shallow as 50 miles (80 km) in depth at their location.
The High Cascades, a segment of the Cascade volcanic arc that includes the Boring Lava Field, is characterized by basaltic lava flows with andesite, tuff breccia, and volcanic ash. The High Cascades may lie over a graben (a depressed block of the Earth's crust bordered by parallel faults), and activity at the Boring field and throughout the Portland area may be associated with deformation of the block. Portland lies within the Portland Basin, part of the forearc (the region between an oceanic trench and the associated volcanic arc) between the Cascades major arc and the Pacific Coast Ranges, which consist of Eocene to Miocene marine sedimentary rock deposits and Eocene intrusions and extrusions of basalt that were emplaced on the Siletz terrane. The eastern boundary for the Portland Basin is the Cascades, while the Tualatin Mountains lie to the west, along an anticline formation that has been changing since the Miocene. The Boring Lava Field sits on the floor of the Portland Basin, residing in the forearc setting between tectonic extension to the south and compression to the north. The uneven distribution of vents within this forearc suggests a local zone of crustal expansion. Over the last 2.7million years, the volcanic field has irregularly rotated clockwise and migrated to the northwest at an average rate of 0.37 inches (9.3 mm) ± 0.063 inches (1.6 mm) per year relative to the surrounding crust. This northwest trending is consistent with other faults in the nearby area. The Boring Lava Field represents the youngest episode of volcanism within the Cascade forearc, and while there is no evidence that they were associated with a slab window (a gap that forms in a subducted oceanic plate when a mid-ocean ridge meets with a subduction zone and plate divergence at the ridge and convergence at the subduction zone continue, causing the ridge to be subducted), they likely interacted with the regional mantle wedge.
### Composition and local setting
The Boring Lava Field shows a similar composition to the High Cascades that run through Oregon and southern Washington state, with Pliocene to Pleistocene basalt lava flows and breccias. It was active during the late Tertiary into the early Quaternary. Within the field, lava shows a diverse composition overall, varying from low-K, tholeiitic to high-K, calc-alkaline eruptive products. Some of the low-K tholeiite deposits likely originated from vents closer to the High Cascades, and they are overlain by Boring Lava materials. J. M. Shempert, a geologist at Portland State University, proposed that mantle sources for the two different lava types may be different and that the calc-alkaline sources are more refractory.
Like the surrounding High Cascades, Boring Lava Field erupted lava made of olivine basalt and basaltic andesite; these sub-alkaline basalts and basaltic andesite predominate among Boring Lava deposits. The olivine basalt deposits have fine to medium textures, and the basaltic andesite lava flow deposits have relatively little pyroclastic rock in them, suggesting that explosive eruptions were uncommon within the field. Dark gray to light gray in color, Boring Lava produces columnar and platy joints, which can be seen in Oregon east of Portland and in Clark County in Washington state. It is usually phyric, though one sample from Rocky Butte consists of labradorite with olivine phenocrysts that have been transformed to iddingsite. The Boring Lava reaches thicknesses of more than 400 feet (120 m). Boring Lava has a more mafic (rich in magnesium in iron) composition than the nearby volcano Mount Hood, but they are similar in age. There is a small amount of andesite in the lavas from the field, mostly erupted from monogenetic vents or Larch Mountain. Sometimes, Boring Lava overlaps with volcaniclastic conglomerate from other Cascade eruptions in Multnomah County and the northern part of Clackamas County. The Boring Lava also contains tuff, cinder, and scoria; it is characterized by plagioclase laths that show a pilotaxitic texture with spaces between them that show a diktytaxitic texture. The Boring Lava exposures show aeromagnetic anomalies with short wavelengths and high amplitudes suggestive of their relatively young geological ages.
At points where the Boring Lava sits over Troutdale Formation deposits, landslides are frequent, producing steep head scarps with heights of up to 66 feet (20 m). These scarps tend to have grabens at their bases and Boring Lava blocks at their tops, and they show variable slide surfaces from hummocky to flat. A number of these exposures show dips up to 35degrees, as well as minor faults. The landslides range in thickness from 20 to 79 feet (6 to 24 m). Portland's wet climate leads to weathering, which at the Boring Lava Field has reached depths of up to 25 feet (7.6 m), altering the upper 5 to 15 feet (1.5 to 4.6 m) of soil to a red, clay-like material. At the cinder cone in Mount Tabor Park, an outcrop of quartzite-pebble xenoliths (rock fragments enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification) can be observed among local cinder specimens, dating from Miocene to Pliocene Troutdale deposits. While the volcanic rock of Boring Lava was being emplaced over rock from the Troutdale formation, there was deformation that uplifted and dropped fault blocks to the southeast of Portland. Along the Washougal River, a large landslide occurred as a result of failure due to the Boring Lava pushing down on rock from the Troutdale formation. Intrusions of Boring Lava formed outcrops at Highland Butte, La Butte, and potentially in the subsurface regions near Aurora and Curtis, and these intrusions have been associated with normal faulting at Parrett and Petes Mountain, Aurora, Curtis, and Swan Island (along the Molalla River). Faults together with igneous intrusions are usually accompanied by stretching and doming as a result of magma influxes or collapses from the evacuation of the magma flows. Similarly, faults north of Oregon City might have resulted from subsidence after magma chambers emptied or lava was extruded as a result of Boring Lava eruptions. Some of the Boring Lava vents cut off hydrogeologic units in the surrounding area.
Eruptive vents on the western edge of the field formed along a fault line that trended to the northeast, located north of present-day Carver. Boring Lava was erupted by vents in the volcanic field, and it has been exposed at elevated topographic levels in intact volcanic cones and dissected lava plains. There is likely more lava deposited under Quaternary sedimentary mantle throughout the region, though activity was confined to a relatively concentrated area.
### Subfeatures
D. E. Trimble (1963) argued that the Boring Lava Field was produced by eruptive activity at 30 volcanic centers; these include shield and cinder cone volcanoes. J. E. Allen reported 95 vents in 1975, dividing them into four clusters: 17 vents north of the Columbia River, 14 vents west of the Willamette River, 19 vents east of the Willamette River and north of Powell Valley Road, and 45 vents east of the Willamette River and south of Powell Valley Road (Highway 26). Of these, 42 were unnamed, and several volcanoes contained multiple vents. Generally, all lava flows in the field can be traced to specific vents in the field, but documented source vents have mostly been confirmed through chemical analysis or petrographic comparisons, with a few exceptions.
In the eastern part of the Boring cluster, volcanic vents have average diameters less than 1.6 miles (2.6 km), with average heights less than 1,090 feet (330 m) from base to summit. The lava flows from Highland Butte and Larch Mountain, both shield volcanoes, encompass a wide area, the Boring Lava deposits averaging thicknesses of 100 to 200 feet (30 to 61 m) not considering areas next to volcanic cones in the field. Most of the summit craters have been destroyed, though there are partial craters at Bobs Hill (located 20.5 miles (33.0 km) northeast of Portland) and Battle Ground Lake (located 20.5 miles (33.0 km) north of Portland); Mount Scott also has an intact summit crater. Many of its vents retain the shape of a volcanic cone, with loess extending above an elevation of 400 feet (120 m). The Rocky Butte plug, which reaches a height of 330 feet (100 m) above its surroundings, was dated to 125,000 ± 40,000 years old by R. Evarts and B. Fleck from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Mount Tabor is also prominent in the area, dated by the USGS to 203,000 ± 5,000 years old, as are Kelly Butte, Powell Butte, and Mount Scott. Scott has been dated to 1.6million years ago.
A series of lava tubes were documented near the Catlin Gabel School along the western slope of the Portland Hills. These formations, created by lava flows cooling at the surface while their hot interior kept draining, were first identified by R. J. Deacon in 1968, then analyzed by L. R. Squier in 1970; they were studied in greater detail by J. E. Allen and his team in 1974. The Catlin Gabel tubes lie among cinder cones and lava flows from the Pliocene to Pleistocene, and they are the oldest known lava tubes in Oregon, older than the Holocene. The tubes were produced by a small vent at the southern end of the northern segment of the field, extending 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from its base to the south and then the west. They originated from the uppermost lava flow from a series of eruptions that ran into a valley on the western slope of the Portland Hills. The Catlin Gabel tubes have a width of 2,500 feet (760 m), with slopes averaging 150 feet (46 m) per mile for an average grade of 3percent. On average, these tubes have a thickness of 235 feet (72 m) near their center, with an upper lava unit thickness of 90 feet (27 m) that has since been modified by erosion and the deposition of up to 30 feet (9.1 m) of Portland Hills silt. The Catlin Gabel tubes also sit atop 434 feet (132 m) of silt from the Troutdale Formation. Running along the tube's arc are five depressions, which were created through the collapsing roofs of the lava tubes within a subsegment that is 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in length. The characteristics of the tube system are not well documented, since only the collapsed segments are accessible. Some of the channels have been reduced to rubble, and analysis has revealed that they trended northwest, had widths up to 40 feet (12 m) and depths no more than 60 feet (18 m), and required special engineering procedures to permit the construction of a 15-story building above them.
### Oregon vents
The following vents are in Oregon:
### Washington vents
The following vents are in Washington:
## Eruptive history
Eruptions at Boring Lava Field occur in a concentrated manner, often in clusters of three to six vents, as at Bobs Mountain and Portland Hills. These types of vents typically produced similar types of magma in relatively short periods of time, and they also frequently show alignment. Vents in the field have generally produced basalt and basaltic andesite, with some andesitic eruptions, including those that produced the Larch Mountain shield volcano.
Prior to the 1990s, there was little potassium-argon dating data available for the lava field, and despite the field's proximity to an urban area, little was known about its composition until recent years. Weathering, fine grain size, and glassy content further limit argon–argon dating for the field. Recent argon–argon dating suggests that eruptive activity at the Boring Lava Field began between 2.6 and 2.4million years ago, yielding far-reaching basalt lava flows, the Highland Butte shield volcano, a number of monogenetic vents, and one andesitic lava flow. These took place near the southern Portland Basin, and were followed by about 750,000 years of quiescence. About 1.6million years ago, eruptive activity resumed to the north of the previously active area, with alkalic basalt lava flows generating the Mount Scott shield volcano. As eruptions shifted to the east over time, the Larch Mountain volcano was produced by eruptions in the foothills of the Cascade Range. Activity spread out over the area, extending to its current expansive state about one million years ago. In addition to spreading out geographically, the lava composition in the field's vents became more diverse. This period continued until about 500,000 years ago, with no activity until about 350,000 years ago, after which activity continued through roughly 60,000 to 50,000 years ago according to several sources, or about 120,000 years ago according to I. P. Madin (2009). R. Evarts and Fleck originally reported that lava flows at the Barnes Road deposit of the field represented the youngest eruptive products in the Boring area, with a radiometric dating age of 105,000 ± 6,000 years. These eruptions followed a relatively even age distribution over time; younger vents and associated deposits lie in the northern portion of the field, while older deposits are confined to the south.
The products of the Boring Lava Field were erupted discontinuously over an erosion surface. Activity took place during the late Tertiary and early Quaternary, in what is now the Portland area as well as the surrounding area, with a particularly concentrated pocket of activity to the east. Nearly all of these eruptions were confined to single vents or small vent complexes, with the exception of a lava plain southeast of present-day Oregon City. Boring Lava generally consists of flowing lava; only one eruptive deposit contains tuff, ash, and tuff breccia, and one vent to the northeast of the Carver area displayed evidence of explosive eruptions that later became effusive.
### Recent activity and current threats
Sometime less than 100,000 years ago, magma at Battle Ground Lake in Washington state interacted with water to form the eponymous maar volcano, destroying a lava flow dated to 100,000 years ago. The last volcanic center to form in the field was Beacon Rock, a cinder cone produced by eruptions about 57,000 years ago, which was eroded by the Missoula Floods to leave only its central volcanic plug. While the known volcanic vents in the Boring Lava Field are extinct, the field itself is not considered extinct. The probability of future eruptions in the Portland–Vancouver metropolitan area is very low. It is rare that more than 50,000 years pass without an eruption in the region; given the past eruptive history of the field, an eruption is predicted to occur once every 15,000 years on average.
About half of the Boring Lava Field eruptions took place in what are today densely populated areas of the Portland–Vancouver metropolitan area. Though the formation of a small cinder cone vent might not extend far beyond its surroundings, depending on location, similar eruptions could lead to deposition of volcanic ash that could lead to serious infrastructural consequences, covering large areas. A larger eruption, like the ones that built Larch Mountain or Mount Sylvania, could span years to decades. It is unclear where exactly a future eruption might take place, but it would probably occur in the northern portion of the field.
Many seismic faults in the northeastern section of the northern Willamette Valley formed as a result of intrusions of Boring Lava, as supported by their orientation, lengths, displacements, age, and proximity to Boring Lava intrusions. Though intrusions from any future eruptions at the Boring field are "probably minimal", Boring Lava might play a role in determining the intensity of ground shaking during future earthquakes in the area.
## Recreation
Trails in the city of Gresham travel over parts of the Boring Lava Field and its cones. Mount Tabor and Powell Butte are better known for their recreational uses than other cones; Powell Butte Nature Park has 9 miles (14 km) of trails. The Mt. Tabor Park is open to bicyclists and pedestrians from 5 a.m. through midnight and to motorized vehicles from 5 a.m. through 10 p.m. each day, except for Wednesdays when the park roads are not open to automobiles. The Hogan Butte Nature Park offers views of Mount Adams, Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helens, as well as running trails and sites for picnicking.
In addition to the nature park on Hogan Butte, a number of smaller cinder cones are also publicly accessible. The Gresham Saddle Trail traverses Gresham Butte and Gabbert Butte, running for 3.3 to 3.7 miles (5.3 to 6.0 km). The trail is considered to be of moderate difficulty, and it offers no amenities. It includes the Gabbert Loop Trail, which extends for 1 mile (1.6 km) through forests of maples, alders, ferns, and firs.
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Scotland in the High Middle Ages
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Scotland between about 900 and 1286 CE
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"History of Scotland by period",
"Scotland in the High Middle Ages"
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The High Middle Ages of Scotland encompass Scotland in the era between the death of Domnall II in 900 AD and the death of King Alexander III in 1286, which was an indirect cause of the Wars of Scottish Independence.
At the close of the ninth century, various competing kingdoms occupied the territory of modern Scotland. Scandinavian influence was dominant in the northern and western islands, Brythonic culture in the southwest, the Anglo-Saxon or English Kingdom of Northumbria in the southeast and the Pictish and Gaelic Kingdom of Alba in the east, north of the River Forth. By the tenth and eleventh centuries, northern Great Britain was increasingly dominated by Gaelic culture, and by the Gaelic regal lordship of Alba, known in Latin as either Albania or Scotia, and in English as "Scotland". From its base in the east, this kingdom acquired control of the lands lying to the south and ultimately the west and much of the north. It had a flourishing culture, comprising part of the larger Gaelic-speaking world and an economy dominated by agriculture and trade.
After the twelfth-century reign of King David I, the Scottish monarchs are better described as Scoto-Norman than Gaelic, preferring French culture to native Scottish culture. A consequence was the spread of French institutions and social values including Canon law. The first towns, called burghs, appeared in the same era, and as they spread, so did the Middle English language. These developments were offset by the acquisition of the Norse-Gaelic west and the Gaelicisation of many of the noble families of French and Anglo-French origin. National cohesion was fostered with the creation of various unique religious and cultural practices. By the end of the period, Scotland experienced a "Gaelic revival", which created an integrated Scottish national identity. By 1286, these economic, institutional, cultural, religious and legal developments had brought Scotland closer to its neighbours in England and the Continent, although outsiders continued to view Scotland as a provincial, even savage place. By this date, the Kingdom of Scotland had political boundaries that closely resembled those of the modern nation.
## Historiography
Scotland in the High Middle Ages is a relatively well-studied topic and Scottish medievalists have produced a wide variety of publications. Some, such as David Dumville, Thomas Owen Clancy and Dauvit Broun, are primarily interested in the native cultures of the country, and often have linguistic training in the Celtic languages. Normanists, such as G.W.S. Barrow, are concerned with the Norman and Scoto-Norman cultures introduced to Scotland after the eleventh century. For much of the twentieth century, historians tended to stress the cultural change that took place in Scotland during this time. However, scholars such as Cynthia Neville and Richard Oram, while not ignoring cultural changes, argue that continuity with the Gaelic past was just as, if not more, important.
Since the publication of Scandinavian Scotland by Barbara E. Crawford in 1987, there has been a growing volume of work dedicated to the understanding of Norse influence in this period. However, from 849 on, when Columba's relics were removed from Iona in the face of Viking incursions, written evidence from local sources in the areas under Scandinavian influence all but vanishes for three hundred years. The sources for information about the Hebrides and indeed much of northern Scotland from the eighth to the eleventh century, are thus almost exclusively Irish, English or Norse. The main Norse texts were written in the early thirteenth century and should be treated with care. The English and Irish sources are more contemporary, but according to historian Alex Woolf, may have "led to a southern bias in the story", especially as much of the Hebridean archipelago became Norse-speaking during this period.
There are various traditional clan histories dating from the nineteenth century such as the "monumental" The Clan Donald and a significant corpus of material from the Gaelic oral tradition that relates to this period, although their value is questionable.
## Origins of the Kingdom of Alba
At the close of the ninth century, various polities occupied Scotland. The Pictish and Gaelic Kingdom of Alba had just been united in the east; the Scandinavian-influenced Kingdom of the Isles emerged in the west. Ragnall ua Ímair was a key figure at this time although the extent to which he ruled territory in western and northern Scotland including the Hebrides and Northern Isles is unknown as contemporary sources are silent on this matter. Dumbarton, the capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde had been sacked by the Uí Ímair in 870. This was clearly a major assault, which may have brought the whole of mainland Scotland under temporary Uí Imair control. The south-east had been absorbed by the English Kingdom of Bernicia/Northumbria in the seventh century. Galloway in the southwest was a Lordship with some regality. In a Galwegian charter dated to the reign of Fergus, the Galwegian ruler styled himself rex Galwitensium, King of Galloway. In the northeast the ruler of Moray was called not only "king" in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but before Máel Snechtai, "King of Alba".
However, when Domnall mac Causantín died at Dunnottar in 900, he was the first man to be recorded as rí Alban and his kingdom was the nucleus that would expand as Viking and other influences waned. In the tenth century, the Alban elite had begun to develop a conquest myth to explain their increasing Gaelicisation at the expense of Pictish culture. Known as MacAlpin's Treason, it describes how Cináed mac Ailpín is supposed to have annihilated the Picts in one fell takeover. However, modern historians are now beginning to reject this conceptualization of Scottish origins. No contemporary sources mention this conquest. Moreover, the Gaelicisation of Pictland was a long process predating Cináed, and is evidenced by Gaelic-speaking Pictish rulers, Pictish royal patronage of Gaelic poets, and Gaelic inscriptions and placenames. The change of identity can perhaps be explained by the death of the Pictish language, but also important may be Causantín II's alleged Scoticisation of the "Pictish" Church and the trauma caused by Viking invasions, most strenuously felt in the Pictish kingdom's heartland of Fortriu.
## Scandinavian-influenced territories
### Kingdom of the Isles
The Kingdom of the Isles comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the Norðreyjar or "Northern Isles" of Orkney and Shetland, which were held by the Earls of Orkney as vassals of the Norwegian crown throughout the High Middle Ages.
After Ragnall ua Ímair, Amlaíb Cuarán, who fought at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 and who also became King of Northumbria, is the next King of the Isles on record. In the succeeding years Norse sources also list various rulers such as Gilli, Sigurd the Stout, Håkon Eiriksson and Thorfinn Sigurdsson as rulers over the Hebrides as vassals of the Kings of Norway or Denmark.
Godred Crovan became the ruler of Dublin and Mann from 1079 and from the early years of the twelfth century the Crovan dynasty asserted themselves and ruled as "Kings of Mann and the Isles" for the next half-century. The kingdom was then sundered due to the actions of Somerled whose sons inherited the southern Hebrides while the Manx rulers held on to the "north isles" for another century.
### The North
The Scandinavian influence in Scotland was probably at its height in the mid eleventh century during the time of Thorfinn Sigurdsson, who attempted to create a single political and ecclesiastical domain stretching from Shetland to Man. The permanent Scandinavian holdings in Scotland at that time must therefore have been at least a quarter of the land area of modern Scotland.
By the end of the eleventh century, the Norwegian crown had come to accept that Caithness was held by the Earls of Orkney as a fiefdom from the Kings of Scotland although its Norse character was retained throughout the thirteenth century. Raghnall mac Gofraidh was granted Caithness after assisting the Scots king in a conflict with Harald Maddadson, an earl of Orkney in the early thirteenth century.
In the ninth century, Orcadian control stretched into Moray, which was a semi-independent kingdom for much of this early period. The Moray rulers Macbeth (1040–1057) and his successor Lulach (1057–1058) became rulers of the entire Scottish kingdom for a time. However, Moray was subjugated by the Scottish kings after 1130, when the native ruler, Óengus of Moray was killed leading a rebellion. Another revolt in 1187 was equally unsuccessful.
### South west Scotland
By the mid-tenth century Amlaíb Cuarán controlled The Rhinns and the region gets the modern name of Galloway from the mixture of Viking and Gaelic Irish settlement that produced the Gall-Gaidel. Magnus Barelegs is said to have "subdued the people of Galloway" in the eleventh century and Whithorn seems to have been a centre of Hiberno-Norse artisans who traded around the Irish Sea by the end of the first millennium. However, the place name, written and archaeological evidence of extensive Norse (as opposed to Norse-Gael) settlement in the area is not convincing.
The ounceland system seems to have become widespread down the west coast including much of Argyll, and most of the southwest apart from a region near the inner Solway Firth. In Dumfries and Galloway the place name evidence is complex and of mixed Gaelic, Norse and Danish influence, the last most likely stemming from contact with the extensive Danish holdings in northern England. Although the Scots obtained greater control after the death of Gilla Brigte and the accession of Lochlann in 1185, Galloway was not fully absorbed by Scotland until 1235, after the rebellion of the Galwegians was crushed.
## Strathclyde
The main language of Strathclyde and elsewhere in the Hen Ogledd in the opening years of the High Middle Ages was Cumbric, a variety of the British language akin to Old Welsh. Sometime after 1018 and before 1054, the kingdom appears to have been conquered by the Scots, most probably during the reign of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda who died in 1034. At this time the territory of Strathclyde extended as far south as the River Derwent. In 1054, the English king Edward the Confessor dispatched Earl Siward of Northumbria against the Scots, then ruled by Macbeth. By the 1070s, if not earlier in the reign of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, it appears that the Scots again controlled Strathclyde, although William Rufus annexed the southern portion in 1092. The territory was granted by Alexander I to his brother David, later King David I, in 1107.
## Kingdom of Alba or Scotia
### Gaelic kings: Domnall II to Alexander I
Domnall mac Causantín's nickname was dásachtach. This simply meant a madman, or, in early Irish law, a man not in control of his functions and hence without legal culpability. The following long reign (900–942/3) of his successor Causantín is more often regarded as the key to the formation of the Kingdom of Alba.
The period between the accession of Máel Coluim I and Máel Coluim mac Cináeda was marked by good relations with the Wessex rulers of England, intense internal dynastic disunity and, despite this, relatively successful expansionary policies. In 945, king Máel Coluim I received Strathclyde as part of a deal with King Edmund of England, an event offset somewhat by Máel Coluim's loss of control in Moray. Sometime in the reign of king Idulb (954–962), the Scots captured the fortress called oppidum Eden, i.e. Edinburgh. Scottish control of Lothian was strengthened with Máel Coluim II's victory over the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham (1018). The Scots had probably some authority in Strathclyde since the later part of the ninth century, but the kingdom kept its own rulers, and it is not clear that the Scots were always strong enough to enforce their authority.
The reign of King Donnchad I from 1034 was marred by failed military adventures, and he was killed in a battle with the men of Moray, led by Macbeth who became king in 1040. Macbeth ruled for seventeen years, peaceful enough that he was able to leave to go on pilgrimage to Rome; however, he was overthrown by Máel Coluim, the son of Donnchad, who some months later defeated Macbeth's stepson and successor Lulach to become king Máel Coluim III. In subsequent medieval propaganda, Donnchad's reign was portrayed positively while Macbeth was vilified; William Shakespeare followed this distorted history with his portrayal of both the king and his queen consort, Gruoch, in his play Macbeth.
It was Máel Coluim III, not his father Donnchad, who did more to create the dynasty that ruled Scotland for the following two centuries. Part of the resource was the large number of children he had, perhaps as many as a dozen, through marriage to the widow or daughter of Thorfinn Sigurdsson and afterwards to the Anglo-Hungarian princess Margaret, granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. However, despite having a royal Anglo-Saxon wife, Máel Coluim spent much of his reign conducting slave raids against the English, adding to the woes of that people in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of England and the Harrying of the North. Marianus Scotus narrates that "the Gaels and French devastated the English; and [the English] were dispersed and died of hunger; and were compelled to eat human flesh".
Máel Coluim's Queen Margaret was the sister of the native claimant to the English throne, Edgar Ætheling. This marriage, and Máel Coluim's raids on northern England, prompted interference by the Norman rulers of England in the Scottish kingdom. King William the Conqueror invaded and Máel Coluim submitted to his authority, giving his oldest son Donnchad as a hostage. From 1079 onwards there were various cross-border raids by both parties and Máel Coluim himself and Edward, his eldest son by Margaret, died in one of them in the Battle of Alnwick, in 1093.
Tradition would have made his brother Domnall Bán Máel Coluim's successor, but it seems that Edward, his eldest son by Margaret, was his chosen heir. With Máel Coluim and Edward dead in the same battle, and his other sons in Scotland still young, Domnall was made king. However, Donnchad II, Máel Coluim's eldest son by his first wife, obtained some support from William Rufus and took the throne. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle his English and French followers were massacred, and Donnchad II himself was killed later in the same year (1094) by Domnall's ally Máel Petair of Mearns. In 1097, William Rufus sent another of Máel Coluim's sons, Edgar, to take the kingship. The ensuing death of Domnall Bán secured the kingship for Edgar, and there followed a period of relative peace. The reigns of both Edgar and his successor Alexander are obscure by comparison with their successors. The former's most notable act was to send a camel (or perhaps an elephant) to his fellow Gael Muircheartach Ua Briain, High King of Ireland. When Edgar died, Alexander took the kingship, while his youngest brother David became Prince of Cumbria.
### Scoto-Norman kings: David I to Alexander III
The period between the accession of David I and the death of Alexander III was marked by dependency upon and relatively good relations with the Kings of England. The period can be regarded as one of great historical transformation, part of a more general phenomenon, which has been called "Europeanisation". The period also witnessed the successful imposition of royal authority across most of the modern country. After David I, and especially in the reign of William I, Scotland's Kings became ambivalent about the culture of most of their subjects. As Walter of Coventry tells us, "The modern kings of Scotland count themselves as Frenchmen, in race, manners, language and culture; they keep only Frenchmen in their household and following, and have reduced the Gaels to utter servitude."
This situation was not without consequence. In the aftermath of William's capture at Alnwick in 1174, the Scots turned on the small number of Middle English-speakers and French-speakers among them. William of Newburgh related that the Scots first attacked the Scoto-English in their own army, and Newburgh reported a repetition of these events in Scotland itself. Walter Bower, writing a few centuries later about the same events confirms that "there took place a most wretched and widespread persecution of the English both in Scotland and Galloway".
The first instance of strong opposition to the Scottish kings was perhaps the revolt of Óengus, the Mormaer of Moray. Other important resistors to the expansionary Scottish kings were Somerled, Fergus of Galloway, Gille Brigte, Lord of Galloway and Harald Maddadsson, along with two kin-groups known today as the MacHeths and the MacWilliams. The threat from the latter was so grave that, after their defeat in 1230, the Scottish crown ordered the public execution of the infant girl who happened to be the last of the MacWilliam line. According to the Lanercost Chronicle:
> the same Mac-William's daughter, who had not long left her mother's womb, innocent as she was, was put to death, in the burgh of Forfar, in view of the market place, after a proclamation by the public crier. Her head was struck against the column of the market cross, and her brains dashed out.
Many of these resistors collaborated, and drew support not just in the peripheral Gaelic regions of Galloway, Moray, Ross and Argyll, but also from eastern "Scotland-proper", and elsewhere in the Gaelic world. However, by the end of the twelfth century, the Scottish kings had acquired the authority and ability to draw in native Gaelic lords outside their previous zone of control in order to do their work, the most famous examples being Lochlann, Lord of Galloway and Ferchar mac in tSagairt. By the reign of Alexander III, the Scots were in a strong position to annex the remainder of the western seaboard, which they did following Haakon Haakonarson's ill-fated invasion and the stalemate of the Battle of Largs with the Treaty of Perth in 1266. The conquest of the west, the creation of the Mormaerdom of Carrick in 1186 and the absorption of the Lordship of Galloway after the Galwegian revolt of Gille Ruadh in 1235 meant that Gaelic speakers under the rule of the Scottish king formed a majority of the population during the so-called Norman period. The integration of Gaelic, Norman and Saxon cultures that began to occur may have been the platform that enabled King Robert I to emerge victorious during the Wars of Independence, which followed soon after the death of Alexander III.
## Geography
At the beginning of this period, the boundaries of Alba contained only a small proportion of modern Scotland. Even when these lands were added to in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the term Scotia was applied in sources only to the region between the River Forth, the central Grampians and the River Spey and only began to be used to describe all of the lands under the authority of the Scottish crown from the second half of the twelfth century. By the late thirteenth century when the Treaty of York (1237) and Treaty of Perth (1266) had fixed the boundaries with the Kingdom of the Scots with England and Norway respectively, its borders were close to the modern boundaries. After this time both Berwick and the Isle of Man were lost to England, and Orkney and Shetland were gained from Norway in the fifteenth century.
The area that became Scotland in this period is divided by geology into five major regions: the Southern Uplands, Central Lowlands, the Highlands, the North-east coastal plain and the Islands. Some of these were further divided by mountains, major rivers and marshes. Most of these regions had strong cultural and economic ties elsewhere: to England, Ireland, Scandinavian and mainland Europe. Internal communications were difficult and the country lacked an obvious geographical centre. Dunfermline emerged as a major royal centre in the reign of Malcolm III and Edinburgh began to be used to house royal records in the reign of David I, but, perhaps because of its proximity and vulnerability to England, it did not become a formal capital in this period.
The expansion of Alba into the wider Kingdom of Scotland was a gradual process combining external conquest and the suppression of occasional rebellions with the extension of seigniorial power through the placement of effective agents of the crown. Neighbouring independent kings became subject to Alba and eventually disappeared from the records. In the ninth century the term mormaer, meaning "great steward", began to appear in the records to describe the rulers of Moray, Strathearn, Buchan, Angus and Mearns, who may have acted as "marcher lords" for the kingdom to counter the Viking threat. Later the process of consolidation is associated with the feudalism introduced by David I, which, particularly in the east and south where the crown's authority was greatest, saw the placement of lordships, often based on castles, and the creation of administrative sheriffdoms, which overlay the pattern of local thegns. It also saw the English earl and Latin comes begin to replace the mormaers in the records. The result has been seen as a "hybrid kingdom, in which Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Flemish and Norman elements all coalesced under its 'Normanised', but nevertheless native lines of kings".
## Economy and society
### Economy
The Scottish economy of this period was dominated by agriculture and by short-distance, local trade. There was an increasing amount of foreign trade in the period, as well as exchange gained by means of military plunder. By the end of this period, coins were replacing barter goods, but for most of this period most exchange was done without the use of metal currency.
Most of Scotland's agricultural wealth in this period came from pastoralism, rather than arable farming. Arable farming grew significantly in the "Norman period", but with geographical differences, low-lying areas being subject to more arable farming than high-lying areas such as the Highlands, Galloway and the Southern Uplands. Galloway, in the words of G. W. S. Barrow, "already famous for its cattle, was so overwhelmingly pastoral, that there is little evidence in that region of land under any permanent cultivation, save along the Solway coast". The average amount of land used by a husbandman in Scotland might have been around 26 acres. The native Scots favoured pastoralism, in that Gaelic lords were happier to give away more land to French and Middle English-speaking settlers, while holding on tenaciously to upland regions, perhaps contributing to the Highland/Galloway-Lowland division that emerged in Scotland in the later Middle Ages. The main unit of land measurement in Scotland was the davoch (i.e. "vat"), called the arachor in Lennox and also known as the "Scottish ploughgate". In English-speaking Lothian, it was simply ploughgate. It may have measured about 104 acres (0.42 km<sup>2</sup>), divided into 4 raths. Cattle, pigs and cheeses were among the chief foodstuffs, from a wide range of produce including sheep, fish, rye, barley, bee wax and honey.
David I established the first chartered burghs in Scotland, copying the burgher charters and Leges Burgorum (rules governing virtually every aspect of life and work) almost verbatim from the English customs of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Early burgesses were usually Flemish, English, French and German, rather than Gaelic Scots. The burgh's vocabulary was composed totally of either Germanic and French terms. The councils that ran individual burghs were individually known as lie doussane, meaning the dozen.
### Demography and language
The population of Scotland in this period is unknown. The first reliable information in 1755 shows the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380. Best estimates put the Scottish population for earlier periods in the High Middle Ages between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people, growing from a low point to a high point. Linguistically, the majority of people within Scotland throughout this period spoke the Gaelic language, then simply called Scottish, or in Latin, lingua Scotica. Other languages spoken throughout this period were Old Norse and English, with the Cumbric language disappearing somewhere between 900 and 1100. Pictish may have survived into this period, but the evidence is weak. After the accession of David I, or perhaps before, Gaelic ceased to be the main language of the royal court. From his reign until the end of the period, the Scottish monarchs probably favoured the French language, as evidenced by reports from contemporary chronicles, literature and translations of administrative documents into the French language. English, with French and Flemish, became the main language of Scottish burghs. However, they were, in Barrow's words, "scarcely more than villages ... numbered in hundreds rather than thousands".
### Society
The legal tract known as Laws of the Brets and Scots, probably compiled in the reign of David I, underlines the importance of the kin group as entitled to compensation for the killing of individual members. It also lists five grades of man: King, mormaer, toísech, ócthigern and neyfs. The highest rank below the king, the mormaer ("great officer"), were probably about a dozen provincial rulers, later replaced by the English term earl. Below them the toísech (leader), appear to have managed areas of the royal demesne, or that of a mormaer or abbot, within which they would have held substantial estates, sometimes described as shires and the title was probably equivalent to the later thane. The lowest free rank mentioned by the Laws of the Brets and Scots, the ócthigern (literally, little or young lord), is a term the text does not translate into French. There were probably relatively large numbers of free peasant farmers, called husbandmen or bondmen, in the south and north of the country, but fewer in the lands between the Forth and Sutherland until the twelfth century, when landlords began to encourage the formation of such a class through paying better wages and deliberate immigration. Below the husbandmen a class of free farmers with smaller parcels of land developed, with cottars and grazing tenants (gresemen). The non-free naviti, neyfs or serfs existed in various forms of service, with terms with their origins in Irish practice, including cumelache, cumherba and scoloc who were tied to a lord's estate and unable to leave it without permission, but who records indicate often absconded for better wages or work in other regions or in the developing burghs.
The introduction of feudalism from the time of David I, not only introduced sheriffdoms that overlay the pattern of local thanes, but also meant that new tenures were held from the king, or a superior lord, in exchange for loyalty and forms of service that were usually military. However, the imposition of feudalism continued to sit beside the existing system of landholding and tenure and it is not clear how this change impacted on the lives of the ordinary free and unfree workers. In places, feudalism may have tied workers more closely to the land, but the predominantly pastoral nature of Scottish agriculture may have made the imposition of a manorial system on the English model impracticable. Obligations appear to have been limited to occasional labour service, seasonal renders of food, hospitality and money rents.
## Law and government
Early Gaelic law tracts, first written down in the ninth century, reveal a society highly concerned with kinship, status, honour and the regulation of blood feuds. Scottish common law began to take shape at the end of the period, assimilating Gaelic and Celtic law with practices from Anglo-Norman England and the Continent. In the twelfth century, and certainly in the thirteenth, strong continental legal influences began to have more effect, such as Canon law and various Anglo-Norman practices. Pre-fourteenth century law among the native Scots is not always well attested, but extensive knowledge of early Gaelic Law gives some basis for its reconstruction. In the earliest extant Scottish legal manuscript, there is a document called Leges inter Brettos et Scottos. The document survives in Old French, and is almost certainly a French translation of an earlier Gaelic document. It retained a vast number of untranslated Gaelic legal terms. Later medieval legal documents, written both in Latin and Middle English, contain more Gaelic legal terms, examples including slains (Old Irish slán or sláinte; exemption) and cumherba (Old Irish comarba; ecclesiastic heir).
A Judex (pl. judices) represents a post-Norman continuity with the ancient Gaelic orders of lawmen called in English today Brehons. Bearers of the office almost always have Gaelic names north of the Forth or in the south-west. Judices were often royal officials who supervised baronial, abbatial and other lower-ranking "courts". However, the main official of law in the post-Davidian Kingdom of the Scots was the Justiciar who held courts and reported to the king personally. Normally, there were two Justiciarships, organised by linguistic boundaries: the Justiciar of Scotia and the Justiciar of Lothian. Sometimes Galloway had its own Justiciar too.
The office of Justiciar and Judex were just two ways that Scottish society was governed. In the earlier period, the king "delegated" power to hereditary native "officers" such as the Mormaers/Earls and Toísechs/Thanes. It was a government of gift-giving and bardic lawmen. There were also popular courts, the comhdhail, testament to which are dozens of placenames throughout eastern Scotland. In the Norman period, sheriffdoms and sheriffs and, to a lesser extent, bishops (see below) became increasingly important. The former enabled the King to effectively administer royal demesne land. During David I's reign, royal sheriffs had been established in the king's core personal territories; namely, in rough chronological order, at Roxburgh, Scone, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Stirling and Perth. By the reign of William I, there may have been about 30 royal sheriffdoms, including ones at Ayr and Dumfries, key locations on the borders of Galloway-Carrick. As the distribution and number of sheriffdoms expanded, so did royal control. By the end of the thirteenth century, sheriffdoms had been established in westerly locations as far-flung as Wigtown, Kintyre, Skye and Lorne. Through these, the thirteenth-century Scottish king exercised more control over Scotland than any of his later medieval successors. The king himself was itinerant and had no "capital" as such although Scone performed a key function. By ritual tradition, all Scottish kings in this period had to be crowned there by the Mormaers of Strathearn and Fife. Although King David I tried to build up Roxburgh as a capital, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, more charters were issued at Scone than any other location. Other popular locations were nearby Perth, Stirling, Dunfermline and Edinburgh. In the earliest part of this era, Forres and Dunkeld seem to have been the chief royal residences.
Records from the Scandinavian-held lands are much-less well documented by comparison. Udal law formed the basis of the legal system and it is known that the Hebrides were taxed using the Ounceland measure. Althings were open-air governmental assemblies that met in the presence of the jarl and the meetings were open to virtually all free men. At these sessions decisions were made, laws passed and complaints adjudicated. Examples include Tingwall and Law Ting Holm in Shetland, Dingwall in Easter Ross, and Tynwald on the Isle of Man.
## Warfare
### Land warfare
By the twelfth century the ability of lords and the king to call on wider bodies of men beyond their household troops for major campaigns had become the "common" (communis exertcitus) or "Scottish army" (exercitus Scoticanus), the result of a universal obligation based on the holding of variously named units of land. Later decrees indicated that the common army was a levy of all able-bodied freemen aged between 16 and 60, with 8-days warning. It produced relatively large numbers of men serving for a limited period, usually as unarmoured or poorly armoured bowmen and spearmen. In this period it continued to be mustered by the earls and they often led their men in battle, as was the case in the Battle of the Standard in 1138. It would continue to provide the vast majority of Scottish national armies, potentially producing tens of thousands of men for short periods of conflict, into the early modern era.
There also developed obligations that produced smaller numbers of feudal troops. The Davidian Revolution of the twelfth century was seen by Geoffrey Barrow as bringing "fundamental innovations in military organization". These included the knight's fee, homage and fealty, as well as castle-building and the regular use of professional cavalry, as knights held castles and estates in exchange for service, providing troops on a 40-day basis. David's Norman followers and their retinues were able to provide a force of perhaps 200 mounted and armoured knights, but the vast majority of his forces were the "common army" of poorly armed infantry, capable of performing well in raiding and guerrilla warfare. Although such troops were only infrequently able to stand up to the English in the field, nonetheless they did manage to do so critically in the wars of independence at Stirling Bridge in 1297 and Bannockburn in 1314.
### Marine warfare
The Viking onslaught of the British Isles was based on superior sea-power, which enabled the creation of the thalassocracies of the north and west. In the late tenth century the naval battle of "Innisibsolian" (tentatively identified as taking place near the Slate Islands of Argyll) was won by Alban forces over Vikings, although this was an unusual setback for the Norse. In 962 Ildulb mac Causantín, King of Scots, was killed (according to the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba) fighting the Norse near Cullen, at the Battle of Bauds, and although there is no evidence of permanent Viking settlement on the east coast of Scotland south of the Moray Firth, raids and even invasions certainly occurred. Dunnottar was taken during the reign of Domnall mac Causantín and the Orkneyinga saga records an attack on the Isle of May, by Sweyn Asleifsson and Margad Grimsson. The long-ship, the key to their success, was a graceful, long, narrow, light, wooden boat with a shallow draft hull designed for speed. This shallow draft allowed navigation in waters only one metre deep and permitted beach landings, while its light weight enabled it to be carried over portages. Longships were also double-ended, the symmetrical bow and stern allowing the ship to reverse direction quickly without having to turn around. In the Gàidhealtachd they were eventually succeeded by the Birlinn, highland galley and lymphad, which, in ascending order of size, and which replaced the steering-board with a stern-rudder from the late twelfth century. Forces of ships were raised through obligations of a ship-levy through the system of ouncelands and pennylands, which have been argued to date back to the muster system of Dál Riata, but were probably introduced by Scandinavian settlers. Later evidence suggests that the supply of ships for war became linked to military feudal obligations. Viking naval power was disrupted by conflicts between the Scandinavian kingdoms, but entered a period of resurgence in the 13th century when Norwegian kings began to build some of the largest ships seen in Northern European waters, until Haakon Haakonson's ill-fated expedition in 1263 left the Scottish crown the most significant power in the region.
## Christianity and the Church
By the tenth century, all of northern Britain was Christianised, except the Scandinavian north and west, which had been lost to the church in the face of Norse settlement.
### Saints
Like every other Christian country, one of the main features of medieval Scottish Christianity was the Cult of Saints. Saints of Irish origin who were particularly revered included various figures called St Faelan and St. Colman, and saints Findbar and Finan. The most important missionary saint was Columba, who emerged as a national figure in the combined Scottish and Pictish kingdom, with a new centre established in the east at Dunkeld by Kenneth I for part of his relics. He remained a major figure into the fourteenth century and a new foundation was endowed by William I at Arbroath Abbey and the relics in the Monymusk Reliquary handed over to the Abbot's care. Regional saints remained important to local identities. In Strathclyde the most important saint was St Kentigern, in Lothian, St Cuthbert and after this martyrdom around 1115 a cult emerged in Orkney, Shetland and northern Scotland around Magnus Erlendsson, Earl of Orkney. The cult of St Andrew in Scotland was established on the East coast by the Pictish kings as early as the eighth century. The shrine, which from the twelfth century was said to have contained the relics of the saint, brought to Scotland by Saint Regulus, began to attract pilgrims from Scotland, but also from England and further away. By the twelfth century the site at Kilrymont, had become known simply as St. Andrews and it became increasingly associated with Scottish national identity and the royal family. It was renewed as a focus for devotion with the patronage of Queen Margaret, who also became important after her canonisation in 1250 and the ceremonial transfer of her remains to Dunfermline Abbey, as one of the most revered national saints.
### Organisation
There is some evidence that Christianity made inroads into the Viking-controlled Highlands and Islands before the official conversion at the end of the tenth century. There are a relatively large number of isles called Pabbay or Papa in the Western and Northern Isles, which may indicate a "hermit's" or "priest's isle" from this period. Changes in patterns of grave goods and the use of Viking place names using -kirk also suggest that Christianity had begun to spread before the official conversion. According to the Orkneyinga Saga the Northern Isles were Christianised by Olav Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way from Ireland to Norway. The King summoned the jarl Sigurd the Stout and said "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I'll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel." Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and the islands became Christian at a stroke, receiving their own bishop in the early eleventh century. Elsewhere in Scandinavian Scotland the record is less clear. There was a Bishop of Iona until the late tenth century and there is then a gap of more than a century, possibly filled by the Bishops of Orkney, before the appointment of the first Bishop of Mann in 1079.
At the beginning of the period Scottish monasticism was dominated by monks called Céli Dé (lit. "vassals of God"), anglicised as culdees. At St Andrews and elsewhere, Céli Dé abbeys are recorded and the round towers at Brechin and Abernethy are evidence of Irish influence. Gaelic monasticism was vibrant and expansionary for much of the period and dozens of monasteries, often called Schottenklöster, were founded by Gaelic monks on the continent. The introduction of the continental type of monasticism to Scotland is associated with Queen Margaret, the wife of Máel Coluim III, although her exact role is unclear. She was in communication with Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and he provided a few monks for a new Benedictine abbey at Dunfermline (c. 1070). Subsequent foundations under Margaret's sons, the kings Edgar, Alexander I and particularly David I, tended to be of the reformed type that followed the lead set by Cluny. These stressed the original Benedictine virtues of poverty, chastity and obedience, but also contemplation and service of the Mass and were followed in various forms by large numbers of reformed Benedictine, Augustinian and Cistercian houses.
Before the twelfth century most Scottish churches had collegiate bodies of clergy who served over a wide area, often tied together by devotion to a particular missionary saint. From this period local lay landholders, perhaps following the example of David I, began to adopt the continental practice of building churches on their land for the local population and endowing them with land and a priest, beginning in the south, spreading to the north-east and then the west, being almost universal by the first survey of the Scottish Church for papal taxation in 1274. The administration of these parishes was often given over to local monastic institutions in a process known as appropriation. Scotland had little clear diocesan structure before the Norman period. There were bishoprics based on various ancient churches, but some are very obscure in the records and there appear to be long vacancies. From around 1070, in the reign of Malcolm III, there was a "Bishop of Alba" resident at St. Andrews, but it is not clear what authority he had over the other bishops. After the Norman Conquest of England, the Archbishops of both Canterbury and York each claimed superiority over the Scottish church. The church in Scotland attained independent status after the Papal Bull of Celestine III (Cum universi, 1192) by which all Scottish bishoprics except Galloway were formally independent of York and Canterbury. However, unlike Ireland, which had been granted four Archbishoprics in the same century, Scotland received no Archbishop and the whole Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics (except Whithorn/Galloway), became the "special daughter of the see of Rome". It was in practice run by special councils made up of all its bishops, with the bishop of St Andrews emerging as the most important player.
## Culture
As a predominantly Gaelic society, most Scottish cultural practices throughout this period mirrored closely those of Ireland, or at least those of Ireland with some Pictish borrowings. After David I, the French-speaking kings introduced cultural practices popular in Anglo-Norman England, France and elsewhere. As in all pre-modern societies, storytelling was popular. The English scholar D. D. R. Owen, who specialises in the literature of this era, writes that "Professional storytellers would ply their trade from court to court. Some of them would have been native Scots, no doubt offering legends from the ancient Celtic past performed ... in Gaelic when appropriate, but in French for most of the new nobility". Almost all of these stories are lost, although some have come down in the Gaelic or Scots oral tradition. One form of oral culture extremely well accounted for in this period is genealogy. There are dozens of Scottish genealogies surviving from this era, covering everyone from the Mormaers of Lennox and Moray to the Scottish king himself. Scotland's kings maintained an ollamh righe, a royal high poet who had a permanent place in all medieval Gaelic lordships, and whose purpose was to recite genealogies when needed, for occasions such as coronations.
Before the reign of David I, the Scots possessed a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin that were frequently transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere. Dauvit Broun has shown that a Gaelic literary elite survived in the eastern Scottish lowlands, in places such as Loch Leven and Brechin into the thirteenth century, However, surviving records are predominantly written in Latin, and their authors would usually translate vernacular terms into Latin, so that historians are faced with researching a Gaelic society clothed in Latin terminology. Even names were translated into more common continental forms; for instance, Gilla Brigte became Gilbert, Áed became Hugh, etc. As far as written literature is concerned, there may be more medieval Scottish Gaelic literature than is often thought. Almost all medieval Gaelic literature has survived because it was sustained in Ireland, not in Scotland. Thomas Owen Clancy has recently all but proven that the Lebor Bretnach, the so-called "Irish Nennius", was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy. Yet this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work that has survived include that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem — Heading for Damietta — on his experiences of the Fifth Crusade. In the thirteenth century, French flourished as a literary language, and produced the Roman de Fergus, one of the earliest pieces of non-Celtic vernacular literature to survive from Scotland.
There is no extant literature in the English language in this era. There is some Norse literature from Scandinavian parts such as Darraðarljóð, which is located in Caithness, the story being a "powerful mixture of Celtic and Old Norse imagery". The famous Orkneyinga Saga, which pertains to the early history of the Earldom of Orkney, was written down in Iceland.
In the Middle Ages, Scotland was renowned for its musical skill. Gerald of Wales, a medieval clergyman and chronicler, explains the relationship between Scottish and Irish music:
> Scotland, because of her affinity and intercourse [with Ireland], tries to imitate Ireland in music and strives in emulation. Ireland uses and delights in two instruments only, the harp namely, and the tympanum. Scotland uses three, the harp, the tympanum and the crowd. In the opinion, however, of many, Scotland has by now not only caught up on Ireland, her instructor, but already far outdistances her and excels her in musical skill. Therefore, [Irish] people now look to that country as the fountain of the art.
Playing the harp (clarsach) was especially popular with medieval Scots – half a century after Gerald's writing, King Alexander III kept a royal harpist at his court. Of the three medieval harps that survive, two come from Scotland (Perthshire), and one from Ireland. Singers also had a royal function. For instance, when the king of Scotland passed through the territory of Strathearn, it was the custom that he be greeted by seven female singers, who would sing to him. When Edward I approached the borders of Strathearn in the summer of 1296, he was met by these seven women, "who accompanied the King on the road between Gask and Ogilvie, singing to him, as was the custom in the time of the late Alexander kings of Scots".
## Outsiders' views
The Irish thought of Scotland as a provincial place. Others thought of it as an outlandish or barbaric place. "Who would deny that the Scots are barbarians?" was a rhetorical question posed in the 12th century by the Anglo-Flemish author of De expugnatione Lyxbonensi (On the Conquest of Lisbon). A century later Louis IX of France was reported to have said to his son "I would prefer that a Scot should come from Scotland and govern the people well and faithfully, than that you, my son, should be seen to govern badly."
This characterisation of the Scots was often politically motivated, and many of the most hostile writers were based in areas frequently subjected to Scottish raids. English and French accounts of the Battle of the Standard contain many accounts of Scottish atrocities. For instance, Henry of Huntingdon notes that the Scots: "cleft open pregnant women, and took out the unborn babes; they tossed children upon the spear-points, and beheaded priests on altars: they cut the head of crucifixes, and placed them on the trunks of the slain, and placed the heads of the dead upon the crucifixes. Thus wherever the Scots arrived, all was full of horror and full of savagery." A less hostile view was given by Guibert of Nogent in the First Crusade, who encountered Scots and wrote: "You might have seen a crowd of Scots, a people savage at home but unwarlike elsewhere, descend from their marshy lands, with bare legs, shaggy cloaks, their purse hanging from their shoulders; their copious arms seemed ridiculous to us, but they offered their faith and devotion as aid."
There was also a general belief that Scotland-proper was an island, or at least a peninsula, known as Scotia, Alba or Albania. Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk and cartographer, drew a map in this manner in the mid-thirteenth century and called the "island" Scotia ultra marina. A later medieval Italian map applies this geographical conceptualization to all of Scotland. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi, shared this view: "Scotland adjoins the island of England and is a long peninsula to the north of the larger island. It is uninhabited and has neither town nor village. Its length is 150 miles."
## National identity
In this period, the word "Scot" was not the word used by the vast majority of Scots to describe themselves, except to foreigners, among whom it was the most common word. The Scots called themselves Albanach or simply Gaidel. Both "Scot" and Gaidel were ethnic terms that connected them to the majority of the inhabitants of Ireland. As the author of De Situ Albanie notes at the beginning of the thirteenth century: "The name Arregathel [Argyll] means margin of the Scots or Irish, because all Scots and Irish are generally called 'Gattheli'."
Likewise, the inhabitants of English and Norse-speaking parts were ethnically linked with other regions of Europe. At Melrose, people could recite religious literature in the English language. In the later part of the twelfth century, the Lothian writer Adam of Dryburgh describes Lothian as "the Land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots". In the Northern Isles the Norse language evolved into the local Norn, which lingered until the end of the eighteenth century, when it finally died out and Norse may also have survived as a spoken language until the sixteenth century in the Outer Hebrides.
Scotland came to possess a unity that transcended Gaelic, English, Norman and Norse ethnic differences and by the end of the period, the Latin, Norman-French and English word "Scot" could be used for any subject of the Scottish king. Scotland's multilingual Scoto-Norman monarchs and mixed Gaelic and Scoto-Norman aristocracy all became part of the "Community of the Realm", in which ethnic differences were less divisive than in Ireland and Wales.
|
66,715,914 |
British logistics in the Siegfried Line campaign
| 1,171,127,673 |
Aspect of World War II
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[
"Military logistics of World War II",
"Military logistics of the United Kingdom",
"Western European Campaign (1944–1945)"
] |
British logistics supported the Anglo-Canadian 21st Army Group operations in the World War II Siegfried Line campaign, which ran from the end of the pursuit of the German armies from Normandy in mid-September 1944 until the end of January 1945. Operation Overlord, the Allied landings in Normandy, commenced on D-Day, 6 June 1944. German resistance was stubborn, and the British and Canadian advance much slower than planned until the German defences were finally breached in July. What followed was a far more rapid advance than anticipated. The British Second Army liberated Brussels on 3 September, but the subsequent effort to cross the Rhine with the aid of airborne forces in Operation Market Garden was unsuccessful. The Canadian First Army had the task of clearing the Channel Coast. Although the port of Antwerp had been captured virtually intact on 4 September, major operations were required to clear the German defenders from the Scheldt estuary, and it was not opened for shipping until 26 November. Antwerp had sufficient capacity to support both the British and American forces, but its use was hampered by German V-weapon attacks.
A new base was developed around Brussels, and an advanced base area around Antwerp. It was decided to shut down the Rear Maintenance Area (RMA) in Normandy, where some 300,000 long tons (300,000 t) of supplies were still held. This included 15,000,000 rations, which were gradually eaten by the troops in the RMA. Stores still required by the 21st Army Group were moved forward to the new advanced base, and the rest returned to the War Office for disposal. To get the railway system in operation again required the reconstruction of bridges and the importation of additional locomotives. Petrol was brought in tankers and over the Operation Pluto pipeline. Civilian labour was utilised at the bases in a variety of tasks to enable military personnel to be released for service in forward areas. By the end of 1944, some 90,000 civilians were employed by the 21st Army Group, of whom half were employed in workshops in the advanced base, and 14,000 at the port of Antwerp.
British logistics in this campaign had access to enormous resources. The problem the administrative staffs faced was not whether something could be accomplished, but how soon it could be done. Procedures had already been developed and honed in earlier campaigns, and were improved upon as administrative staffs steadily became more experienced. The maintenance system had both capacity and flexibility, and was capable of supporting both fast-moving and slow-tempo operations.
## Background
In the first weeks after the Allied invasion of Normandy, known as Operation Overlord, commenced on D-Day, 6 June 1944, the Anglo-Canadian forces were maintained over the Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches, and the small ports of Port-en-Bessin and Courseulles. Construction of the artificial Mulberry harbour commenced on 7 June and by 16 June it was handling 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) per day. The Mulberry accounted for about 12.5 per cent of the Allied tonnage landed in June, compared to 25 per cent for Cherbourg and the small ports, and 62.5 per cent over the beaches, the capacity of which had been underestimated in the planning phase. German resistance was stubborn, and casualties were heavy, although neither as high as anticipated, nor as great as those suffered by the American forces. The bulk of the German forces were drawn towards the British sector, with the result that the advance was much slower than planned, and the lodgement area was considerably smaller. By the end of July, the chances of capturing the Seine ports any time soon looked slim, and work commenced on winterisation of the Mulberry harbour, building up stocks to cater for deteriorating weather, developing the ports and Caen and Ouistreham, and opening the Canal de Caen à la Mer which ran between them.
At the same time, preparations were also made for the possibility of a sudden breach of the German defences requiring a rapid exploitation. When the American Operation Cobra, launched on 25 July 1944, succeeded in breaking through the German defences, six additional transport companies were shipped from the United Kingdom. Plans were drawn up to establish an advanced base in the Le Havre area on the assumption that the Germans would try to establish a new front along the Somme. In the event, the advance proceeded further and faster than anticipated. The British Second Army's XXX Corps crossed the Seine at Vernon on 25 August, followed by the XII Corps at Les Andelys two days later, and both corps were across the Somme by 1 September.
To facilitate the advance, the transport of VIII Corps was appropriated, as was most of that normally assigned to working the beaches and ports. To permit this, the tonnage being shipped from the UK to France was reduced from 16,000 to 7,000 long tons (16,300 to 7,100 t) per day; the difference being made up by drawing down stocks held in the Rear Maintenance Area (RMA) in Normandy. Along with the new units from the UK, these steps increased the number of transport units available to the Second Army from 6 to 39 companies. Until a new army roadhead could be established, supplies were stocked forward as far as possible, at interim depot areas known as "cushions". Brussels was liberated on 3 September, and Antwerp was captured virtually intact on 4 September, but it could not be used as a port until the Germans were cleared from the Scheldt approaches, through which ships had to pass to reach the port.
Meanwhile, the Canadian First Army's II Corps had crossed the Seine in the Pont-de-l'Arche area on 27 August, whilst British I Corps forced a crossing three days later. At this time there were no bridges over the Seine between Rouen and the sea, and no intact ones upstream as far as Paris partly due to Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks. A 6-knot (11 km/h) tidal bore ran twice a day, giving a tide range of 8 feet (2.4 m). This precluded the use of pontoon bridges, and restricted the times when DUKWs (amphibious trucks) and ferries could operate. Unlike the British corps, the II Canadian Corps did not operate a field maintenance centre (FMC), so supplies were drawn from No. 3 Army Roadhead at Lisieux, which opened on 26 August, or from No. 3A Army Roadhead at Elbeuf, which was opened on 2 September. The First Canadian Army opened No. 5 Army Roadhead between Dieppe and Abbeville on 3 September, and No. 7 Army Roadhead in the Bethune area on 15 September. The lack of FMCs was compensated for to some extent by the creation of temporary "kangaroo dumps" that were established in forward areas to support the advance. The Canadian roadheads could not be satisfactorily stocked in August or September as Second Army had priority for supplies. These were however plentiful in the main depots at No. 1 Roadhead in the RMA, but this was now up to 300 miles (480 km) behind the front lines.
## Organisation
On 1 September, the Supreme Allied Commander, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, assumed personal command of the ground forces from Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) now vetted and approved requirements for some items, such as coal, and passed them on to the War Office for action. Montgomery remained the commander of the 21st Army Group, which consisted of Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey's British Second Army and Lieutenant-General Harry Crerar's Canadian First Army. The ration strength of the 21st Army Group, which included RAF personnel and Axis prisoners of war (POWs), was about 450,000. Under the British command arrangement, Montgomery was in charge of his own logistics, but in the American forces logistics was the responsibility of Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee's Communications Zone, an entirely separate command from Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley's US 12th Army Group. Bradley made no secret of his preference for the British system.
Montgomery considered administration to be one of the principles of war. His biographer Reginald William Thompson described him as being more of a general manager than a general, one who was "enslaved by logistics". Montgomery seldom launched an attack until the required administrative preparations were in place and an adequate supply of ammunition was on hand. As a result, he sometimes passed up enticing operational opportunities. Senior American commanders were more willing to subordinate logistical considerations to operational ones.
The main headquarters (HQ) of the 21st Army Group moved to the Residence Palace in Brussels, a move that was completed on 23 September. It was followed by the rear HQ the following week. The 7th and 8th Base Sub Areas administered Antwerp and Ostend respectively under the command of the Canadian First Army, and the 4th Line of Communications Sub Area administered Brussels under the British Second Army. In September, the control of these sub areas passed to the HQ of Lines of Communication. At the start of October the 4th Line of Communications Sub Area handed Brussels over to No. 10 Garrison and assumed responsibility for the 21st Army Group roadhead around Diest. A new HQ, the 16th Line of Communications Sub Area was formed, and took over the administration of bases and depots in the Somme Department on 29 September. In November it moved to Belgium and took over the administration of the port of Ghent. To control the port of Boulogne, the HQ of the 36th Beach Brick moved up from the RMA. The HQ of Lines of Communication, under the command of Major-General R. F. B. Naylor, initially established itself at Malines in September, but moved to Roubaix on the French-Belgian border, a more central location, in December. The 11th Line of Communications Area then assumed control of the advanced base in Belgium, while the 12th Line of Communications Area moved from Cherbourg to Amiens and took charge of the bases and depots in France, including those of the RMA.
The Canadian Army did not have the manpower to manage its own line of communications, so it shared that of the British. A Canadian administrative section known as the Canadian Section, 1st Echelon Headquarters, 21st Army Group, was attached to the rear HQ of 21st Army Group. Its main role was relieving the Canadian First Army of responsibility for non-operational administrative functions. It was headed by Brigadier A. W. Beament, who was succeeded by Major-General E. L. M. Burns in December 1944. The War Office agreed that he should have direct access to the Commander-in-Chief of the 21st Army Group whenever required, but in practice this was seldom exercised, with matters requiring Montgomery's attention being dealt with by Crerar.
In addition to the Canadians, the 21st Army Group also included the 1st Belgian Infantry Brigade, the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade, 1st Polish Armoured Division, the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade and French contingents. A legal framework for military cooperation was provided by the British Allied Forces Act 1940, and agreements were signed with the governments in exile of France and Poland in 1939 and 1940, and those of Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands in 1941. Although these contingents were organised according to British establishments, and equipped the same as British Army units, simplifying logistics to some extent, linguistic differences remained a complicating factor.
Construction of a new advanced base at Brussels commenced on 6 October. No. 6 Army Roadhead was established there, and logistical units began moving in. Most were not self-contained with respect to the supply of fuel or rations, and became a drain on Second Army's resources. So too was the administration of civil affairs in the city; Headquarters Second Army Troops was fully occupied organising the roadhead, and the only other available HQ, that of No. 10 Garrison, was neither staffed nor equipped for the task. The location of the roadhead site on the western side of Brussels was dictated by the layout of the railways, but the disadvantage of this was that it required the corps' transport to traverse Brussels' narrow and congested streets.
An army roadhead normally controlled two base supply depots (BSDs), four detail issuing depots (DIDs), five petrol depots and four mobile field bakeries. Together, the two BSDs held five days' supplies for the army. Depending on the roadhead, one might serve two corps and the other one corps and the army troops, or they might issue stores on alternating days. The DIDs handled the provisioning of local units, including RAF units; the reception and loading of lorries and trains; the handling of coal, fresh meat and vegetables; and assisting the BSDs. The mobile field bakeries baked up to 44,000 rations of bread per day, the bread ration being 12 ounces (340 g). The petrol depots were grouped under a Commander Royal Army Service Corps (CRASC), Petrol Installations. There were two type B petrol depots and three type C petrol depots. The former consisted of two officers and 36 other ranks, and were equipped with two 6-ton tractors and two 6-ton trailers; the latter were smaller, with only two officers and 22 other ranks. About 26,000 long tons (26,000 t) of packaged fuel was held at the roadhead. If the pipehead was close by, there would also be an average of three mobile petrol filling centres.
The FMCs had a war establishment that included a control centre, but the army roadheads had to be laid out and controlled by a superior headquarters. Before the campaign began, it had been assumed that HQ Second Army Troops would be able to carry out this task, but after operations commenced it was found that the enormous number of army troops units meant this HQ was fully occupied in their administration, and it did not have the resources to control an army roadhead as well. The army roadhead was therefore controlled by HQ Second Army, but this raised a concern as to what would happen if Second Army Rear HQ could not be co-located with the roadhead, but moved forward to join Second Army Main HQ. A supervisory organisation was created called the Second Army administrative post. It was staffed with representatives of the Q (Movements), supply and transport, and labour branches. The administrative post worked in close cooperation with the movement control group, which managed the road and railways traffic in the Second Army area, and was normally co-located with it. An RASC transport column HQ and a pioneer group HQ were assigned to the roadhead to coordinate its clearance and depot work.
## Market Garden
### Garden
While acknowledging the importance of securing ports, Eisenhower prioritised the advance on the Ruhr and Saar industrial regions. Montgomery proposed an advance on a narrow front, which Eisenhower rejected in favour of one on a broad front. Accordingly, Montgomery issued orders for an advance on the Ruhr, with Second Army crossing the Rhine with the aid of airborne troops, while the Canadian First Army was directed to capture Boulogne and Calais, and then commence operations aimed at opening Antwerp. The capture of Boulogne would facilitate Operation Pluto, the laying of pipelines across the English Channel to deliver petrol. It was calculated that the Channel ports of Le Havre, Dieppe, Boulogne, Dunkirk and Calais had sufficient capacity to support the proposed advance of the 21st Army Group all the way to Berlin. In a letter to The Times that was published on 24 February 1947, Major-General Miles Graham, the 21st Army Group's Chief Administrative Officer wrote:
> I was quite confident at the time (nor would Field Marshal Montgomery have pressed his views unless he had been assured on this point) that a deep thrust to the heart of Germany was administratively feasible... I personally have no doubt from a purely administrative point of view that, based as we were on the Channel ports, it would have been possible to carry out successfully the operation which Field Marshal Montgomery desired.
Montgomery intended to outflank the Siegfried Line with an airborne operation codenamed Operation Market Garden, "Market" being the airborne part of the operation and "Garden" the ground part. The Siegfried Line, also known as the West Wall, was a 2-to-3-mile (3.2 to 4.8 km) deep belt of pillboxes, bunkers, trenches and gun positions, protected by barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles known as dragon's teeth, running along the German border. To support Operation Market Garden, XXX Corps established No. 161 FMC at Bourg-Leopold, which opened on 17 September, when the operation commenced. Until then, XXX Corps drew its supplies from No. 160 FMC in the Brussels area. It was intended that No. 162 FMC would be established at Arnhem after its capture, which was expected to occur by 20 September. This would support the troops operating north of the Rhine, including the British 1st Airborne Division and the Polish 1st Parachute Brigade. The forces operating south of the Rhine, including the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would continue to draw supplies from No. 161 FMC. The logistical units of the seaborne tail of the 1st Airborne Division followed the Guards Armoured Division, carrying additional ammunition and two days' supplies.
On 16 September, eight American truck companies began running between Bayeux and Brussels to build up stocks for the two American airborne divisions. Six of the companies were equipped with standard GMC CCKW 21⁄2-ton 6×6 trucks, and two with 10-ton semi-trailers. This was known as the Red Lion; the companies that formed it were withdrawn from the more famous Red Ball Express route. The Red Lion ran until 18 October, and delivered 650 long tons (660 t) per day, for a total of 18,000 long tons (18,000 t). In addition, four US Army truck companies pre-loaded with American ammunition were to arrive on 18 September. The American divisions drew common items such as tyres from British stocks, but all their other supplies had to be drawn from the Communications Zone by the attached truck companies. In an emergency, American troops could use British rations. Emergency arrangements were made for the First Allied Airborne Army to deliver 150 long tons (150 t) of US supplies to the airfields around Brussels, which could then be moved forward by road.
The ground divisions involved carried six days' maintenance supplies with them; the corps troops carried enough petrol for 150 miles (240 km), the Guards Armoured Division took enough for 200 miles (320 km), and the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division and 8th Armoured Brigade carried enough for 250 miles (400 km). These units carried double the usual holding of 25-pounder ammunition, which was drawn from No. 161 FMC before it opened for issues of other natures. Stocks of other kinds of ammunition held at No. 6 Army Roadhead were insufficient, so stocks held by 11th Armoured Division and 4th Armoured Brigade were handed over to the Guards Armoured Division and 8th Armoured Brigade respectively to make up the deficiencies. Some 110 long tons (110 t) of equipment peculiar to airborne units were landed at Bayeux, but a shortage of transport meant that little of it made it to the divisions in time. The tactical plan involved the movement of 20,000 vehicles along one road. To reduce traffic congestion, each division took only one brigade workshop with it. Breakdowns were pushed off the road for later recovery, whilst traffic along the road was one-way and by daylight only.
The decision to have each unit carry maintenance with it was vindicated; by 19 September operational traffic on the highway was so heavy that normal supply was impossible. No stocks could be moved to No. 162 FMC, as Arnhem had not been reached, so the effort was concentrated on stocking No. 161 FMC. The promised American truck companies arrived on 20 September, this being two days late. They were also under strength, and carried the wrong kind of 105 mm ammunition (for the standard M2 howitzer instead of the airborne M3 howitzer), and some trucks arrived empty. The two American divisions had no seaborne tails, so each was given twenty of the American trucks, and stores were issued by British FMC personnel and American troops from the truck companies. The transport situation was exacerbated by the loss of nearly thirty vehicles from the Guards Armoured Division in a Luftwaffe bombing raid on Eindhoven on the night of 20/21 September.
By 21 September, the plan to establish No. 162 FMC at Arnhem was abandoned, and it was decided to instead locate it near Grave. Four transport platoons carrying petrol, oil and lubricants (POL) and one hauling medium ammunition were despatched to the site, but only the one carrying ammunition got through before the road was cut by the Germans south of Veghel. The 101st Airborne Division was able to draw its supplies from No. 161 FMC, but the 82nd Airborne Division was cut off. Transport was ordered to cut their motors and wait for the road to be reopened rather than turn back. Since the corps troops had carried only four days' rations, they became dependent on the divisions until 162 FMC could be opened. Relief came when a major German supply dump was captured at Oss which provided XXX Corps with 120,000 rations per day, although tea, sugar and milk were lacking. The dump was so large that for a time both British and German units were drawing from it, until the 8th Armoured Brigade secured the site.
The 101st Airborne Division and the Guards Armoured Division managed to reopen the road by 15:30 on 23 September, although it was still under artillery and small arms fire, and blocks of ten vehicles were sent through every ten minutes. The four platoons carrying POL reached No. 162 FMC, followed by seven more carrying ammunition, but the road was cut again on 24 September, and not reopened until the morning of 26 September, by which time the entire operation had been called off, and what was left of 1st Airborne Division had been withdrawn during the night. Transport south of where the road was cut was used to build up stocks at No. 161 FMC.
### Market
The airborne Operation Market commenced on 17 September. The troops carried 48 hours' supplies with them. Plans for air resupply were based on automatic resupply for four days, with the option to extend if required. On the second day, 18 September, only 35 Short Stirling aircraft were available to tow resupply gliders, but thereafter there would be sufficient Stirlings and Dakotas. British and American equipment was different, with only a few common items such as jeeps, 75mm Pack Howitzers, 6-pounder ant-tank guns and POL. Different equipment entailed different packing requirements. The US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would place demands for supplies with US XVIII Airborne Corps while 1st Airborne Division dealt with I Airborne Corps (Rear) HQ, both of which were based back in England.
The second lift was supposed to depart the UK around 07:00 on 18 September, but was delayed for three hours by fog. Three General Aircraft Hamilcar gliders brought jeeps pre-loaded with ammunition and stores, but only two could be unloaded before German fire caused unloading work to cease. The divisional CRASC, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Packe arrived with his adjutant and nine soldiers, who would proceed to lay out the divisional administrative area (DAA) in front of the Hartenstein Hotel in Oosterbeek. The resupply drop that coincided with the second lift delivered most of its stores to the predetermined supply dropping point (SDP) north of the Wolfheze railway line, which was in German hands, but some supplies were collected and transported to the DAA in captured German vehicles. Although no POL was collected, petrol pumps were found 200 yards (180 m) east of the DAA, allowing units to draw 8 imperial gallons (36 L) per vehicle using their own jerricans.
The parachutes used for supply drops were coloured to indicate the contents of their attached containers and paniers: red for ammunition, white for medical supplies, green for rations, blue for POL, yellow for signals equipment, and black for mail. The first major resupply drop was on 19 September, which was made at the prearranged SDP despite efforts to communicate alternatives. The supply effort involved 99 Stirlings and 63 Dakotas; 18 aircraft were lost. The same number flew the following day, although their departure was delayed by fog. This time 2,000 rations were collected, enough to provide about a third of the division's requirements, along with 330 rounds of 75 mm and 140 rounds of 6-pounder ammunition. This time fifteen aircraft were lost, of which eleven were Stirlings. On 21 September, American fighters based in England were supporting a bombing raid, and half the British fighters were grounded by inclement weather. The supply lift of 63 Stirlings and 63 Dakotas was attacked by German fighters, and 31 aircraft were lost. On the ground, 400 rounds of 75 mm and 170 rounds of 6-pounder ammunition was collected, but in four days only 24 rounds of 17-pounder ammunition had been retrieved.
Some resupply aircraft took off on 22 September, but were diverted to Brussels while in the air. The DAA was now under mortar fire, and some ammunition caught fire. A stack of 6-pounder shells exploded, but the fires were extinguished. Another resupply attempt was made on 23 September with 73 Stirlings and 55 Dakotas from the England and 18 aircraft from Brussels. This time 160 rounds of 75 mm and 80 rounds of 6-pounder ammunition was collected, but ammunition for the PIATs and Sten guns was critically short. There were now only a few serviceable jeeps and trailers available to distribute supplies. The resupply drop for 24 September was cancelled due to bad weather, although a drop was made near Grave, which was collected by the seaborne echelon. Most of its stock of 75mm and 6-pounder ammunition was handed over to the US 82nd Airborne Division after the 1st Airborne Division was evacuated from north of the Rhine on the night of 25/26 September.
## Ports
### Channel ports
At the end of August, two port operating groups operated the Mulberry, Caen and Ouistreham, while the other four groups were withdrawn in preparation to deploying forward. The Canadian First Army had the mission of capturing the Channel ports. Rouen was captured by the Canadians on 30 August, and Le Tréport and Dieppe were taken in an assault on 1 September. Although Dieppe's port facilities were almost intact, the approaches were extensively mined and several days of minesweeping were required; the first coaster docked there on 7 September. The rail link from Dieppe to Amiens was ready to accept traffic the day before. By the end of September, Dieppe had a capacity of 6,100 to 7,100 tonnes (6,000 to 7,000 long tons) per day. Le Tréport became a satellite port of Dieppe, and was used chiefly by the RAF for handling of awkward and bulky loads such as Queen Mary trailers with crashed aircraft, which were carried in Landing craft tank (LCTs). The port fell into disuse after Boulogne was opened.
A full-scale assault was required to capture Le Havre, and by the time the garrison surrendered on 12 September, the port was badly damaged. Unexpectedly, SHAEF allocated the port to the American forces. It was feared that this would create problems with the British and American lines of communications crossing each other, but the anticipated difficulties did not eventuate.
Boulogne was captured on 22 September, but was badly damaged: most of the port equipment had been destroyed, and the harbour mouth was blocked by twenty-six sunken ships. The Royal Navy cleared a channel 300 feet (91 m) wide and 8 feet (2.4 m) deep, which permitted two coasters to get through on 12 October. Clearance of the wrecks was completed a month later, by which time the Royal Engineers had effected repairs to the quays to allow five coasters to berth. Thereafter, it handled a daily average of 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) until early 1945, when it was handed over to the French. In its time under British control, the port received 9,000 personnel, 10,000 vehicles and 125,000 long tons (127,000 t) of stores.
The German guns at Calais had to be silenced to facilitate the minesweeping operations to open Boulogne, so the port was captured on 29 September. SHAEF initially allocated the port to US control with the intention of developing landing ship, tank (LST), berths there for discharging vehicles, but the Communication Zone did not follow up on these plans, and when the 21st Army Group requested permission to use the railway terminal, SHAEF re-allocated it to British control on 23 October. It too was so badly damaged that repair work was initially confined to the construction of the railway terminal for LSTs equipped with rails and the ferry HMS Twickenham. The SS Shepperton Ferry berthed on 21 November, and Calais became the major personnel reception port in the British sector. Stores were not discharged there until January, and the daily average was only around 350 long tons (360 t).
Ostend was captured on 9 September – the naval port party had to clear a passage through the fourteen wrecks that obstructed the harbour entrance. A channel 150 feet (46 m) wide and 7 feet (2.1 m) deep was cleared by 24 September, allowing coasters to enter the harbour the following day. Some quays were completely destroyed, but others were only damaged or obstructed by debris. These were cleared and repaired by the Royal Engineers. By the end of September the port had a capacity of 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) of cargo daily, which rose to 5,000 long tons (5,100 t) a day by the end of November, not counting bulk POL that was pumped ashore from tankers. A berth was lost when the SS Cedarwood was sunk in the harbour by a mine, but by November it was normally working three landing ships, infantry (LSIs), a hospital carrier, five LSTs and several coasters a day. Its turnaround time for coasters was 1+1⁄4 days, which was faster than any other port in North West Europe.
The shipping available to the 21st Army Group in early September was limited by the inability of the recently-captured Channel Ports to handle vessels larger than coasters. The capacity of the ports was estimated at 12,000 long tons (12,000 t) per day, but in practice no more than 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) could be discharged daily. The coasters and landing ships had been in continuous use since D-Day, resulting in wear and tear. As the deteriorating autumn weather set in, an ever-increasing proportion were deadlined for repairs. Larger ships could still use the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches, but the RMA already held more stores than could be moved forward. A gale in early October caused considerable disruption to Mulberry operations. The two tombolas floating ship-to-shore lines at Port-en-Bessin were put out of action, and discharge of bulk POL there from tankers ceased. With the opening of Boulogne, two deep water berths became available. The port capacity available was sufficient to maintain the 21st Army Group and build up a small reserve, but not for major operations.
### Antwerp
Although Antwerp was captured on 4 September, the port was unusable because the Scheldt estuary that provided access to the port remained in German hands. In the meantime, a port construction and repair company arrived on 12 September and commenced the rehabilitation of the port. On 9 October, Eisenhower sent Montgomery a telegram that read:
> The recent gale has materially reduced the intake at Cherbourg while Arromanches, which we counted on to assist materially in supply for US forces was severely damaged. This emphasises the supreme importance of Antwerp ... I must repeat, we are now squarely up against the situation which we have anticipated for months; our intake into the continent will not support our battle. All operations will come to a standstill unless Antwerp is producing by middle of November. I must emphasise that I consider Antwerp of first importance of all our endeavours on the entire front from Switzerland to the Channel. I believe your personal attention is required in operation designed to clear entrance.
This was followed by a longer message that reached Montgomery on 15 October. The following day Montgomery issued a new directive to the 21st Army Group prioritising the opening of Antwerp over the advance to the Rhine, and committing the British Second Army as well as the Canadian First Army to the Battle of the Scheldt. The latter was being maintained by No. 7 Army Roadhead at Lens but for the Scheldt operation a No. 9 Army Roadhead was established in the Termonde-Alost-Ghent area, where it was served by railway links between Ostend and Ghent, and Lille and Ghent. The new roadhead opened on 8 October, although part of the Canadian First Army continued to draw its supplies from No. 7 Army Roadhead, and was stocked by trains from Roubaix, Dieppe and the RMA.
During Operation Market Garden, No. 161 FMC at Bourg-Leopold had expanded beyond the size of a normal FMC, and a great deal of US Army supplies had been accumulated, which now had to be disposed of. Second Army took it over as the basis of a new army roadhead, No. 8 Army Roadhead. As one of the Belgian pre-war military centres it contained suitable accommodation and was well served by road and railway communications. The roads in the area were straight with wide road verges, which made them ideal for roadside stacking of stores, and was also well-placed to support the Second Army's ongoing operations. Its only drawback was a shortage of covered storage space, so supplies often had to be stored in the open. Stocking of the new roadhead commenced on 4 October, and was largely done by rail.
During Operation Infatuate, the operations on Walcheren Island to open Antwerp, British commandos captured Flushing on 4 November, bringing both sides of the Scheldt under Allied control. An attempt had already been made to commence minesweeping two days earlier but three of the minesweepers had been hit by guns at Zeebrugge, and the attempt had been abandoned. Zeebrugge was in Canadian hands the following day, and minesweepers from Ostend reached Breskens. Minesweeping operations commenced on 4 November, with ten flotillas engaged. Fifty mines were swept on the first day, and six minesweepers made their way to Antwerp. Thereafter, sweeping operations continued from both ends of the Scheldt. One minesweeper was lost with all hands, but on 26 November the naval officer in charge of the minesweeping effort, Captain H. G. Hopper, announced that sweeping operations were complete.
The port of Antwerp was opened to coasters that day and to deep-draught shipping on 28 November. The first ship to berth was Canadian-built SS Fort Cataraqui. The quays were cleared of obstructions and the Kruisschans Lock was repaired by December. Antwerp could receive shipping not just from the UK, but directly from the United States and the Middle East. The first order placed for direct shipment from the United States was for 18,000 long tons (18,000 t) of flour, sugar, dried fruit, condensed milk, powdered eggs and luncheon meat, to arrive in January 1945. Subsequent orders were for flour and meat only, as sufficient stocks of the other goods were held in the UK to sustain the 21st Army Group for six months. The first ocean-going refrigerated vessel docked at Antwerp on 2 December 1944, and daily issues of fresh meat from South America became possible, although transhipment via the UK was still sometimes necessary.
Antwerp had 26 miles (42 km) of quays, which were located along the river and in eighteen wet basins (docks open to the water). They were equipped with over 600 hydraulic and electric cranes, and there were also floating cranes and grain elevators. There were 900 warehouses, a granary capable of storing nearly 1,000,000 imperial bushels (36,000,000 L) and 750,000 cubic feet (21,000 m<sup>3</sup>) of cold storage. Petroleum pipelines ran from the tanker berths to 498 storage tanks with a capacity of 100,000,000 imperial gallons (450,000,000 L). Labour to work the port was plentiful, and it was well-served by roads, railway and canals for barge traffic. There were 500 miles (800 km) of railway lines that connected to the Belgian railway system, and there was access to inland waterways, including the Albert Canal, which connected to the Meuse River. Although the port area was only lightly damaged, the Germans had removed 35 miles (56 km) of railway track and 200 points and crossings, and the marshalling yards had been damaged by artillery and mortar fire. To handle dredging, a Scheldt Dredging Control organisation was established; its work involved coordinating military requirements with longer-term civilian policy. Some 1,031,000 cubic yards (788,000 m<sup>3</sup>) of silt was dredged between 2 November 1944 and 31 January 1945.
SHAEF decreed that Antwerp would handle both American and British supplies, under British direction. For this purpose, a special combined American and British staff was created in the Q (Movements) Branch at 21st Army Group Headquarters, and a Memorandum of Agreement known as the "Charter of Antwerp" was drawn up and signed by Graham and US Colonel Fenton S. Jacobs, the commander of the Communication Zone's Channel Base Section. Overall command of the port was vested in the Royal Navy Naval Officer in Charge (NOIC), Captain Cowley Thomas, who also chaired a port executive committee on which both American and British interests were represented. Local administration was the responsibility of the British base sub area commander. US forces were allocated primary rights to the roads and railway lines leading south east to Liège, while the British were given those leading to the north and north east. A joint US, British and Belgian Movements Organization for Transport (BELMOT) was created to coordinate highway, railway and waterway traffic. A tonnage discharge target of 40,000 long tons (41,000 t) per day was set, of which 17,500 long tons (17,800 t) was British and 22,500 long tons (22,900 t) was American. This was not counting bulk POL, for which there was sufficient capacity for both. However, Antwerp was not an ideal base port; in peacetime it had been a transit port, and it lacked warehouse and factory space. The lack of warehouse space meant that when congestion occurred it was very difficult to clear. The surrounding area soon became crowded with dumps and depots.
Although damage to the port and its environs was minor, Antwerp repeatedly failed to meet its tonnage targets. This was mainly attributable to insufficient warehouse space, a shortage of railway rolling stock, and delays in opening the Albert Canal to barge traffic. The canal was supposed to open on 15 December, but clearing away obstructions, particularly the demolished Yserburg Bridge at the entrance, delayed its opening until 28 December, by which time a backlog of 198 loaded barges had accumulated. Temporary lighting was supplied to the Antwerp quays and dumps in December to allow the port to be worked around the clock. Twenty-one lighting sets were made by mounting a 3 kW 3-phase electric generator on a bogie with a 10-foot (3.0 m) platform on which six floodlights were installed.
Another cause of difficulties at Antwerp was German V-weapons attacks, which began on 1 October. This had a serious impact on the availability of civilian labour, and military labour had to be brought in. Nonetheless, the number of civilians employed at the port rose from 7,652 in early December 1944 to over 14,000 in January 1945. Whenever possible, US Army stores were moved directly from the quays to depots maintained by the Communications Zone around Liège and Namur, but these too were frequent targets of V-weapons.
By the end of the year, 994 V-2 rocket and 5,097 V-1 flying bomb attacks had been made against continental targets, resulting in 792 military personnel killed and 993 wounded, and 2,219 deaths and 4,493 serious injuries to civilians. The worst carnage in a single attack occurred on 16 December when the Cine Rex in Brussels was hit by a V-2 rocket and 567 people were killed. Four berths at the port were damaged in an attack on 24 December, and the sluice gate at the entrance from the Scheldt was damaged, thereby increasing the locking time by eight minutes. Two large cargo ships and 58 smaller vessels were sunk between September 1944 and March 1945, and there was damage to the roads, railways, cranes and quays, but not enough to seriously impact the functioning of the port.
E-boats made several attempts to disrupt convoys sailing to Antwerp, but the convoys were escorted by destroyers that drove them off, and RAF Bomber Command attacked their bases at IJmuiden and Rotterdam in December. In the first three months of 1945, torpedoes from E-boats sank 12,072 deadweight tons (12,266 deadweight tonnes) of Allied shipping, and mines laid by them sank 67,626 deadweight tons (68,711 deadweight tonnes) more. Seehund midget submarines accounted for another 9,282 deadweight tons (9,431 deadweight tonnes) of sunken ships. Also dangerous was aerial mining, as the sinking of a single large vessel in the Scheldt could have halted traffic in both directions for days. A major German aerial mining effort was made on 23 January 1945, with 36 mines being swept over the following five days, but this turned out to be the last minelaying mission directed against Antwerp.
### Ghent
The danger of relying too heavily on Antwerp was recognised, and to guard against the contingency of an event that made Antwerp unusable, such as a V-2 striking an ammunition ship, the inland port of Ghent was developed as an alternative. It could be accessed via the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal, could take ships with draughts of up 24 feet (7.3 m), and was capable of handling up to 16,000 long tons (16,000 t) per day. The port was operated as under joint US-British control. The British had effected a hasty repair of the sea locks at Terneuzen, which had been badly damaged, to enable landing craft to access the Scheldt for the landing on Walcheren. Dutch engineers estimated that permanent repairs would take six months, but a Royal Engineers (RE) port construction and repair company was able to do it in just two. Ghent had only been used by the Germans for barge traffic, so bringing it into operation required dredging. This was carried out by the US Army hopper dredge W. L. Marshall, which had previously been engaged in dredging the Scheldt, and had several doors blown off by near misses by V-1s and V-2s. Together with the Channel ports, Ghent provided sufficient capacity to meet the Allied armies' minimum needs.
## Transport
### Roads
An FMC normally held two days' rations, one days' maintenance, two or three days' supply of petrol (about 200,000 imperial gallons (910,000 L)) and 3,500 long tons (3,600 t) of ammunition. Each corps had two corps troops composite companies and a corps transport company. Between them they had 222 3-ton (3.4 m<sup>3</sup>) lorries, 12 10-ton (11 m<sup>3</sup>) lorries and 36 tippers. The tippers were never available for general duties, as they were continuously employed on construction tasks by the Royal Engineers. The normal daily requirement of a corps was 800 to 1,000 long tons (810 to 1,020 t), of which the corps transport had to lift 900 long tons (910 t). The corps' transport resources were inadequate and had to supplemented by borrowing lorries from the armies or the divisions.
With one exception, the infantry divisions of the 21st Army Group reorganised their transport on a commodity basis, with one company for supplies, one for POL, one for artillery ammunition and one for other kinds of ammunition. The armoured divisions, again with one exception, organised theirs with one company less one platoon for supplies, one plus a platoon for POL, one for ammunition and one for troop transport. Organisation by commodities was found to simplify transport arrangements and make it easier to supply lorries for use by the corps or for troop transport when required. Doctrine called for vehicles to be kept loaded when possible, providing a reserve on wheels but with Allied air supremacy, this was no longer necessary and the priority switched to dumping supplies and keeping the transport occupied.
Several expedients were used to increase the capacity of the road transport system. The First Canadian Army converted a tank transporter trailer into a load carrier by welding pierced steel plank onto it to give it a floor and sides. Second Army HQ was sufficiently impressed to order the conversion of a company of tank transporters. Modified this way, a tank transporter could haul 16.5 long tons (16.8 t) of supplies, 36 long tons (37 t) of ammunition or 10 long tons (10 t) of POL. These could carry a considerable amount in a convoy of reasonable length, but careful traffic control was required to ensure that they avoided narrow roads. Additional vehicles were allocated to transport companies with sufficient drivers, two 10-ton general transport companies were issued with 5-ton trailers, and eight DUKW companies were re-equipped with regular 3-ton lorries. This left only three DUKW companies, one of which was on loan to the US Army. One 6-ton and two 3-ton general transport companies that had also been loaned to the US Army in August were returned on 4 September. Eight additional transport platoons were formed from the transport of anti-aircraft units.
In response to an urgent request from 21st Army Group on 3 September, two transport companies were formed from the Anti-Aircraft Command and two from the War Office Airfields Transport Column, and shipped within six days. A second urgent request was received on 15 September. The War Office agreed to loan 21st Army Group an additional twelve transport companies with a combined lift of 9,756 long tons (9,913 t). They were drawn from the Anti-Aircraft Command and Command Mixed Transport units. Five companies arrived by 26 September. Five of them came pre-loaded with petrol, five with supplies, and two came empty. To control them, three new transport column HQs were formed in the UK and sent as well.
On 19 September, 21st Army Group HQ assumed control of transport through an organisation called TRANCO. Two CRASCs were assigned to the area north of the Seine and two to the south. In each area, one was responsible for the road patrol and staging camps, and the other, known as "control", reported on the location and availability of transport. Loading bills were sent out daily by telephone or radio 48-hours in advance. Road and railway traffic became more routine during October, and TRANCO was abolished at the end of the month. However, until the railway bridge at Ravenstein was repaired in December, the support of the British Second Army's operations to the south east of Nijmegen was still by road.
To economise on manpower and release RASC personnel to become infantry reinforcements, the RASC motor transport units were reorganised in October. Sixteen army transport companies were reorganised as sixteen 3-ton or 6-ton general transport companies with four platoons each, although they retained their original designations. The bulk petrol transport companies were reorganised from six companies with four platoons into eight companies with three platoons. Each platoon operated thirty vehicles.
In November, Belgian Army units were formed into transport companies. After training in the UK, they took over the equipment of the seventeen companies loaned by the War Office, whose personnel were then returned to the UK for retraining and further service in South East Asia. This transport pool was directly controlled by the 21st Army Group headquarters, although it was administered by the Belgian government.
To give the general transport companies some much-needed time for rest and maintenance, captured German horses, wagons and saddlery were pressed into service. These were supplemented by hired and requisitioned Belgian civilian animal transport. In the first half of December, 9,500 long tons (9,700 t) was moved by animal transport, mostly in the Antwerp area.
The major contributor to deterioration of the roads was running two-way traffic down narrow roads. Vehicles running with wheels on the verges caused rutting of the verges, which in turn caused damage to the road haunches. Once these were broken, the carriageway surface started to break up. In places where there were no trees to prevent driving on the verges, thousands of 5-foot (1.5 m) 4-by-2-inch (102 by 51 mm) wooden pickets were driven into the ground. Stone for road repair was drawn from porphyry rock quarries at Lessines, Bierghes [fr] and Quenast [nl], and 100,000 long tons (100,000 t) of slag suitable for making pitch was obtained from the zinc works at Neerpelt. In January 1945, the RE Quarrying Group produced 170,000 long tons (170,000 t) of stone.
### Railways
It was imperative to get the railway system operational again as soon as possible. The most pressing problem was the destruction of bridges, particularly those over the Seine. In northern France however, the devastation was less widespread, and rehabilitation was faster than south of the Seine. This work was carried out by British Army, civilian and POW workers. Commencing on 10 September, stores from the RMA began moving forward to railheads around Bernay. Lorries then took them across the Seine to the Beauvais area, where they were loaded back on trains and taken to railheads south of Brussels serving No. 6 Army Roadhead. On 8 September, work commenced on bridging the Seine. A new 529-foot (161 m) railway bridge at Le Manoir was completed on 22 September, allowing trains to cross the Seine. Two bridges across the Somme were still down, but by making a diversion around Doullens, trains could reach Brussels. In November and December, the Seine rose to its highest level since 1910, and the current ran at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). There were fears for the bridge at Le Manoir as the waters rose almost to the level of the rails, but the bridge remained standing.
While the US Army had its own railway operating units, the British forces were dependent on the French and Belgian railway authorities to operate the Amiens-Lille-Brussels line. In return for military assistance in restoring the rail network, the local authorities accepted that military traffic had priority over civilian. France had around 12,000 locomotives before the war, but only about 2,000 were serviceable by September 1944. With some quick repairs, it was possible to raise this to 6,000; but it was still necessary to import British-built War Department Austerity 0-6-0ST, 2-8-0 and 2-10-0 locomotives to supplement them. Plans called for a thousand engines to be brought across, of which 900 were to be 2-8-0s. Their delivery was slow, owing to the SHAEF's inadequate allocation of locomotives and rolling stock on the British account at Cherbourg, the only port that could receive them. This limitation was overcome when Dieppe was opened as a railway ferry terminal on 28 September. By the end of November 150 locomotives had been landed at Dieppe and Ostend using LSTs that had been specially fitted with rails to allow them to be driven on and off. Calais also began receiving rolling stock on 21 November.
Rolling stock was only part of the problem; the railway operators had to contend with damaged tracks, depleted staff and a non-operational telephone system. Rounding up enough locomotives for the day's work might involve visits to half a dozen marshalling yards by an official on a bicycle. Coordination of the system was the responsibility of the Q (Movements) Branch at 21st Army Group Headquarters. Rehabilitation of the railway system in that part of the Netherlands in Allied hands involved the reconstruction of bridges over the many rivers and canals. The Germans had demolished almost all the railway bridges, and most involved spans of over 100 feet (30 m). By 6 October, the line had reached Eindhoven.
The Americans assumed responsibility for all rail traffic west of Liseux on 23 October. Nineteen bridges, six of which were double-track, were opened in November, and work was under way on twenty-two more. No less than 4,000 feet (1,200 m) of bridging was erected during the month. By the end of the year, 75 railway bridges consisting of 202 spans were partly or completely rebuilt, most of the repairs to the Antwerp marshalling yards were complete, and with the completion of the bridge at 's-Hertogenbosch, trains were running from Antwerp to railheads at Ravenstein and Mill, just 10 miles (16 km) from the front line.
### Air
The 21st Army Group had made little use of resupply by air during the Normandy campaign, with the exception of the Polish 1st Armoured Division in August. The RAF operated an aerial freight service but deliveries did not exceed 200 long tons (200 t) per week in June, and the average weekly delivery was half this. Demand increased dramatically when the 21st Army Group moved beyond the Seine. In the first week of September, 1,600 long tons (1,600 t) of petrol and 300 long tons (300 t) of supplies were delivered to airfields in the Amiens-Douai area. The following week, with German opposition increasing, priority switched to ammunition, of which 2,200 long tons (2,200 t) was delivered, along with 800 long tons (810 t) of POL and 300 long tons (300 t) of supplies.
By this time the airfields around Brussels had been restored to use, and became the destination of air freight, except for some deliveries of POL to Lille. Over the next five weeks, the RAF delivered 18,000 long tons (18,000 t) of air freight to Brussels' Evere Airport alone. Sometimes more than a thousand aircraft arrived in a single day, more than could be cleared with the available road transport, necessitating the establishment of temporary dumps at the airfields. A CRASC transport column HQ that had been specially trained in handling air freight was brought up from the RMA. It took control of two DIDs, and received an average of 400 to 500 long tons (410 to 510 t) of cargo each day.
### Pipelines
Operation Pluto was the codename for the project to bring bulk petrol directly from the UK using submarine pipelines that were laid across the English Channel. Two innovative types of pipe were developed. One design, known as Hais, was a flexible pipe, akin to a submarine telegraph cable, that could be laid by a cable layer ship. This was tested in December 1942 by running a cable pipeline across the Bristol Channel from Swansea; the design was so successful it was decided to upgrade it from 2 to 3 in (5.1 to 7.6 cm) in diameter. The other design, known as Hamel, used steel pipe that was welded together and wound around special floating drums 50-foot (15 m) in diameter known as Conundrums, which deployed the cable like giant bobbins.
Three ships were fitted out with cable-laying machinery, and Thames barges were converted up to handle the cable at ends where the waters were too shallow for the ships to operate. Two systems were planned: the first, with a pumping station codenamed "Bambi" was established at Sandown on the Isle of Wight to supply fuel to a terminal near Cherbourg, 65 nautical miles (120 km; 75 mi) distant, and one, with a pumping station codenamed "Dumbo", at Dungeness on the coast of Kent, to supply fuel across the Strait of Dover to a terminal near Boulogne, 23 nautical miles (43 km; 26 mi) away.
The project got off to a slow start owing to delays in the capture of Cherbourg, and then in minesweeping of the approaches, and was further dogged by bad weather and technical difficulties in laying the pipelines. Pumping operations commenced on 22 September, but by this time Cherbourg harbour had been opened to tankers, and the 21st Army Group was operating in Belgium and the Netherlands. The working pipelines failed on 3 October, after 935,000 imperial gallons (4,250,000 L) had been delivered, and the Bambi project was discontinued the following day.
Meanwhile, Boulogne was captured on 22 September, and the port was opened on 12 October. Work switched to the Dumbo system, which involved a much shorter pipeline distance, and was closer to where the 21st Army Group was operating. Lines were run to a beach in the outer harbour of Boulogne instead of Ambleteuse as originally planned because the beach at the latter was heavily mined. A Hais pipeline was laid that commenced pumping on 26 October, and it remained in action until the end of the war.
Boulogne had poor railway facilities, so the pipeline was connected to an overland one to Calais where better railway connections were available. This extension was completed in November. By December, nine 3-inch and two 2-inch Hamel pipelines and four 3-inch and two 2-inch Hais cable pipelines had been laid, a total of 17 pipelines, and Dumbo was providing 1,300 long tons (1,300 t) of petrol per day. The overland pipeline was extended to Antwerp, and then to Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and ultimately to Emmerich in Germany. Three 1,200-long-ton (1,200 t) storage tanks were erected in Boulogne and four 1,200-long-ton (1,200 t) tanks and a 600-long-ton (610 t) tank at Calais.
POL was also moved forward by 10,000 deadweight tons (10,000 deadweight tonnes) of POL barges. The floating bridges over the Seine, with the exception of the ones at Vernon and Elbeuf, were removed to allow for barge traffic. For the same reason, low operational bridges over canals in Belgium and the Netherlands were removed and replaced. Rehabilitation of the canal system involved the raising of sunken barges and removal of other obstructions such as blown bridges, and the repair of damaged locks. Severe weather caused the canals to freeze for a time in January and February 1945.
## Supply and services
### Subsistence
Due to the activity of the Allied air forces, few large German supply dumps were captured until Brussels was reached. Large quantities of food were found there, and for a time these made up a large part of the rations issued to the troops. These included what were for the British soldier unusual items such as pork and foods impregnated with garlic, which served to relieve the monotony of the "compo" field ration augmented with bully beef and biscuits. To bring the German rations up to Field Service (FS) ration scale, additional tea, sugar and milk were added.
The advanced base supply organisation around Antwerp was dispersed in three locations, with four base supply depots at Antwerp, five in Ghent and three in Brussels. Large amounts of refrigeration storage were provided for fresh meat and vegetables, which were now routinely issued. Some ration items now arrived directly from the United States without the double handling inherent in being first landed in the UK. By the end of 1944, the base had 100,000 long tons (100,000 t) of storage capacity, and held 29 million rations.
There was sufficient cold storage in the base area to meet the needs of the 21st Army Group, and some storage in the UK was released for use in other theatres or war. Eighty refrigerated railway wagons were acquired, but in the cold weather no problem was encountered with moving frozen meat in ordinary covered goods wagons. For Christmas, 300 long tons (300 t) of frozen pork was landed at Ostend in late November. To economise on bakers, who were in short supply, the 21st Army Group reorganised its eight field bakeries into fourteen mobile field bakeries. This provided a nominal increase in bread-making capacity of 152,000 pounds (69,000 kg) per day, while saving 200 bakers. The equipment for the reorganised units was shipped out from the UK.
### POL
A POL depot was opened in Brussels that was supplied by railway tank cars until Antwerp was opened. Antwerp had 300,000 long tons (300,000 t) of POL storage that was shared with the Americans. Ostend became the main port for POL, and it was linked by pipeline to the largest British POL installation at Ghent, where there was 50,000 long tons (51,000 t) of storage capacity. During the advance in September and October, the Canadian First and British Second Armies had mobile refilling centres under their command, but these were transferred to 21st Army Group's control in November. Storage areas for packaged POL were located at Antwerp, where there was 35,000 long tons (36,000 t); at Diest-Hasselt, where 40,000 long tons (41,000 t) were stored; at Ghent, where 35,000 long tons (36,000 t) were kept; and at Brussels, where there was 20,000 long tons (20,000 t).
During the rapid advance, jerrican discipline was sometimes lax, and it was often necessary to emphasise the importance of returning the cans. Discarded cans were soon appropriated by the civilian population, resulting in a shortage of jerricans that took months to remedy. Stocks in the UK were depleted, and shipments became limited to the production rate of 350 long tons (360 t) per day. To alleviate the shortage, POL was issued to line of communications units in bulk. Refilling stations were established along the line of communications to service road convoys. A salvage drive to reclaim jerricans recovered over a million of them. By the end of 1944, the 21st Army Group held stocks of 245,000 long tons (249,000 t) of packaged and bulk POL, representing 58 days' supply. More was held in the army roadheads and FMCs. The filling centre at Rouen was too far back, which meant mobile filling stations were established at the army roadheads. They were withdrawn from army control in November and placed under that of the 21st Army Group.
The War Office held a reserve of 30,000 long tons (30,000 t) of petrol in non-returnable 4-imperial-gallon (18 L) flimsy tins. To alleviate the September packaged fuel shortage, these were shipped to the 21st Army Group. Jerricans were issued in preference though, and were entirely used by the armies and in the forward areas because they were more than satisfactory for shipping and handling and loss through leakage was negligible. With jerrican discipline restored, there were concerns that this might be impaired by the circulation of non-returnable containers. The result was that by December, the 21st Army Group's entire stockpile of 20,000 long tons (20,000 t) of packaged fuel was held in flimsies.
During the German occupation of Belgium the Union Pétrolière Belge (UPB) had controlled the Belgian oil companies, and the 21st Army Group retained its services for the distribution of civilian petroleum products. Such activities were limited to essential services only, and demands were met from military stocks. In return, the oil companies allowed the Allies to use their plants and employees.
### Coal
Bulk shipments of coal from the UK commenced in August 1944, and were increased from 60,000 long tons (61,000 t) in September 1944 to 250,000 long tons (250,000 t) per month in early 1945. This tied up 225,000 deadweight tons (229,000 deadweight tonnes) of shipping. The coal sections of the G-4 (logistics) and G-5 (civil affairs) branches of SHAEF were amalgamated, with a US colonel placed in charge and a British lieutenant colonel as his deputy. The coal section swelled until it had over 400 personnel. Some collieries in France and Belgium resumed production in October. The first coal was received from France that month, but rail shipments from Belgium did not commence until November.
A severe coal shortage developed in Belgium in December that threatened to bring the civilian economy and military railway traffic to a standstill. Coal was required for the trains and for many other military purposes, including steam dredges, tugs and floating cranes, power stations, hospitals and bakeries. Units were given an allocation for 4 pounds (1.8 kg) per man per day, although this often had to be supplemented with firewood. These took priority over civilian purposes, such as electricity generation for heating and lighting. Luckily, both the US and British armies used oil for cooking. Severe restrictions were placed on electricity, but these also affected industrial facilities used for military purposes, such as steelworks, footwear, clothing factories and laundries.
The price of a ton of coal at the pithead was 350 Belgian francs (), but on the black market in Brussels it could fetch 5,000 francs (). This led to large quantities of coal being stolen and sold on the black market. For a time guards had to be posted on mines and trains hauling coal to prevent pilferage. The main bottleneck in Belgian coal production was the availability of wooden pit props, which came from the Ardennes. About 1 long ton (1.0 t) of pit props was required for every 40 long tons (41 t) of coal. Seven of the twelve British and Canadian forestry companies in the theatre were deployed to the Ardennes where there were good quantities of Norway spruce.
At first the problem was the railway link between the Ardennes and the mines. A movement control group was brought out from the UK to coordinate the traffic. No sooner was this resolved than the German Ardennes offensive interrupted the supply, and four of the forestry companies had to be used as infantry. Efforts to locate another source of pit props in Belgium were to no avail, so arrangements were made for pit props to be shipped from the UK. By the time they arrived in January the crisis in the Ardennes had passed, and regular supply was resumed. The production target of 2,000 long tons (2,000 t) of coal per day was met soon thereafter.
### Supplies
Until Antwerp was opened, ordnance stores arrived through Boulogne, Dieppe and Ostend. Each handled different types of stores, which simplified sorting and forwarding of ordnance stores, 58,000 long tons (59,000 t) of which passed through these ports in the last three months of 1944. The 15th Advance Ordnance Depot (AOD) began its move to the advanced base in September, and requisitioned offices and storehouses in Antwerp. It was joined there by the 17th AOD. Stocking of the new 15th/17th AOD commenced in November, and it opened for issues to the First Canadian Army on 1 January 1945, and the British Second Army ten days later. Finally, on 22 January, it began servicing the whole line of communications. Until then, demands were met from the RMA. The 15th/17th AOD grew to employ 14,500 people, of whom 11,000 were civilians, and occupied 3,500,000 square feet (330,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of covered and 30,000,000 square feet (2,800,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of open space. Over 126,000 distinct items were stocked, and 191,000 items were demanded in January.
The 2nd Base Ammunition Depot (BAD) opened in Brussels in October 1944, and after a slow start stocks rose to 75,000 long tons (76,000 t). The 17th BAD opened north of Antwerp towards the end of the year, but its stocking was hampered by V-weapon attacks. Although the tonnage of ammunition was impressive, there were still shortages of it for the field and medium artillery. In late October 1943, stocks of ammunition seemed so high that cutbacks in production had been ordered; the labour saved in the UK had been diverted to aircraft production. On 14 October 1944, the Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lieutenant-General Sir Ronald Weeks, wrote to Montgomery, explaining that expenditure of 25-pounder ammunition was exceeding monthly production by 1.5 million rounds per month, and expenditure of medium artillery ammunition was 40 per cent higher than production.
The War Office was therefore obliged to impose quotas on the armies in the field. This primarily affected the Eighth Army in Italy, where major operations had to be postponed until the spring of 1945. An increase in the allotment of ammunition to Italy could only come at the expense of the 21st Army Group, and the War Office was unwilling to do this. The 21st Army Group largely escaped the effects of the shortage. On 7 November, the 21st Army Group restricted usage to 15 rounds per gun per day for field artillery ammunition and 8 rounds per gun per day for medium artillery ammunition, but Montgomery directed that this would apply only during quiet periods, and that stocking of the advanced base would continue until it held 14 days' reserves and 14 days' working margin prescribed by the War Office.
The exigencies of the campaign took their toll on vehicles in wear and tear. A major fault was found with the engines of 1,400 4x4 3-ton Austin K5 lorries, which developed piston trouble. A combination of early frosts and heavy military traffic created numerous potholes in the Dutch and Belgian roads and caused widespread suspension damage to vehicles. Repair work conducted in the advanced base workshops in Brussels and later Antwerp, which were able to take advantage of the static front line and the availability of civilian factories for military workshop spaces to increase their throughput. Civilian garages were also employed to perform repairs.
So many armoured fighting vehicles broke down during the advance in September that the stocks at the RMA and the Armoured Replacement Group (ARG) were almost exhausted. By 27 September, no replacement tanks had arrived for three weeks. Armoured units had only 70 per cent of their unit equipment, and the RMA held only 15 and 5 per cent respectively in stock. Many repairable tanks lay broken down along the road sides awaiting collection by the recovery teams, but these had to move so frequently that it would be some time before repairs could be completed. It was arranged for forty armoured vehicles a day to be shipped to Boulogne in October. The following month LSTs began arriving with tanks at Ostend, and deliveries were split between the two ports, with thirty armoured vehicles arriving at Ostend and twenty at Boulogne each every day. Port clearance presented a problem as there was no railway link at Boulogne, so hard-pressed tank transporters had to be used. By October there were nine tank transporter companies, of which one was allotted to the Canadian First Army, three to the British Second Army, and five were retained under 21st Army Group control. The average tank transporter travelled about 68 miles (109 km) per day. In December a shortage of heavy truck tyres caused four of the companies to be taken off the road and used only in emergencies.
At Ostend, there was a rail link, but also a shortage of warflat wagons suitable for carrying tanks. The tank shipments absorbed all the available motor transport shipping to forward ports, so other vehicles were shipped to the RMA at the rate of about 250 per day. After Antwerp was opened, shipments through it averaged 30 armoured vehicles and 200 to 300 other vehicles per day. It was found that the two armoured fighting vehicle servicing units were insufficient to cope with the numbers of replacement tanks, so the brigade workshop of the disbanded 27th Armoured Brigade was employed to service tanks alongside the Second Army Delivery Squadron. In December, the establishment of the armoured troops was changed to two Sherman Firefly tanks armed with the more effective 17-pounder and one Sherman tank armed with the old 75 mm gun; previously the ratio had been the reverse.
Two new armoured vehicles were received during the campaign: the American Landing Vehicle Tracked, which was used to equip the 5th Assault Regiment of the 79th Armoured Division in September, and was employed in the amphibious operations on the Scheldt; and the British Comet tank, which was issued to the 29th Armoured Brigade of the 11th Armoured Division in December. A reversion to using British tanks was prompted by a critical shortage of Sherman tanks in the US Army, which caused deliveries to the British Army to be cut back severely in September and October, and then suspended entirely in November and December. The re-equipment of the 29th Armoured Brigade was interrupted by the German Ardennes offensive, and the brigade was hastily re-armed with its Shermans and sent to hold the crossings on the Meuse between Namur and Dinant. The re-equipment process was carried out in January 1945, and the surplus Sherman Fireflies were issued to other units, further reducing the number of Shermans they had armed with the 75 mm gun.
During the German Ardennes offensive, the American depots ceased accepting shipments from Antwerp, as they were threatened by the German advance and might have to relocate at short notice, but the ships continued to arrive. With no depots in the Antwerp area, American stores piled up on the quays. By Christmas, railway traffic had come to a standstill, with trains held up as far back as Paris and Le Havre. An emergency administrative area was created around Lille, where American traffic would not interfere with the British line of communications. The German offensive also raised fears for Brussels' water supply, which would have fallen into German hands had they reached the Meuse between Huy and Dinant. The German Ardennes offensive prompted a request from the US Communications Zone on 26 December for an emergency delivery of 351 Sherman tanks to the US 12th Army Group. These were drawn from the depots and the radios replaced with US patterns. Tank transporters were used to move 217 tanks, with the other 134 despatched by rail. The US forces were also loaned 106 25-pounders, 78 artillery trailers and 30 6-pounder anti-tank guns, along with stocks of ammunition.
### Services
Civilian labour was utilised in a variety of tasks to enable military personnel to be released for service in forward areas. By the end of 1944, some 90,000 civilians were employed by the 21st Army Group, half of them by the Royal Engineers or in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers workshops in the advanced base. Assistance from the Belgian government came from its Office of Mutual Aid (OMA). Similar arrangements were made with the governments of France and the Netherlands.
Local purchasing and production saved both time and shipping space. Locally-produced items included 350,000 extended end connectors ("duckbills") for tank tracks to improve the mobility of tanks on soft ground and in the snow. The OMA also established a tyre repair organisation. Civilian workers were paid by their national governments under mutual aid, but the offer of a free British Army meal proved to be the greatest attraction. A reluctance to undertake outdoor activities was overcome by issues of surplus military clothing and footwear, but by far the biggest disincentive was the German V-weapons.
In addition to civilian labour, the Dutch and Belgian governments organised 24 Belgian and 12 Dutch labour units to assist the Royal Pioneer Corps. The first six Belgian units joined the 21st Army Group in December. These units were equipped and clothed by the British Army, and their national governments granted permission for their employment in Germany when the time came.
Another potential source of labour were the vast numbers of prisoners of war, and there were more of them than could be gainfully employed. By the end of December, the 21st Army Group had captured approximately 240,000 prisoners, of whom 170,000 had been moved to the UK. Due to an agreement between the US and UK dating back to the North African campaign, prisoners of war were divided evenly between the US and UK. Therefore, 100,000 prisoners were transferred from US to British control. In October however, the War Office announced that it was cutting back on the numbers of prisoners that it would accept in the UK, and prisoner of war camps in north-west Europe then became overcrowded. Two more camps were established, which were staffed by personnel sent by the War Office. Still, the overcrowding persisted, and it was anticipated that large numbers of prisoners would be captured when major offensive operations resumed in February 1945.
Once it became clear that a rapid advance into Germany would not occur and that the 21st Army Group would remain in northern Belgium and the southern Netherlands for a considerable period of time, work commenced on preparations for the winter. Winterisation, which included the supply of warm clothing for the troops, the establishment of covered storage for supplies, and the improvement of airfields to handle the conditions, absorbed 750,000 long tons (760,000 t) of import tonnage. Huts were required to accommodate 200,000 personnel, and 1,250,000 square feet (116,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of covered space was needed for other purposes. Camps were established for 100,000 refugees and prisoners of war, and a transit camp for 2,600 troops was created at Calais. Large numbers of anti-aircraft units were based around Antwerp to protect the port and installations there, and over 1,000 camps were built for anti-aircraft battery and searchlight positions.
No. 83 Group RAF alone required nearly 700 huts to accommodate 12,000 personnel. Orders were placed with civilian firms for 1,000 Nissen huts in November and 5,000 per month thereafter, but their work was hampered by the shortage of coal and the availability of timber. Air bases were constructed and improved by four airfield construction wings of the Airfield Construction Branch RAF. Getting them ready for winter involved the repair of concrete runways, the erection of hangars, the construction of accommodation, and the preparation of 100,000 square feet (9,300 m<sup>2</sup>) of hard standings where stores could be unloaded from aircraft onto lorries. From December on, considerable effort was devoted to keeping the runways and taxiways clear of snow and ice, for which local rock salt was used. The first Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation (FIDO) system outside the UK was installed at Épinoy. This consumed 90,000 imperial gallons (410,000 L) of petrol each night.
### Medical
It was highly undesirable for hospitals to be under canvas under winter conditions. Six general hospitals in the RMA that had become redundant were shipped back to the UK until adequate accommodation could be provided for them in the advanced base area. This was accomplished by taking over existing civilian and German military hospitals, and converting schools and convents into hospitals. Hospitals were built at Antwerp, Louvain (Leuven), Ostend, Bruges and Dieppe. By 7 January there were 29,000 hospital beds in the 21st Army Group.
The move of troops from bivouacs to billets and buildings was accompanied by a rise in the incidence of colds and respiratory diseases. However, the rate of trench foot was low, with just twelve cases in November and fourteen in December. In all, 206 cases of trench foot or frostbite were recorded among the British and Canadian armies during the winter of 1944, compared with 71,000 in the American armies. This was attributed to awareness and good man management by regimental officers. The wet and cold climate of winter in the British Isles, and the experience of the Great War had made the British Army extremely conscious of the importance of taking care of feet, and it was incorporated into the training regimen. American observers noted that when the British soldier was told to do something, he did it. A policy was laid down that no soldier should be in kept in the front line for more than 48 hours at a time in the winter, and efforts were made to find warm and dry billets when they were out of the line. The British Battledress was warmer than the American equivalent, and each soldier had a warm sleeveless leather jerkin. There was an issue of additional pairs of socks to the troops, and the design of the boots allowed for two pairs of socks to be worn in cold weather. The construction of the soles of the boots made them more waterproof than American boots.
Contact with the civilian population, especially after the leave in Belgium and the Netherlands began being granted led to a rise in venereal disease cases from 1.08 per thousand troops in October to 3.06 per thousand in December. There was also an increase in cases of scabies and pediculosis. The rate of hospital admissions rose from 22.4 per 1,000 personnel in October to 24.3 in November, and 28.0 in December.
## Outcome and legacy
With Antwerp open, it was decided to shut down the RMA, where some 300,000 long tons (300,000 t) of supplies were still held. This included 15,000,000 rations, which were gradually eaten by the troops in the RMA. The last shipment of supplies to the RMA, except for fresh meat and vegetables, was made at the end of October. Stores still required by the 21st Army Group were moved forward to the new advanced base around Antwerp, and the rest returned to the War Office for disposal. Each day 200 long tons (200 t) were moved forward by road and the same amount by rail, and towards the end of November a coaster service commenced which moved 2,500 long tons (2,500 t) per day to Antwerp by sea.
Troops stationed south of the Seine continued to draw provisions from stocks in the RMA, while those in France north of the Seine were provisioned through the Channel ports. By the end of December only 670 long tons (680 t) of ammunition remained in the RMA, but half of the ordnance and engineering stores still had to be moved forward. The Mulberry harbour had been damaged by the autumn gales, and winterisation work there ceased in October. It was closed for good in November, and work commenced on dismantling it.
Through American Lend-Lease, British logistics in this campaign had access to enormous resources. The system for using it effectively had been developed and honed in earlier campaigns in North Africa and Italy. The procedures that had been developed there were improved upon as administrative staffs steadily became more experienced, and a high degree of efficiency resulted. The problem the administrative staffs faced was not whether something could be accomplished, but how soon it could be done, and what the ramifications would be. The maintenance system had both capacity and flexibility, and was capable of supporting both the fast-moving operations involved in the sweep through northern France and Belgium in September and the slow-tempo operations involved in the capture of Antwerp in October. The responsiveness of the logistical system allowed operational successes to be exploited and difficulties to be overcome. Formations were permitted to demand whatever they felt they required without question. The dangers of over-supply were demonstrably less than the shortcomings inherent in a less flexible and responsive logistical system.
On 15 January, with the German Ardennes offensive over, the 21st Army Group began preparations for Operation Veritable. The 21st Army Group would drive through the Reichswald, force a crossing of the Rhine, and advance into Germany. From an administrative point of perspective, this would be much simpler than the breakout from the lodgement area in 1944 due to the work that had been carried out between September 1944 and the end of the year. A well-developed base was available to support these operations, railheads extended into the forward areas, supplies had been stockpiled, and transportation was available. This time the 21st Army Group would not be held back by logistical constraints.
One of the legacies of this operation was the post-war use of British locomotives on the continent. In particular, the WD locomotives 2-8-0, 2-10-0 and 0-6-0ST's numbered some 324 by 1946. Many were purchased by the French, Dutch and Belgian state railways, and of these the larger engines saw heavy use, particularly with the Dutch Nederlandse Spoorwegen. A WD Austerity 2-10-0 73755 Longmoor which was the 1000th British built steam locomotive to be ferried to Mainland Europe in support of the British Army is now preserved at the Railway Museum in Utrecht.
|
30,502 |
Thomas Cranmer
| 1,173,664,634 |
Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555
|
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Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm.
During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for establishing the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the reformed Church of England. Under Henry's rule, Cranmer did not make many radical changes in the Church, due to power struggles between religious conservatives and reformers. He published the first officially authorised vernacular service, the Exhortation and Litany.
When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote major reforms. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church. With the assistance of several Continental reformers to whom he gave refuge, he changed doctrine or discipline in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the Prayer Book, the Homilies and other publications.
After the accession of the Catholic Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. Imprisoned for over two years and under pressure from Church authorities, he made several recantations and apparently reconciled himself with the Catholic Church. While this would have normally absolved him, Mary wanted him executed, and he was burned at the stake on 21 March 1556; on the day of his execution, he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Catholics and a martyr for the principles of the English Reformation. Cranmer's death was immortalised in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and his legacy lives on within the Church of England through the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, an Anglican statement of faith derived from his work.
## Origins
Cranmer was born in 1489 at Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England. He was a younger son of Thomas Cranmer by his wife Agnes Hatfield. Thomas Cranmer was of modest wealth but was from a well-established armigerous gentry family which took its name from the manor of Cranmer in Lincolnshire. A ledger stone to one of his relatives in the Church of St John of Beverley, Whatton, near Aslockton is inscribed as follows: Hic jacet Thomas Cranmer, Armiger, qui obiit vicesimo septimo die mensis Maii, anno d(omi)ni. MD centesimo primo, cui(us) a(n)i(ma)e p(ro)p(i)cietur Deus Amen ("here lies Thomas Cranmer, Esquire, who died on the 27th day of May in the year of our lord 1501, on whose soul may God look upon with mercy"). The arms of the Cranmer and Aslockton families are displayed. The figure is that of a man in flowing hair and gown, and a purse at his right side. Their oldest son, John Cranmer, inherited the family estate, whereas Thomas and his younger brother Edmund were placed on the path to a clerical career.
## Early years (1489–1527)
Historians know nothing definite about Cranmer's early schooling. He probably attended a grammar school in his village. At the age of 14, two years after the death of his father, he was sent to the newly created Jesus College, Cambridge. It took him eight years to attain his Bachelor of Arts degree, following a curriculum of logic, classical literature and philosophy. During this time, he began to collect medieval scholastic books, which he preserved faithfully throughout his life. For his master's degree he studied the humanists, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Erasmus. He finished the course in three years. Shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College.
Sometime after Cranmer took his MA, he married a woman named Joan. Although he was not yet a priest, he was obliged to give up his fellowship, resulting in the loss of his residence at Jesus College. To support himself and his wife, he took a job as a reader at Buckingham Hall (later reformed as Magdalene College). When Joan died during her first childbirth, Jesus College showed its regard for Cranmer by reinstating his fellowship. He began studying theology and by 1520 he had been ordained, the university already having named him as one of its preachers. He received his Doctor of Divinity degree in 1526.
Not much is known about Cranmer's thoughts and experiences during his three decades at Cambridge. Traditionally, he has been portrayed as a humanist whose enthusiasm for biblical scholarship prepared him for the adoption of Lutheran ideas, which were spreading during the 1520s. A study of his marginalia reveals an early antipathy to Martin Luther and an admiration for Erasmus. When Cardinal Wolsey, the king's Lord Chancellor, selected several Cambridge scholars, including Edward Lee, Stephen Gardiner and Richard Sampson, to be diplomats throughout Europe, Cranmer was chosen for an embassy to the Holy Roman Emperor. His supposed participation in an earlier embassy to Spain, mentioned in the older literature, has proved to be spurious.
## In the service of Henry VIII (1527–1532)
Henry VIII's first marriage had its origins in 1502 when his elder brother, Arthur, died. Their father, Henry VII, then betrothed Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon, to the future king. The betrothal immediately raised questions related to the biblical prohibition (in Leviticus 18 and 20) against marriage to a brother's wife. The couple married in 1509 and after a series of miscarriages, a daughter, Mary, was born in 1516. By the 1520s, Henry still did not have a son to name as heir and he took this as a sure sign of God's anger and made overtures to the Vatican about an annulment. He gave Cardinal Wolsey the task of prosecuting his case; Wolsey began by consulting university experts. From 1527, in addition to his duties as a Cambridge don, Cranmer assisted with the annulment proceedings.
In mid-1529, Cranmer stayed with relatives in Waltham Holy Cross to avoid an outbreak of the plague in Cambridge. Two of his Cambridge associates, Stephen Gardiner and Edward Foxe, joined him. The three discussed the annulment issue and Cranmer suggested putting aside the legal case in Rome in favour of a general canvassing of opinions from university theologians throughout Europe. Henry showed much interest in the idea when Gardiner and Foxe presented him this plan. It is not known whether the king or his new Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, explicitly approved the plan. Eventually it was implemented and Cranmer was requested to join the royal team in Rome to gather opinions from the universities. Edward Foxe coordinated the research effort and the team produced the Collectanea Satis Copiosa ("The Sufficiently Abundant Collections") and The Determinations, historical and theological support for the argument that the king exercised supreme jurisdiction within his realm.
Cranmer's first contact with a Continental reformer was with Simon Grynaeus, a humanist based in Basel, Switzerland, and a follower of the Swiss reformers, Huldrych Zwingli and Johannes Oecolampadius. In mid-1531, Grynaeus took an extended visit to England to offer himself as an intermediary between the king and the Continental reformers. He struck up a friendship with Cranmer and after his return to Basel, he wrote about Cranmer to the German reformer Martin Bucer in Strasbourg. Grynaeus' early contacts initiated Cranmer's eventual relationship with the Strasbourg and Swiss reformers.
In January 1532, Cranmer was appointed the resident ambassador at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. As the emperor travelled throughout his realm, Cranmer had to follow him to his residence in Regensburg. He passed through the Lutheran city of Nuremberg and saw for the first time the effects of the Reformation. When the Imperial Diet was moved to Nuremberg, he met the leading architect of the Nuremberg reforms, Andreas Osiander. They became good friends, and during that July Cranmer took the surprising action of marrying Margarete, the niece of Osiander's wife. He did not take her as his mistress, as was the prevailing custom with priests for whom celibacy was too rigorous. Scholars note that Cranmer had moved, however moderately at this stage, into identifying with certain Lutheran principles. This progress in his personal life was not matched in his political life as he was unable to persuade Charles, Catherine's nephew, to support the annulment of his aunt's marriage.
## Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury (1532–1534)
While Cranmer was following Charles through Italy, he received a royal letter dated 1 October 1532 informing him that he had been appointed the new Archbishop of Canterbury, following the death of archbishop William Warham. Cranmer was ordered to return to England. The appointment had been secured by the family of Anne Boleyn, who was being courted by Henry. When Cranmer's promotion became known in London, it caused great surprise as Cranmer had previously held only minor positions in the Church. Cranmer left Mantua on 19 November and arrived in England at the beginning of January. Henry personally financed the papal bulls necessary for Cranmer's promotion to Canterbury. The bulls were easily acquired because the papal nuncio was under orders from Rome to please the English in an effort to prevent a final breach. The bulls arrived around 26 March 1533 and Cranmer was consecrated as a bishop on 30 March in St Stephen's Chapel, by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter; and Henry Standish, Bishop of St Asaph. Even while they were waiting for the bulls, Cranmer continued to work on the annulment proceedings, which required greater urgency after Anne announced her pregnancy. Henry and Anne were secretly married on 24 or 25 January 1533 in the presence of a handful of witnesses. Cranmer did not learn of the marriage until 14 days later.
For the next few months, Cranmer and the king worked on establishing legal procedures on how the monarch's marriage would be judged by his most senior clergy. Several drafts of the procedures have been preserved in letters written between the two. Once procedures were agreed upon, Cranmer opened court sessions on 10 May, inviting Henry and Catherine of Aragon to appear. Gardiner represented the king; Catherine did not appear or send a proxy. On 23 May Cranmer pronounced the judgement that Henry's marriage with Catherine was against the law of God. He even issued a threat of excommunication if Henry did not stay away from Catherine. Henry was now free to marry and, on 28 May, Cranmer validated Henry and Anne's marriage. On 1 June, Cranmer personally crowned and anointed Anne queen and delivered to her the sceptre and rod. Pope Clement VII was furious at this defiance, but he could not take decisive action as he was pressured by other monarchs to avoid an irreparable breach with England. On 9 July he provisionally excommunicated Henry and his advisers (who included Cranmer) unless he repudiated Anne by the end of September. Henry kept Anne as his wife and, on 7 September, Anne gave birth to Elizabeth. Cranmer baptised her immediately afterwards and acted as one of her godparents.
It is difficult to assess how Cranmer's theological views had evolved since his Cambridge days. There is evidence that he continued to support humanism; he renewed Erasmus' pension that had previously been granted by Archbishop Warham. In June 1533, he was confronted with the difficult tasks not only of disciplining a reformer, but also of seeing him burned at the stake. John Frith was condemned to death for his views on the eucharist: he denied the real presence. Cranmer personally tried to persuade him to change his views without success. Although he rejected Frith's radicalism, by 1534 he clearly signalled that he had broken with Rome and that he had set a new theological course. He supported the cause of reform by gradually replacing the old guard in his ecclesiastical province with men such as Hugh Latimer who followed the new thinking. He intervened in religious disputes, supporting reformers, to the disappointment of religious conservatives who desired to maintain the link with Rome.
## Under the vicegerency (1535–1538)
Cranmer was not immediately accepted by the bishops within his province. When he attempted a canonical visitation, he had to avoid locations where a resident conservative bishop might make an embarrassing personal challenge to his authority. In 1535, Cranmer had difficult encounters with several bishops, John Stokesley, John Longland, and Stephen Gardiner among others. They objected to Cranmer's power and title and argued that the Act of Supremacy did not define his role. This prompted Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister, to activate and to take the office of the vicegerent, the deputy supreme head of ecclesiastical affairs. He created another set of institutions that gave a clear structure to the royal supremacy. Hence, the archbishop was eclipsed by Vicegerent Cromwell in regard to the king's spiritual jurisdiction. There is no evidence that Cranmer resented his position as junior partner. Although he was an exceptional scholar, he lacked the political ability to outface even clerical opponents. Those tasks were left to Cromwell.
On 29 January 1536, when Anne miscarried a son, the king began to reflect again on the biblical prohibitions that had haunted him during his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. Shortly after the miscarriage, the king started to take an interest in Jane Seymour. By 24 April, he had commissioned Cromwell to prepare the case for a divorce. Unaware of these plans, Cranmer had continued to write letters to Cromwell on minor matters up to 22 April. Anne was sent to the Tower of London on 2 May, and Cranmer was urgently summoned by Cromwell. On the very next day, Cranmer wrote a letter to the king expressing his doubts about the queen's guilt, highlighting his own esteem for Anne. After it was delivered, Cranmer was resigned to the fact that the end of Anne's marriage was inevitable. On 16 May, he saw Anne in the Tower and heard her confession and the following day, he pronounced the marriage null and void. Two days later, Anne was executed; Cranmer was one of the few who publicly mourned her death.
The vicegerency brought the pace of reforms under the control of the king. A balance was instituted between the conservatives and the reformers and this was seen in the Ten Articles, the first attempt at defining the beliefs of the Henrician Church. The articles had a two-part structure. The first five articles showed the influence of the reformers by recognising only three of the former seven sacraments: baptism, eucharist, and penance. The last five articles concerned the roles of images, saints, rites and ceremonies, and purgatory, and they reflected the views of the traditionalists. Two early drafts of the document have been preserved and show different teams of theologians at work. The competition between the conservatives and reformers is revealed in rival editorial corrections made by Cranmer and Cuthbert Tunstall, the bishop of Durham. The end product had something that pleased and annoyed both sides of the debate. By 11 July, Cranmer, Cromwell, and the Convocation, the general assembly of the clergy, had subscribed to the Ten Articles.
In late 1536, the north of England was convulsed in a series of uprisings collectively known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, the most serious opposition to Henry's policies. Cromwell and Cranmer were the primary targets of the protesters' fury. Cromwell and the king worked furiously to quell the rebellion, while Cranmer kept a low profile. After it was clear that Henry's regime was safe, the government took the initiative to remedy the evident inadequacy of the Ten Articles. The outcome after months of debate was The Institution of a Christian Man informally known from the first issue as the Bishops' Book. The book was initially proposed in February 1537 in the first vicegerential synod, ordered by Cromwell, for the whole Church. Cromwell opened the proceedings, but as the synod progressed, Cranmer and Foxe took on the chairmanship and the co-ordination. Foxe did most of the final editing and the book was published in late September.
Even after publication, the book's status remained vague because the king had not given his full support to it. In a draft letter, Henry noted that he had not read the book, but supported its printing. His attention was most likely occupied by the pregnancy of Jane Seymour and the birth of the male heir, Edward, that Henry had sought for so long. Jane died shortly after giving birth and her funeral was held on 12 November. That month Henry started to work on the Bishops' Book; his amendments were sent to Cranmer, Sampson, and others for comment. Cranmer's responses to the king were far more confrontational than his colleagues' and he wrote at much greater length. They reveal unambiguous statements supporting reformed theology such as justification by faith or sola fide (faith alone) and predestination. His words did not convince the king. A new statement of faith was delayed until 1543 with the publication of the King's Book.
In 1538, the king and Cromwell arranged with Lutheran princes to have detailed discussions on forming a political and religious alliance. Henry had been seeking a new embassy from the Schmalkaldic League since mid-1537. The Lutherans were delighted by this and they sent a joint delegation from various German cities, including a colleague of Martin Luther's, Friedrich Myconius. The delegates arrived in England on 27 May 1538. After initial meetings with the king, Cromwell, and Cranmer, discussions on theological differences were transferred to Lambeth Palace under Cranmer's chairmanship. Progress on an agreement was slow partly owing to Cromwell being too busy to help expedite the proceedings and partly because the negotiating team on the English side was evenly balanced between conservatives and reformers. The talks dragged on with the Germans becoming weary despite the Archbishop's strenuous efforts. The negotiations were fatally neutralised by an appointee of the king. Cranmer's colleague, Edward Foxe, who sat on Henry's Privy Council, had died earlier in the year. The king chose as his replacement Cranmer's conservative rival, Cuthbert Tunstall, who was told to stay near Henry to give advice. On 5 August, when the German delegates sent a letter to the king regarding three items that particularly worried them (compulsory clerical celibacy, the withholding of the chalice from the laity, and the maintenance of private masses for the dead), Tunstall was able to intervene for the king and to influence the decision. The result was a thorough dismissal by the king of many of the Germans' chief concerns. Although Cranmer begged the Germans to continue with the negotiations, using the argument "to consider the many thousands of souls in England" at stake, they left on 1 October without any substantial achievements.
## Reforms reversed (1539–1542)
Continental reformer Philipp Melanchthon was aware that he was very much admired by Henry. In early 1539, Melanchthon wrote several letters to Henry criticising his views on religion, in particular his support of clerical celibacy. By late April another delegation from the Lutheran princes arrived to build on Melanchthon's exhortations. Cromwell wrote a letter to the king in support of the new Lutheran mission. The king had begun to change his stance and concentrated on wooing conservative opinion in England rather than reaching out to the Lutherans. On 28 April 1539, Parliament met for the first time in three years. Cranmer was present, but Cromwell was unable to attend due to ill health. On 5 May the House of Lords created a committee with the customary religious balance between conservatives and reformers to examine and determine doctrine. The committee was given little time to do the detailed work needed for a thorough revision. On 16 May, the Duke of Norfolk noted that the committee had not agreed on anything, and proposed that the Lords examine six doctrinal questions—which eventually formed the basis of the Six Articles. They affirmed the conservative interpretation of doctrines such as the real presence, clerical celibacy, and the necessity of auricular confession, the private confession of sins to a priest. As the Act of the Six Articles neared passage in Parliament, Cranmer moved his wife and children out of England to safety. Up until this time, the family was kept quietly hidden, most likely in Ford Palace in Kent. The Act passed Parliament at the end of June and it forced Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton to resign their dioceses given their outspoken opposition to the measure.
The setback for the reformers was short-lived. By September, Henry was displeased with the results of the Act and its promulgators; the ever-loyal Cranmer and Cromwell were back in favour. The king asked his archbishop to write a new preface for the Great Bible, an English translation of the Bible that was first published in April 1539 under the direction of Cromwell. The preface was in the form of a sermon addressed to readers. As for Cromwell, he was delighted that his plan of a royal marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves, the sister of a German prince was accepted by the king. In Cromwell's view, the marriage could potentially bring back contacts with the Schmalkaldic League. Henry was dismayed with Anne when they first met on 1 January 1540 but married her reluctantly on 6 January in a ceremony officiated by Cranmer. The marriage ended in disaster as Henry decided that he would request a royal divorce. This resulted in Henry being placed in an embarrassing position and Cromwell suffered the consequences. His old enemies, including the Duke of Norfolk, took advantage of the weakened Cromwell and he was arrested on 10 June. He immediately lost the support of all his friends, including Cranmer. As Cranmer had done for Anne Boleyn, he wrote a letter to the king defending the past work of Cromwell. Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves was quickly annulled on 9 July by the vice-gerential synod, now led by Cranmer and Gardiner.
Following the annulment, Cromwell was executed on 28 July. Cranmer now found himself in a politically prominent position, with no one else to shoulder the burden. Throughout the rest of Henry's reign, he clung to Henry's authority. The king had total trust in him and in return, Cranmer could not conceal anything from the king. At the end of June 1541, Henry with his new wife, Catherine Howard, left for his first visit to the north of England. Cranmer was left in London as a member of a council taking care of matters for the king in his absence. His colleagues were Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley and Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. This was Cranmer's first major piece of responsibility outside the Church. In October, while the king and queen were away, a reformer named John Lascelles revealed to Cranmer that Catherine engaged in extramarital affairs. Cranmer gave the information to Audley and Seymour and they decided to wait until Henry's return. Afraid of angering the king, Audley and Seymour suggested that Cranmer inform Henry. Cranmer slipped a message to Henry during mass on All Saints Day. An investigation revealed the truth of the marital indiscretions and Catherine was executed in February 1542.
## Support from the King (1543–1547)
In 1543, several conservative clergymen in Kent banded together to attack and denounce two reformers, Richard Turner and John Bland, before the Privy Council. They prepared articles to present to the council, but at the last moment, additional denunciations were added by Stephen Gardiner's nephew, Germain Gardiner. These new articles attacked Cranmer and listed his misdeeds back to 1541. This document and the actions that followed were the basis of the so-called Prebendaries' Plot. The articles were delivered to the Council in London and were probably read on 22 April 1543. The king most likely saw the articles against Cranmer that night. The archbishop appeared unaware that an attack on his person was made. His commissioners in Lambeth dealt specifically with Turner's case where he was acquitted, much to the fury of the conservatives.
While the plot against Cranmer was proceeding, the reformers were being attacked on other fronts. On 20 April, the Convocation reconvened to consider the revision of the Bishops' Book. Cranmer presided over the sub-committees, but the conservatives were able to overturn many reforming ideas, including justification by faith alone. On 5 May, the new revision called A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man or the King's Book was released. Doctrinally, it was far more conservative than the Bishops' Book. On 10 May, the reformers received another blow. Parliament passed the Act for the Advancement of True Religion, which abolished "erroneous books" and restricted the reading of the Bible in English to those of noble status. From May to August, reformers were examined, forced to recant, or imprisoned.
For five months, Henry took no action on the accusations against his archbishop. The conspiracy was finally revealed to Cranmer by the king himself. According to Cranmer's secretary, Ralph Morice, sometime in September 1543 the king showed Cranmer a paper summarising the accusations against him. An investigation was to be mounted and Cranmer was appointed chief investigator. Surprise raids were carried out, evidence gathered, and ringleaders identified. Typically, Cranmer put the clergymen involved in the conspiracy through immediate humiliation, but he eventually forgave them and continued to use their services. To show his trust in Cranmer, Henry gave Cranmer his personal ring. When the Privy Council arrested Cranmer at the end of November, the nobles were stymied by the symbol of the king's trust in him. Cranmer's victory ended with two second-rank leaders imprisoned and Germain Gardiner executed.
With the atmosphere in Cranmer's favour, he pursued quiet efforts to reform the Church, particularly the liturgy. On 27 May 1544 the first officially authorised vernacular service was published, the processional service of intercession known as the Exhortation and Litany. It survives today with minor modifications in the Book of Common Prayer. The traditional litany uses invocations to saints, but Cranmer thoroughly reformed this aspect by providing no opportunity in the text for such veneration. Additional reformers were elected to the House of Commons and new legislation was introduced to curb the effects of the Act of the Six Articles and the Act for the Advancement of True Religion.
In 1546, the conservatives in a coalition including Gardiner, the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, and the bishop of London, Edmund Bonner, made one last attempt to challenge the reformers. Several reformers with links to Cranmer were targeted. Some such as Lascelles were burned at the stake. Powerful reform-minded nobles Edward Seymour and John Dudley returned to England from overseas and they were able to turn the tide against the conservatives. Two incidents tipped the balance. Gardiner was disgraced before the king when he refused to agree to exchange episcopal estates, and the son of the Duke of Norfolk was charged with treason and executed. There is no evidence that Cranmer played any part in these political games, and there were no further plots as the king's health ebbed in his final months. Cranmer performed his final duties for the king on 28 January 1547 when he gave a reformed statement of faith while gripping Henry's hand instead of giving him his last rites. Cranmer mourned Henry's death and it was later said that he demonstrated his grief by growing a beard. The beard was also a sign of his break with the past. Continental reformers grew beards to mark their rejection of the old Church and this significance of clerical beards was well understood in England. On 31 January, he was among the executors of the king's final will that nominated Edward Seymour as Lord Protector and welcomed the boy king, Edward VI.
## Foreign divines and reformed doctrines (1547–1549)
Under the regency of Seymour, the reformers became part of the establishment. A royal visitation of the provinces took place in August 1547 and each parish that was visited was instructed to obtain a copy of the Homilies. This book consisted of twelve homilies of which four were written by Cranmer. His reassertion of the doctrine of justification by faith elicited a strong reaction from Gardiner. In the "Homily of Good Works annexed to Faith", Cranmer attacked monasticism and the importance of various personal actions involved in liturgical recitations and ceremonies. Hence, he narrowed the range of good works that would be considered necessary and reinforced the primacy of faith. In each parish visited, injunctions were put in place that resolved to, "...eliminate any image which had any suspicion of devotion attached to it."
Cranmer's eucharistic views, which had already moved away from official Catholic doctrine, received another push from Continental reformers. Cranmer had been in contact with Martin Bucer since the time when initial contacts were made with the Schmalkaldic League. Cranmer and Bucer's relationship became ever closer owing to Charles V's victory over the League at Mühlberg, which left England as the sole major nation that gave sanctuary to persecuted reformers. Cranmer wrote a letter to Bucer (now lost) with questions on eucharistic theology. In Bucer's reply dated 28 November 1547, he denied the corporeal real presence and condemned transubstantiation and the adoration of the elements. The letter was delivered to Cranmer by two Italian reformed theologians, Peter Martyr and Bernardino Ochino who were invited to take refuge in England. Martyr also brought with him an epistle written allegedly by John Chrysostom, Ad Caesarium Monachum, which appeared to provide patristic support against the corporeal real presence. These documents influenced Cranmer's thoughts on the eucharist.
In March 1549, the city of Strasbourg forced Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius to leave. Cranmer immediately invited the men to come to England and promised that they would be placed in English universities. When they arrived on 25 April, Cranmer was especially delighted to meet Bucer face to face after eighteen years of correspondence. He needed these scholarly men to train a new generation of preachers as well as to assist in the reform of liturgy and doctrine. Others who accepted his invitations included the Polish reformer, Jan Łaski, but Cranmer was unable to convince Osiander and Melanchthon that they should come to England.
## Book of Common Prayer (1548–1549)
As the use of English in worship services spread, the need for a complete uniform liturgy for the Church became evident. Initial meetings to start what would eventually become the 1549 Book of Common Prayer were held in the former abbey of Chertsey and in Windsor Castle in September 1548. The list of participants can only be partially reconstructed, but it is known that the members were balanced between conservatives and reformers. These meetings were followed by a debate on the Eucharist in the House of Lords which took place between 14 and 19 December. Cranmer publicly revealed in this debate that he had abandoned the doctrine of the corporeal real presence and believed that the Eucharistic presence was only spiritual. Parliament backed the publication of the Prayer Book after Christmas by passing the Act of Uniformity 1549; it then legalized clerical marriage.
It is difficult to ascertain how much of the Prayer Book is Cranmer's personal composition. Generations of liturgical scholars have been able to track down the sources that he used, including the Sarum Rite, writings from Hermann von Wied, and several Lutheran sources including Osiander and Justus Jonas. It is more problematic to determine how Cranmer worked on the book and with whom he worked. Where information about his possible helpers is lacking, he is given the credit for the editorship and the overall structure of the book.
The use of the new Prayer Book was made compulsory on 9 June 1549. This triggered a series of protests in Devon and Cornwall where the English language was not yet in common usage, now known as the Prayer Book Rebellion. By early July, the uprising had spread to other parts in the east of England. The rebels made a number of demands including the restoration of the Six Articles, the use of Latin for the mass with only the consecrated bread given to the laity, the restoration of prayers for souls in purgatory, and the rebuilding of abbeys. Cranmer wrote a strong response to these demands to the King in which he denounced the wickedness of the rebellion. On 21 July, Cranmer commandeered St Paul's Cathedral where he vigorously defended the official Church line. A draft of his sermon, the only extant written sample of his preaching from his entire career, shows that he collaborated with Peter Martyr on dealing with the rebellion.
## Consolidating gains (1549–1551)
The Prayer Book Rebellion and other events had a negative effect on the Seymour regency. The Privy Council became divided when a set of dissident Councillors banded together behind John Dudley in order to oust Seymour. Cranmer and two other Councillors, William Paget, and Thomas Smith initially rallied behind Seymour. After a flurry of letters passed between the two sides, a bloodless coup d'état resulted in the end of Seymour's Protectorship on 13 October 1549. Despite the support of religiously conservative politicians behind Dudley's coup, the reformers managed to maintain control of the new government and the English Reformation continued to consolidate gains. Seymour was initially imprisoned in the Tower, but he was shortly released on 6 February 1550 and returned to the council. The archbishop was able to transfer his former chaplain, Nicholas Ridley from the minor see of Rochester to the diocese of London, while John Ponet took Ridley's former position. Incumbent conservatives were uprooted and replaced with reformers.
The first result of co-operation and consultation between Cranmer and Bucer was the Ordinal, the liturgy for the ordination of priests. This was missing in the first Prayer Book and was not published until 1550. Cranmer adopted Bucer's draft and created three services for commissioning a deacon, a priest, and a bishop. In the same year, Cranmer produced the Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, a semi-official explanation of the eucharistic theology within the Prayer Book. It was the first full-length book to bear Cranmer's name on the title-page. The preface summarises his quarrel with Rome in a well-known passage where he compared "beads, pardons, pilgrimages, and such other like popery" with weeds, but the roots of the weeds were transubstantiation, the corporeal real presence, and the sacrificial nature of the mass.
Although Bucer assisted in the development of the English Reformation, he was still quite concerned about the speed of its progress. Both Bucer and Fagius had noticed that the 1549 Prayer Book was not a remarkable step forward, although Cranmer assured Bucer that it was only a first step and that its initial form was only temporary. By late 1550, Bucer was becoming disillusioned. Cranmer made sure that he did not feel alienated and kept in close touch with him. This attention paid off during the vestments controversy. This incident was initiated by John Hooper, a follower of Heinrich Bullinger who had recently returned from Zürich. Hooper was unhappy with Cranmer's Prayer Book and Ordinal and he particularly objected to the use of ceremonies and vestments. When the Privy Council selected him to be the Bishop of Gloucester on 15 May 1550, he laid down conditions that he would not wear the required vestments. He found an ally among the Continental reformers in Jan Łaski who had become a leader of the Stranger church in London, a designated place of worship for Continental Protestant refugees. His church's forms and practices had taken reforms much further than Cranmer would have liked. Bucer and Peter Martyr, while they sympathised with Hooper's position, supported Cranmer's arguments of timing and authority. Cranmer and Ridley stood their ground. This led to Hooper's imprisonment and he eventually gave in. He was consecrated on 8 March 1551 according to the Ordinal and he preached before the king in his episcopal garments. Cranmer's vision of reform through careful steps under the authority of the government was maintained.
## Final reform programme (1551–1553)
Cranmer's role in politics was diminishing when on 16 October 1551 Seymour was arrested on charges of treason. In December Seymour was put on trial and although acquitted of treason, he was judged guilty of felony and was put to death on 22 January 1552. This was the beginning of the breach between Cranmer and Dudley. It was aggravated during the year by the gradual appropriation of ecclesiastical property by the regency. Throughout this political turmoil, Cranmer worked simultaneously on three major projects in his reform programme: the revision of canon law, the revision of the Prayer Book, and the formation of a statement of doctrine.
The original Catholic canon law that defined governance within the Church clearly needed revision following Henry's break with Rome. Several revision attempts were made throughout Henry's reign, but these initial projects were shelved as the speed of reform outpaced the time required to work on a revision. As the reformation stabilised, Cranmer formed a committee in December 1551 to restart the work. He recruited Peter Martyr to the committee and he also asked Łaski and Hooper to participate, showing his habitual ability to forgive past actions. Cranmer and Martyr realised that a successful enactment of a reformed ecclesiastical law-code in England would have international significance. Cranmer planned to draw together all the reformed churches of Europe under England's leadership to counter the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation. In March 1552, Cranmer invited the foremost Continental reformers, Bullinger, John Calvin, and Melanchthon to come to England and to participate in an ecumenical council. The response was disappointing: Melanchthon did not respond, Bullinger stated that neither of them could leave Germany as it was riven by war between the Emperor and the Lutheran princes, and while Calvin showed some enthusiasm, he said he was unable to come. Cranmer acknowledged Calvin and replied stating, "Meanwhile, we will reform the English Church to the utmost of our ability and give our labour that both its doctrines and laws will be improved after the model of holy scripture." One partial manuscript of the project survived that was annotated with corrections and comments by Cranmer and Martyr. When the final version was presented to Parliament, the breach between Cranmer and Dudley was complete and the regent effectively killed the canon law bill in the House of Lords.
As with the first Prayer Book, the origins and participants in the work of its revision are obscure, but it was clear that Cranmer led the project and steered its development. It had begun as early as the end of 1549 when the Convocation of Canterbury met to discuss the matter. Late in 1550, the opinions of Martyr and Bucer were sought on how the liturgy might be improved and they influenced the revision significantly. The view of the spiritual presence was clarified by the use of entirely different words at the offering of the bread and the wine to the communicants. New rubrics noted that any kind of bread could be used and any bread or wine that remained could be used by the curate, thus dissociating the elements from any physical presence. The new book removed any possibility of prayers for the dead, because such prayers implied support for the doctrine of purgatory. The Act of Uniformity 1552, which authorised the book's use, specified that it be exclusively used from 1 November. The final version was officially published at almost the last minute, owing to Dudley's intervention. While travelling in the north of the country he met the Scots reformer John Knox, then based in Newcastle. Impressed by his preaching, Dudley selected him to be a royal chaplain and brought him south to participate in the reform projects. In a sermon before the king, Knox attacked the practice of kneeling during communion. On 27 September 1552, the Privy Council stopped the printing of the new Prayer Book and told Cranmer to revise it. He responded with a long letter using the argument that it was for Parliament with the royal assent to decide any changes in the liturgy. On 22 October, the council decided to keep the liturgy as it was and to add the so-called Black Rubric, which explained that no adoration was intended when kneeling at communion.
The origins of the statement which eventually became the Forty-two Articles are equally obscure. As early as December 1549, the archbishop was demanding that his bishops should subscribe to certain doctrinal articles. In 1551 Cranmer presented a version of a statement to the bishops, but its status remained ambiguous. Cranmer did not devote much effort to developing the articles, most likely owing to work on the canon law revision. He became more interested once the hope for an ecumenical council began to fade. By September 1552, draft versions of the articles were being worked on by Cranmer and John Cheke, his scholarly friend who was commissioned to translate them into Latin. When the Forty-two Articles were finally published in May 1553, the title-page declared that the articles were agreed upon by the Convocation and were published by the authority of the king. This was not in fact the case and the mistake was likely caused by miscommunications between the archbishop and the Privy Council. Cranmer complained about this to the council, but the authorities responded by noting that the articles were developed during the time of the Convocation (hence evading giving a direct answer). The council gave Cranmer the unhappy task of requiring the bishops to subscribe to the articles, many of whom opposed them and pointed out the anomaly of the title-page. It was while Cranmer was carrying out this duty that events unfolded which were to render the subscriptions futile.
## Trials, recantations, execution (1553–1556)
Edward VI became seriously ill and the councillors were told that he did not have long to live. In May 1553, the council sent several letters to Continental reformers assuring them that Edward's health was improving. Among the letters was one addressed to Melanchthon inviting him to come to England to take up the Regius Chair in Cambridge which was vacant since the death of Martin Bucer in February 1551. Both Henry VIII and Cranmer had previously failed to convince Melanchthon to come; this time, the council made a serious effort by sending him an advance to cover his travel expenses. Cranmer sent a personal letter urging him to take the offer. Despite his plea, Melanchthon never made the voyage to England. While this effort to shore up the reformation was taking place, the council was working to persuade several judges to put on the throne Lady Jane Grey, Edward's cousin and a Protestant, instead of Mary, Henry and Catherine of Aragon's daughter and a Catholic. On 17 June 1553, the king made his will, noting Jane would succeed him, contravening the Third Succession Act. Cranmer tried to speak to Edward alone, but he was refused and his audience with Edward occurred in the presence of the councillors. Edward told him that he supported what he had written in his will. Cranmer's decision to support Jane must have occurred before 19 June, when royal orders were sent to convene the Convocation for the recognition of the new succession.
By mid-July, there were serious provincial revolts in Mary's favour and support for Jane in the council fell. As Mary was proclaimed queen, Dudley, Ridley, Cheke, and Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, were imprisoned. No action was taken against the archbishop. On 8 August, he led Edward's funeral according to the rites of the Prayer Book. During these months, he advised others, including Peter Martyr, to flee England, but he himself chose to stay. Reformed bishops were removed from office and conservative clergy, such as Edmund Bonner, had their old positions restored. Cranmer did not go down without a fight. When rumours spread that he authorised the use of the mass in Canterbury Cathedral, he declared them to be false and said, "All the doctrine and religion by our said sovereign lord king Edward VI is more pure and according to God's word than any that hath been used in England these thousand years." Not surprisingly, the government regarded Cranmer's declaration as tantamount to sedition. He was ordered to stand before the council in the Star Chamber on 14 September and on that day he said his final goodbye to Martyr. Cranmer was sent straight to the Tower to join Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley.
On 13 November 1553, Cranmer and four others were brought to trial for treason, found guilty, and condemned to death. Numerous witnesses testified that Cranmer had encouraged heresy and had written heretical works. Through February 1554, Jane Grey and other rebels were executed, and attention then turned to the religious leaders of the reformation. On 8 March 1554, the Privy Council ordered Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer to be transferred to Bocardo prison in Oxford to await a second trial for heresy. During this time, Cranmer was able to smuggle out a letter to Martyr, who had fled to Strasbourg, the last surviving document written in his own hand. He stated that the desperate situation of the church was proof that it would eventually be delivered and wrote, "I pray that God may grant that we may endure to the end!" Cranmer remained isolated in Bocardo prison for seventeen months before the trial started on 12 September 1555. Although it took place in England, the trial was under papal jurisdiction and the final verdict would come from Rome. Under interrogation, Cranmer admitted to every fact that was placed before him, but he denied any treachery, disobedience, or heresy. The trial of Latimer and Ridley started shortly after Cranmer's but their verdicts came almost immediately and they were burned at the stake on 16 October. Cranmer was taken to a tower to watch the proceedings. On 4 December, Rome decided Cranmer's fate by depriving him of the archbishopric and giving permission to the secular authorities to carry out their sentence.
In his final days, Cranmer's circumstances changed, which led to several recantations. On 11 December, he was taken out of Bocardo and placed in the house of the Dean of Christ Church. This new environment was very different from that of his two years in prison. He was in an academic community and treated as a guest. Approached by a Dominican friar, Juan de Villagarcía, he debated the issues of papal supremacy and purgatory. In his first four recantations, produced between the end of January and mid-February, Cranmer submitted himself to the authority of the king and queen and recognised the Pope as head of the Church. On 14 February 1556, he was degraded from holy orders and returned to Bocardo. He had conceded very little and Edmund Bonner was not satisfied with these admissions.
On 24 February, a writ was issued to the mayor of Oxford and the date of Cranmer's execution was set for 7 March. Two days after the writ was issued, a fifth statement, the first which could be called a true recantation, was issued. Cranmer repudiated all Lutheran and Zwinglian theology, fully accepted Catholic theology, including papal supremacy and transubstantiation, and stated that there was no salvation outside the Catholic Church. He announced his joy at returning to the Catholic faith, asked for and received sacramental absolution, and participated in the mass. Cranmer's burning was postponed and, under the normal practice of canon law, he should have been absolved. Mary, however, decided that no further postponement was possible. His last recantation was issued on 18 March. It was a sign of a broken man, a sweeping confession of sin. Despite the stipulation in canon law that recanting heretics be reprieved, Mary was determined to make an example of Cranmer, arguing that "his iniquity and obstinacy was so great against God and your Grace that your clemency and mercy could have no place with him", and pressed ahead with his execution.
Cranmer was told that he would be able to make a final recantation, but that this time it was to be in public during a service at the University Church. He wrote and submitted the speech in advance and it was published after his death. At the pulpit on the day of his execution, 21 March 1556, he opened with a prayer and an exhortation to obey the king and queen, but he ended his sermon totally unexpectedly, deviating from the prepared script. He renounced the recantations that he had written or signed with his own hand since his degradation and he stated that, in consequence, his hand would be punished by being burnt first. He then said, "And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine." He was pulled from the pulpit and taken to where Latimer and Ridley had been burnt six months previously. As the flames drew around him, he fulfilled his promise by placing his right hand into the heart of the fire, calling it "that unworthy hand". His dying words were, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God."
## Aftermath and legacy
The Marian government produced a pamphlet with all six recantations plus the text of the speech Cranmer was to have made in the University Church. His subsequent withdrawal of his recantations was not mentioned, though what actually happened soon became common knowledge, undermining the effectiveness of Marian propaganda. Similarly, the Protestant party had difficulty in making use of the event, given Cranmer's recantations. The exiles' propaganda concentrated on publishing various specimens of his writings. Eventually John Foxe put Cranmer's story to effective use in 1559, and it featured prominently in his Acts and Monuments when it was first printed in 1563.
Cranmer's family had been exiled to the Continent in 1539. It is not known exactly when they returned to England, but it was soon after the accession of Edward VI in 1547 that Cranmer publicly acknowledged their existence. Not much is known about the early years of the children. His daughter, Margaret, was likely born in the 1530s and his son, Thomas, came later, probably during the reign of Edward. Around the time of Mary's accession, Cranmer's wife, Margarete, escaped to Germany, while his son was entrusted to his brother, Edmund Cranmer, who took him to the Continent. Margarete Cranmer eventually married Cranmer's favourite publisher, Edward Whitchurch. The couple returned to England after Mary's reign and settled in Surrey. Whitchurch also negotiated for the marriage of Margaret to Thomas Norton. Whitchurch died in 1562 and Margarete married for the third time to Bartholomew Scott. She died in the 1570s. Both of Cranmer's children died without issue and his line became extinct.
When Elizabeth I came to power in 1558 she restored the Church of England's independence from Rome under the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The church that she re-established represented, in effect, a snapshot of the Edwardian Church from September 1552. Thus the Elizabethan Prayer Book was basically Cranmer's 1552 edition but without the "Black Rubric". In the Convocation of 1563 the Forty-two Articles which were never adopted by the Church were altered in the area of eucharistic doctrine to form the Thirty-Nine Articles. Most of the exiles returned to England and resumed their careers in the Church. To some like Edmund Grindal, an Archbishop of Canterbury during Elizabeth's reign, Cranmer provided a shining example whose work should be upheld and extended.
Cranmer's greatest concerns were the maintenance of the royal supremacy and the diffusion of reformed theology and practice. Scholars note that he is best remembered for his contribution to the realms of language and of cultural identity. His prose helped to guide the development of the English language, and the Book of Common Prayer is a major contribution to English literature that influenced many lives in the Anglophone world. It has guided Anglican worship for four hundred years.
Catholic biographers sometimes depict Cranmer as an unprincipled opportunist, a Nicodemite, and a tool of royal tyranny. For their part, some Protestant biographers appear to overlook the ways or occasions in which Cranmer betrayed his own principles. Both sides can agree in seeing Cranmer as a committed scholar whose life showed the strengths and weaknesses of a very human and often under-appreciated reformer.
The Anglican Communion commemorates Thomas Cranmer as a Reformation Martyr on 21 March, the anniversary of his death, and he is remembered in the calendar of saints of the Church of England with a lesser festival.
The U.S. Episcopal Church liturgical calendar honours him (together with Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley) with a "day of optional observance" on 16 October.
## See also
- Attainder of Duke of Northumberland and others Act 1553
- List of Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation
|
20,716 |
Mellitus
| 1,169,764,354 |
7th-century missionary, Archbishop of Canterbury, and saint
|
[
"624 deaths",
"6th-century births",
"7th-century Christian clergy",
"7th-century Christian saints",
"7th-century English clergy",
"7th-century archbishops",
"Anglican saints",
"Archbishops of Canterbury",
"Bishops of London",
"Gregorian mission",
"Italian saints",
"Kentish saints",
"Year of birth unknown"
] |
Saint Mellitus (died 24 April 624) was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries.
Mellitus was exiled from London by the pagan successors to his patron, King Sæberht of Essex, following the latter's death around 616. King Æthelberht of Kent, Mellitus' other patron, died at about the same time, forcing him to take refuge in Gaul. Mellitus returned to England the following year, after Æthelberht's successor had been converted to Christianity, but he was unable to return to London, whose inhabitants remained pagan. Mellitus was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 619. During his tenure, he was alleged to have miraculously saved the cathedral, and much of the town of Canterbury, from a fire. After his death in 624, Mellitus was revered as a saint.
## Early life
The medieval chronicler Bede described Mellitus as being of noble birth. In letters, Pope Gregory I called him an abbot, but it is unclear whether Mellitus had previously been abbot of a Roman monastery, or this was a rank bestowed on him to ease his journey to England by making him the leader of the expedition. The papal register, a listing of letters sent out by the popes, describes him as an "abbot in Frankia" in its description of the correspondence, but the letter itself only says "abbot". The first time Mellitus is mentioned in history is in the letters of Gregory, and nothing else of his background is known. It appears likely that he was a native of Italy, along with all the other bishops consecrated by Augustine.
## Journey to England
Pope Gregory I sent Mellitus to England in June 601, in response to an appeal from Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Augustine needed more clergy to join the Gregorian mission that was converting the kingdom of Kent, then ruled by Æthelberht, from paganism to Christianity. The new missionaries brought with them a gift of books and "all things which were needed for worship and the ministry of the Church." Thomas of Elmham, a 15th-century Canterbury chronicler, claimed that in his day there were a number of the books brought to England by Mellitus still at Canterbury. Examination of the remaining manuscripts has determined that one possible survivor of Mellitus' books is the St Augustine Gospels, now in Cambridge, as Corpus Christi College, MS (manuscript) 286. Along with the letter to Augustine, the missionaries brought a letter for Æthelberht, urging the King to act like the Roman Emperor Constantine I and force the conversion of his followers to Christianity. The king was also encouraged to destroy all pagan shrines.
The historian Ian Wood has suggested that Mellitus' journey through Gaul probably took in the bishoprics of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon, Marseilles, Metz, Paris, and Rouen, as evidenced by the letters that Gregory addressed to those bishops soliciting their support for Mellitus' party. Gregory also wrote to the Frankish kings Chlothar II, Theuderic II, Theudebert II, along with Brunhilda of Austrasia, who was Theudebert and Theuderic's grandmother and regent. Wood feels that this wide appeal to the Frankish episcopate and royalty was an effort to secure more support for the Gregorian mission. While on his journey to England, Mellitus received a letter from Gregory allowing Augustine to convert pagan temples to Christian churches, and to convert pagan animal sacrifices into Christian feasts, to ease the transition to Christianity. Gregory's letter marked a sea change in the missionary strategy, and was later included in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Usually known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, it conflicts with the letter sent to Æthelberht, which the historian R. A. Markus sees as a turning point in missionary history, when forcible conversion gave way to persuasion. This traditional view, that the Epistola represents a contradiction of the letter to Æthelberht, has been challenged by the historian and theologian George Demacopoulos, who argues that the letter to Æthelberht was mainly meant to encourage the King in spiritual matters, while the Epistola was sent to deal with purely practical matters, and thus the two do not contradict each other.
## Bishop of London
Exactly when Mellitus and his party arrived in England is unknown, but he was certainly in the country by 604, when Augustine consecrated him as bishop in the province of the East Saxons, making Mellitus the first Bishop of London after the Roman departure (London was the East Saxons' capital). The city was a logical choice for a new bishopric, as it was a hub for the southern road network. It was also a former Roman town; many of the Gregorian mission's efforts were centred in such locations. Before his consecration, Mellitus baptised Sæberht, Æthelberht's nephew, who then allowed the bishopric to be established. The episcopal church built in London was probably founded by Æthelberht, rather than Sæberht. Although Bede records that Æthelberht gave lands to support the new episcopate, a charter that claims to be a grant of lands from Æthelberht to Mellitus is a later forgery.
Although Gregory had intended London to be the southern archbishopric for the island, Augustine never moved his episcopal see to London, and instead consecrated Mellitus as a plain bishop there. After Augustine's death in 604, Canterbury continued to be the site of the southern archbishopric, and London remained a bishopric. It may have been that the Kentish king did not wish greater episcopal authority to be exercised outside his own kingdom.
Mellitus attended a council of bishops held in Italy in February 610, convened by Pope Boniface IV. The historian N. J. Higham speculates that one reason for his attendance may have been to assert the English Church's independence from the Frankish Church. Boniface had Mellitus take two papal letters back to England, one to Æthelbert and his people, and another to Laurence, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He also brought back the synod's decrees to England. No authentic letters or documents from this synod remain, although some were forged in the 1060s and 1070s at Canterbury. During his time as a bishop, Mellitus joined with Justus, the Bishop of Rochester, in signing a letter that Laurence wrote to the Celtic bishops urging the Celtic Church to adopt the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter. This letter also mentioned the fact that Irish missionary bishops, such as Dagan, refused to eat with the Roman missionaries.
Both Æthelberht and Sæberht died around 616 or 618, causing a crisis for the mission. Sæberht's three sons had not converted to Christianity, and drove Mellitus from London. Bede says that Mellitus was exiled because he refused the brothers' request for a taste of the sacramental bread. Whether this occurred immediately after Sæberht's death or later is impossible to determine from Bede's chronology, which has both events in the same chapter but gives neither an exact time frame nor the elapsed time between the two events. The historian N. J. Higham connects the timing of this episode with a change in the "overkingship" from the Christian Kentish Æthelberht to the pagan East Anglian Raedwald, which Higham feels happened after Æthelberht's death. In Higham's view, Sæberht's sons drove Mellitus from London because they had passed from Kentish overlordship to East Anglian, and thus no longer needed to keep Mellitus, who was connected with the Kentish kingdom, in office.
Mellitus fled first to Canterbury, but Æthelberht's successor Eadbald was also a pagan, so Mellitus, accompanied by Justus, took refuge in Gaul. Mellitus was recalled to Britain by Laurence, the second Archbishop of Canterbury, after his conversion of Eadbald. How long Mellitus' exile lasted is unclear. Bede claims it was a year, but it may have been longer. Mellitus did not return to London, because the East Saxons remained pagan. Although Mellitus fled, there does not seem to have been any serious persecution of Christians in the East Saxon kingdom. The East Saxon see was not occupied again until Cedd was consecrated as bishop in about 654.
## Archbishop and death
Mellitus succeeded Laurence as the third Archbishop of Canterbury after the latter's death in 619. During his tenure as archbishop, Mellitus supposedly performed a miracle in 623 by diverting a fire that had started in Canterbury and threatened the church. He was carried into the flames, upon which the wind changed direction, thus saving the building. Bede praised Mellitus' sane mind, but other than the miracle, little happened during his time as archbishop. Bede also mentioned that Mellitus suffered from gout. Boniface wrote to Mellitus encouraging him in the mission, perhaps prompted by the marriage of Æthelburh of Kent to King Edwin of Northumbria. Whether Mellitus received a pallium, the symbol of an archbishop's authority, from the pope is unknown.
Mellitus died on 24 April 624, and was buried at St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury that same day. He became revered as a saint after his death, and was allotted the feast day of 24 April. In the ninth century, Mellitus' feast day was mentioned in the Stowe Missal, along with Laurence and Justus. He was still venerated at St Augustine's in 1120, along with a number of other local saints. There was also a shrine to him at Old St Paul's Cathedral in London. Shortly after the Norman Conquest, Goscelin wrote a life of Mellitus, the first of several to appear around that time, but none contain any information not included in Bede's earlier works. These later medieval lives do, however, reveal that during Goscelin's lifetime persons suffering from gout were urged to pray at Mellitus' tomb. Goscelin records that Mellitus' shrine flanked that of Augustine, along with Laurence, in the eastern central chapel of the presbytery.
## See also
- List of members of the Gregorian mission
|
1,147,636 |
Battle of Goliad
| 1,173,445,360 |
Second skirmish of the Texas Revolution
|
[
"1835 in Texas",
"Battles involving Mexico",
"Battles of the Texas Revolution",
"Conflicts in 1835",
"October 1835 events"
] |
The Battle of Goliad was the second skirmish of the Texas Revolution. In the early-morning hours of October 9, 1835, Texas settlers attacked the Mexican Army soldiers garrisoned at Presidio La Bahía, a fort near the Mexican Texas settlement of Goliad. La Bahía lay halfway between the only other large garrison of Mexican soldiers (at Presidio San Antonio de Béxar) and the then-important Texas port of Copano.
In September, Texians began plotting to kidnap Mexican General Martín Perfecto de Cos, who was en route to Goliad to attempt to quell the unrest in Texas. The plan was initially dismissed by the central committee coordinating the rebellion. However, within days of the Texian victory at the Battle of Gonzales, Captain George Collinsworth and members of the Texian militia in Matagorda began marching towards Goliad. The Texians soon learned that Cos and his men had already departed for San Antonio de Béxar but continued their march.
The garrison at La Bahía was understaffed and could not mount an effective defense of the fort's perimeter. Using axes borrowed from townspeople, Texians were able to chop through a door and enter the complex before the bulk of the soldiers were aware of their presence. After a half an hour battle, the Mexican garrison, under Colonel Juan López Sandoval, surrendered. One Mexican soldier had been killed and three others wounded, while only one Texian, Samuel McCulloch Jr. had been injured. The majority of the Mexican soldiers were instructed to leave Texas, and the Texians confiscated \$10,000 worth of provisions and several cannons, which they soon transported to the Texian Army for use in the siege of Béxar. The victory isolated Cos's men in Béxar from the coast, forcing them to rely on a long overland march to request or receive reinforcements or supplies.
## Background
In 1835, Mexico operated two major garrisons within its Texas territory, the Alamo at San Antonio de Béxar and Presidio La Bahía near Goliad. Béxar was the political center of Texas, and Goliad laid halfway between it and the major Texas port of Copano. Military and civilian supplies and military personnel were usually sent by sea from the Mexican interior to Copano Bay and then could be transported overland to the Texas settlements.
In early 1835, as the Mexican government transitioned from a federalist model to centralism, wary colonists in Texas began forming Committees of Correspondence and Safety. A central committee in San Felipe de Austin coordinated their activities. The Texians staged a minor revolt against customs duties in June; these Anahuac Disturbances prompted Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna to send additional troops to Texas. In July, Colonel Nicolas Condelle, led 200 men to reinforce Presidio La Bahía. The following month, a contingent of soldiers arrived in Béxar with Colonel Domingo de Ugartechea. Fearing that stronger measures were needed to quell the unrest, Santa Anna ordered his brother-in-law, General Martín Perfecto de Cos to "repress with strong arm all those who, forgetting their duties to the nation which has adopted them as her children, are pushing forward with a desire to live at their own option without subjection to the laws". Cos landed at Copano Bay on September 20 with approximately 500 soldiers. Cos briefly toured the port at Copano Bay and the small garrison at nearby Refugio and left small groups of soldiers to reinforce each of these locations. The main body of soldiers arrived in Goliad on October 2.
Unbeknownst to Cos, as early as September 18, several Texians, including James Fannin, Philip Dimmitt, and John Lin, had independently begun advocating a plan to seize Cos at either Copano or Goliad. As soon as Cos's warships were spotted approaching Copano Bay, Refugio colonists sent messengers to San Felipe de Austin and Matagorda to inform the other settlements of Cos's imminent arrival. Concerned that a lack of artillery would make the presidio at Goliad impossible to capture, the central committee chose not to order an assault.
Although Fannin, Dimmitt, and Linn continued to push for an attack on Goliad, Texian attention soon shifted towards Gonzales, where a small group of Texians were refusing to obey orders from Ugartechea. Colonists eagerly rushed to assist, and on October 2 the Battle of Gonzales officially opened the Texas Revolution. After learning of the Texian victory, Cos made haste for Béxar. He left with the bulk of his soldiers on October 5, but because he was unable to find adequate transportation most of his supplies remained at La Bahía.
## Prelude
On October 6, members of the Texian militia in Matagorda convened at the home of Sylvanus Hatch. As their first order of business they elected George Collinsworth as their captain; Dr. William Carleton was then named first lieutenant and D.C. Collinsworth became the unit's second lieutenant. After appointing their leaders, the men decided to march on La Bahía. They intended to kidnap Cos and, if possible, steal the estimated \$50,000 that was rumored to accompany him. The Texians sent messengers to alert nearby settlements of their quest. By afternoon, 50 Texians were ready to march from Matagorda. During the march, for unknown reasons the men fired Carleton and appointed James W. Moore as the new first lieutenant.
The following day the expedition stopped at Victoria, where they were soon joined by English-speaking settlers from other settlements and 30 Tejanos led by Plácido Benavides. Although no accurate muster rolls were kept, historian Stephen Hardin estimated that the Texian ranks swelled to 125 men. Forty-nine of them signed a "Compact of Volunteers under Collinsworth" on October 9. These men pledged that they were loyal to the Mexican federal government and would harm no one who remained loyal to the federalist cause.
One of the new arrivals, merchant Philip Dimmitt, received a missive from the Goliad customs agent with news that Cos and his war chest had already departed La Bahía to travel to San Antonio de Béxar. Undeterred, the group marched out on October 9. Ira Ingram led the vanguard, which halted 1 mile (1.6 km) outside Goliad. The events that follow are not very clear. According to the memoirs of Mexican General Vicente Filisola, who was not in Texas in 1835, the Texians plotted to draw the presidio commander, Colonel Juan López Sandoval, and his officers from the fort. The Texians allegedly planned a dance in Goliad on October 9 and invited the Mexican officers. Although Sandoval, Captain Manuel Sabriego, and Lieutenant Jesus de la Garza briefly attended the dance, they suspected mischief and returned to the fort. No Texian source mentions such a plot. Several of the Texians, including Dimmitt, did enter the town that evening to try to find guides and support for the effort. Dimmitt's efforts were successful, and several of the Tejanos who lived near Goliad joined the Texian force. They reported that Sandoval commanded only 50 men—far fewer than the number necessary to defend the entire perimeter of the fort—and provided directions to the fort.
The main body of Texian soldiers, under Collinsworth, became disoriented in the dark and wandered from the road. They were soon tangled in a mesquite thicket. While working their way back towards the road, the Texians met Ben Milam, a Texas colonist who had recently escaped from prison in Monterrey. Milam joined the militia as a private, and the group soon rejoined the vanguard.
## Battle
As the combined Texian force prepared for battle, they sent a messenger to instruct the alcalde of the city to surrender. At 11 pm, the alcade responded that the town would remain neutral, neither surrendering nor fighting. Several of the locals did, however, supply axes to the Texian militia. The Texians divided themselves into four groups, each assigned a different approach to the presidio. In the pre-dawn hours of October 10, the Texians attacked. The lone sentinel managed to give the alarm but was immediately shot dead. The Texians quickly hacked through a door on the north wall of the fortress and ran to the interior courtyard. Hearing the commotion, the Mexican soldiers had lined the walls to defend the fort.
The Mexican soldiers opened fire, hitting Samuel McCulloch Jr., a former slave whom George Collinsworth had freed, in the shoulder. Texians returned fire for approximately 30 minutes. During a pause in the fighting, a Texian spokesman yelled out that they would "massacre everyone of you, unless you come out immediately and surrender". The Mexican garrison immediately surrendered.
## Aftermath
McCulloch was the only Texian soldier to be wounded, and he later claimed to be the "first whose blood was shed in the Texas War for Independence". This distinction earned him a permanent home; a later law prohibited any freed slave from residing in the Republic of Texas, but in 1840 the Texas legislature specifically excluded McCulloch, his family, and his descendants from its enforcement. The exclusion was reward for McCulloch's service and his injury.
Estimates of Mexican casualties range from one to three soldiers killed and from three to seven wounded. Approximately 20 soldiers escaped. They warned the garrisons at Copano and Refugio of the advancing Texians; those garrisons abandoned their posts and joined the soldiers at Fort Lipantitlán. Milam escorted the remaining Mexican soldiers to Gonzales, where the newly formed Texian Army was located. The Texian Army commander, Stephen F. Austin, later released all of the men, on the condition that they leave Texas and vow to stop fighting Texas residents. One wounded Mexican soldier was allowed to remain in Goliad, as was Captain Manuel Sabriego, who was married to a local woman. In secret, Sabriego began organizing a group of settlers in the Goliad area who sympathized with Mexico.
Texian troops confiscated the provisions they found at the fort. Although they found 300 muskets, most of them were broken and unable to be repaired. Dimmitt hired two gunsmiths who were able to bring the remaining weapons into service. The food, clothing, blankets, and other provisions were valued at US\$10,000. The new quartermaster at the fort, John J. Linn, reported that 175 barrels of flour were confiscated, along with a large supply of sugar, coffee, whiskey, and rum. For the next three months, the provisions were parceled out among companies in the Texian Army. The Texians also gained control of several cannons.
Over the next several days, more and more Texian settlers joined the group at La Bahía. Many of them were from Refugio, a sprawling settlement that was furthest from Matagorda. Historian Hobart Huson speculates that these men were the last to receive word of the planned attack. Austin ordered that 100 men remain at Goliad, under the command of Dimmitt, while the rest should join the Texian Army in marching on Cos's troops in Béxar. Collinsworth returned to Matagorda to recruit additional soldiers, but on October 14 the remaining Texians at Goliad began the march towards Béxar.
The loss of Goliad meant that Cos lost his means of communicating with Copano Bay, the closest port to Béxar. The Mexican troops garrisoned at Béxar would now need to get supplies and reinforcements overland.
## See also
- List of Texas Revolution battles
- Timeline of the Texas Revolution
|
30,809 |
The Thing (1982 film)
| 1,173,219,428 |
1982 film directed by John Carpenter
|
[
"1980s American films",
"1980s English-language films",
"1980s monster movies",
"1980s science fiction horror films",
"1982 films",
"1982 horror films",
"Alien invasions in films",
"American body horror films",
"American monster movies",
"American science fiction horror films",
"Fictional amorphous creatures",
"Fictional parasites and parasitoids",
"Films about alcoholism",
"Films about extraterrestrial life",
"Films about shapeshifting",
"Films adapted into comics",
"Films based on science fiction novels",
"Films based on science fiction short stories",
"Films directed by John Carpenter",
"Films produced by Lawrence Turman",
"Films scored by Ennio Morricone",
"Films set in 1982",
"Films set in Antarctica",
"Films shot in Alaska",
"Films shot in British Columbia",
"Films using stop-motion animation",
"Survival films",
"The Thing (franchise)",
"Universal Pictures films"
] |
The Thing is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter from a screenplay by Bill Lancaster. Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, it tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous "Thing", an extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates, then imitates, other organisms. The group is overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any of them could be the Thing. The film stars Kurt Russell as the team's helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, with A. Wilford Brimley, T. K. Carter, David Clennon, Keith David, Richard Dysart, Charles Hallahan, Peter Maloney, Richard Masur, Donald Moffat, Joel Polis, and Thomas G. Waites in supporting roles.
Production began in the mid-1970s as a faithful adaptation of the novella, following 1951's The Thing from Another World. The Thing went through several directors and writers, each with different ideas on how to approach the story. Filming lasted roughly twelve weeks, beginning in August 1981, and took place on refrigerated sets in Los Angeles as well as in Juneau, Alaska, and Stewart, British Columbia. Of the film's \$15 million budget, \$1.5 million was spent on Rob Bottin's creature effects, a mixture of chemicals, food products, rubber, and mechanical parts turned by his large team into an alien capable of taking on any form.
The Thing was released in 1982 to negative reviews that described it as "instant junk" and "a wretched excess". Critics both praised the special effects achievements and criticized their visual repulsiveness, while others found the characterization poorly realized. The film grossed \$19.6 million during its theatrical run. Many reasons have been cited for its failure to impress audiences: competition from films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which offered an optimistic take on alien visitation; a summer that had been filled with successful science fiction and fantasy films; and an audience living through a recession, diametrically opposed to The Thing's nihilistic and bleak tone.
The film found an audience when released on home video and television. In the subsequent years, it has been reappraised as one of the best science fiction and horror films ever made and has gained a cult following. Filmmakers have noted its influence on their work, and it has been referred to in other media such as television and video games. The Thing has spawned a variety of merchandise – including a 1982 novelization, "haunted house" attractions, board games – and sequels in comic books, a video game of the same title, and a 2011 prequel film of the same title.
## Plot
In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Americans witness the passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself. The pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander, Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burnt corpse of a malformed humanoid, which they transfer to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, autopsies the remains and finds a normal set of human organs.
Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs several of the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team, and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the Dog-Thing and surmises it is an organism that can perfectly imitate other life-forms. Data recovered from the Norwegian base leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, which Norris estimates has been buried for over a hundred thousand years, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Blair grows paranoid after running a computer simulation that indicates the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation.
The remains of the malformed humanoid assimilate an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. The team also imprisons Blair in a tool shed after he sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. Copper suggests testing for infection by comparing the crew's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry's leadership, and MacReady takes command. He, Windows and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. During their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack.
The team debates whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. MacReady hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life-form with its own survival instinct. He proposes testing blood samples from each survivor with a heated piece of wire and has each man restrained, but is forced to kill Clark after he lunges at MacReady with a scalpel. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood recoils from the heat. Exposed, the Palmer-Thing transforms, breaks free of its bonds, and infects Windows, forcing MacReady to incinerate them both.
Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair, but they find that he has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small flying saucer, which they destroy. Upon their return, Childs is missing, and the power generator is destroyed, leaving the men without heat. MacReady speculates that, with no escape left, the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls agree that the Thing cannot be allowed to escape and set explosives to destroy the station, but the Blair-Thing kills Garry, and Nauls disappears. The Blair-Thing transforms into an enormous creature and breaks the detonator, but MacReady triggers the explosives with a stick of dynamite, destroying the station.
Childs returns as MacReady sits by the burning remnants, saying he got lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of Scotch whisky.
## Cast
- Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady, the helicopter pilot
- A. Wilford Brimley as Blair, the senior biologist
- T. K. Carter as Nauls, the cook
- David Clennon as Palmer, the assistant mechanic
- Keith David as Childs, the chief mechanic
- Richard Dysart as Dr. Copper, the physician
- Charles Hallahan as Norris, the geologist
- Peter Maloney as George Bennings, the meteorologist
- Richard Masur as Clark, the dog handler
- Joel Polis as Fuchs, the assistant biologist
- Donald Moffat as Garry, the station commander
- Thomas Waites as Windows, the radio operator
The Thing also features Norbert Weisser as one of the Norwegians, and an uncredited dog, Jed, as the Dog-Thing. The only female presence in the film is the voice of MacReady's chess computer, voiced by Carpenter's then-wife, Adrienne Barbeau. Producer David Foster, associate producer Larry Franco, and writer Bill Lancaster, along with other members of the crew, make a cameo appearance in a recovered photograph of the Norwegian team. Camera operator Ray Stella stood in for the shots where needles were used to take blood, telling Carpenter that he could do it all day. Franco also played the Norwegian wielding a rifle and hanging out of the helicopter during the opening sequence. Stunt Coordinator Dick Warlock also made a number of cameos in the film, most notably in an off-screen appearance as the shadow on the wall during the scene where the Dog-Thing enters one of the researcher's living quarters. Clennon was originally intended to be in the scene, but due to his shadow being easily identifiable Carpenter decided to use Warlock instead. Warlock also played Palmer-Thing and stood in for Brimley in a few scenes that involved Blair.
## Production
### Development
Development of the film began in the mid-1970s when David Foster and fellow producer Lawrence Turman suggested to Universal Pictures an adaptation of the 1938 John W. Campbell novella Who Goes There?. It had been loosely adapted once before in Howard Hawks's and Christian Nyby's 1951 film The Thing from Another World, but Foster and Turman wanted to develop a project that stuck more closely to the source material. Screenwriters Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins held the rights to make an adaptation, but passed on the opportunity to make a new film, so Universal obtained the rights from them. In 1976, Wilbur Stark had purchased the remake rights to 23 RKO Pictures films, including The Thing from Another World, from three Wall Street financiers who did not know what to do with them, in exchange for a return when the films were produced. Universal in turn acquired the rights to remake the film from Stark, resulting in him being given an executive producer credit on all print advertisements, posters, television commercials, and studio press material.
John Carpenter was first approached about the project in 1976 by co-producer and friend Stuart Cohen, but Carpenter was mainly an independent film director, so Universal chose The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) director Tobe Hooper as they already had him under contract. The producers were ultimately unhappy with Hooper and his writing partner Kim Henkel's concept. After several more failed pitches by different writers, and attempts to bring on other directors, such as John Landis, the project was put on hold. Even so, the success of Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction horror film Alien helped revitalize the project, at which point Carpenter became loosely attached following his success with his influential slasher film Halloween (1978).
Carpenter was reluctant to join the project, for he thought Hawks's adaptation would be difficult to surpass, although he considered the film's monster to be unnotable. Cohen suggested that he read the original novella. Carpenter found the "creepiness" of the imitations conducted by the creature, and the questions it raised, interesting. He drew parallels between the novella and Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None (1939), and noted that the story of Who Goes There? was "timely" for him, meaning he could make it "true to [his] day" as Hawks had in his time. Carpenter, a fan of Hawks's adaptation, paid homage to it in Halloween, and he watched The Thing from Another World several times for inspiration before filming began. Carpenter and cinematographer Dean Cundey first worked together on Halloween, and The Thing was their first big-budget project for a major film studio.
After securing the writer and crew, the film was stalled again when Carpenter nearly quit, believing that a passion project of his, El Diablo (1990), was on the verge of being made by EMI Films. The producers discussed various replacements including Walter Hill, Sam Peckinpah and Michael Ritchie, but the development of El Diablo was not as imminent as Carpenter believed, and he remained with The Thing.
Universal initially set a budget of \$10 million, with \$200,000 for "creature effects", which at the time was more than the studio had ever allocated to a monster film. Filming was scheduled to be completed within 98 days. Universal's production studios estimated that it would require at least \$17 million before marketing and other costs, as the plan involved more set construction, including external sets and a large set piece for the original scripted death of Bennings, which was estimated to cost \$1.5 million alone. As storyboarding and designs were finalized, the crew estimated they would need at least \$750,000 for creature effects, a figure Universal executives agreed to after seeing the number of workers employed under Rob Bottin, the special make-up effects designer. Larry Franco was responsible for making the budget work for the film; he cut the filming schedule by a third, eliminated the exterior sets for on-site shooting, and removed Bennings's more extravagant death scene. Cohen suggested reusing the destroyed American camp as the ruined Norwegian camp, saving a further \$250,000. When filming began in August, The Thing had a budget of \$11.4 million, and indirect costs brought it to \$14 million. The effects budget ran over, eventually totaling \$1.5 million, forcing the elimination of some scenes, including Nauls's confrontation of a creature dubbed the "box Thing". By the end of production, Carpenter had to make a personal appeal to executive Ned Tanen for \$100,000 to complete a simplified version of the Blair-Thing. The final cost was \$12.4 million, and overhead costs brought it to \$15 million.
### Writing
Several writers developed drafts for The Thing before Carpenter became involved, including Logan's Run (1967) writer William F. Nolan, novelist David Wiltse, and Hooper and Henkel, whose draft was set at least partially underwater, and which Cohen described as a Moby-Dick-like story in which "The Captain" did battle with a large, non-shapeshifting creature. As Carpenter said in a 2014 interview, "they were just trying to make it work". The writers left before Carpenter joined the project. He said the scripts were "awful", as they changed the story into something it was not, and ignored the chameleon-like aspect of the Thing. Carpenter did not want to write the project himself, after recently completing work on Escape from New York (1981), and having struggled to complete a screenplay for The Philadelphia Experiment (1984). He was wary of taking on writing duties, preferring to let someone else do it. Once Carpenter was confirmed as the director, several writers were asked to script The Thing, including Richard Matheson, Nigel Kneale, and Deric Washburn.
Bill Lancaster initially met with Turman, Foster and Cohen in 1977, but he was given the impression that they wanted to closely replicate The Thing from Another World, and he did not want to remake the film. In August 1979, Lancaster was contacted again. By this time he had read the original Who Goes There? novella, and Carpenter had become involved in the project. Lancaster was hired to write the script after describing his vision for the film, and his intention to stick closely to the original story, to Carpenter, who was a fan of Lancaster's work on The Bad News Bears (1976). Lancaster conceived several key scenes in the film, including the Norris-Thing biting Dr. Copper, and the use of blood tests to identify the Thing, which Carpenter cited as the reason he wanted to work on the film. Lancaster said he found some difficulty in translating Who Goes There? to film, as it features very little action. He also made some significant changes to the story, such as reducing the number of characters from 37 to 12. Lancaster said that 37 was excessive and would be difficult for audiences to follow, leaving little screen time for characterization. He also opted to alter the story's structure, choosing to open his in the middle of the action, instead of using a flashback as in the novella. Several characters were modernized for contemporary audiences; MacReady, originally a meteorologist, became a tough loner described in the script as "35. Helicopter pilot. Likes chess. Hates the cold. The pay is good." Lancaster aimed to create an ensemble piece where one person emerged as the hero, instead of having a Doc Savage-type hero from the start.
Lancaster wrote thirty to forty pages but struggled with the film's second act, and it took him several months to complete the script. After it was finished, Lancaster and Carpenter spent a weekend in northern California refining the script, each having different takes on how a character should sound, and comparing their ideas for scenes. Lancaster's script opted to keep the creature largely concealed throughout the film, and it was Bottin who convinced Carpenter to make it more visible to have a greater impact on the audience. Lancaster's original ending had both MacReady and Childs turn into the Thing. In the spring, the characters are rescued by helicopter, greeting their saviors with "Hey, which way to a hot meal?". Carpenter thought this ending was too shallow. In total, Lancaster completed four drafts of the screenplay. The novella concludes with the humans clearly victorious, but concerned that birds they see flying toward the mainland may have been infected by the Thing. Carpenter opted to end the film with the survivors slowly freezing to death to save humanity from infection, believing this to be the ultimate heroic act. Lancaster wrote this ending, which eschews a The Twilight Zone-style twist or the destruction of the monster, as he wanted to instead have an ambiguous moment between the pair, of trust and mistrust, fear and relief.
### Casting
Kurt Russell was involved in the production before being cast, helping Carpenter develop his ideas. Russell was the last actor to be cast, in June 1981, by which point second unit filming was starting in Juneau, Alaska. Carpenter had worked with Russell twice before but wanted to keep his options open. Discussions with the studio involved using actors Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, or Nick Nolte, who were either unavailable or declined, and Sam Shepard, who showed interest but was never pursued. Tom Atkins and Jack Thompson were strong early and late contenders for the role of MacReady, but the decision was made to go with Russell. In part, Carpenter cited the practicality of choosing someone he had found reliable before, and who would not balk at the difficult filming conditions. It took Russell about a year to grow his hair and beard out for the role. At various points, the producers met with Brian Dennehy, Kris Kristofferson, John Heard, Ed Harris, Tom Berenger, Jack Thompson, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, Peter Coyote, Tom Atkins, and Tim McIntire. Some passed on the idea of starring in a monster film, while Dennehy became the choice to play Copper. Each actor was to be paid \$50,000, but after the more-established Russell was cast, his salary increased to \$400,000.
Geoffrey Holder, Carl Weathers, and Bernie Casey were considered for the role of Childs, and Carpenter also looked at Isaac Hayes, having worked with him on Escape from New York. Ernie Hudson was the front-runner and was almost cast until they met with Keith David. The Thing was David's first significant film role, and coming from a theater background, he had to learn on set how to hold himself back and not show every emotion his character was feeling, with guidance from Richard Masur and Donald Moffat in particular. Masur and David discussed their characters in rehearsals and decided that they would not like each other. For Blair, the team chose the then-unknown Wilford Brimley, as they wanted an everyman whose absence would not be questioned by the audience until the appropriate time. The intent with the character was to have him become infected early in the film but offscreen, so that his status would be unknown to the audience, concealing his intentions. Carpenter wanted to cast Donald Pleasence, but it was decided that he was too recognizable to accommodate the role. T. K. Carter was cast as Nauls, but comedian Franklyn Ajaye also came in to read for the role. Instead, he delivered a lengthy speech about the character being a stereotype, after which the meeting ended.
Bottin lobbied hard to play Palmer, but it was deemed impossible for him to do so alongside his existing duties. As the character has some comedic moments, Universal brought in comedians Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, and Charles Fleischer, among others, but opted to go with actor David Clennon, who was better suited to play the dramatic elements. Clennon had read for the Bennings character, but he preferred the option of playing Palmer's "blue-collar stoner" to a "white collar science man". Powers Boothe, Lee Van Cleef, Jerry Orbach, and Kevin Conway were considered for the role of Garry, and Richard Mulligan was also considered when the production experimented with the idea of making the character closer to MacReady in age. Masur also read for Garry, but he asked to play Clark instead, as he liked the character's dialogue and was also a fan of dogs. Masur worked daily with the wolfdog Jed and his handler, Clint Rowe, during rehearsals, as Rowe was familiarizing Jed with the sounds and smells of people. This helped Masur's and Jed's performance onscreen, as the dog would stand next to him without looking for his handler. Masur described his character as one uninterested in people, but who loves working with dogs. He went to a survivalist store and bought a flip knife for his character, and used it in a confrontation with David's character. Masur turned down a role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to play Clark. William Daniels and Dennehy were both interested in playing Dr. Copper, and it was a last-second decision by Carpenter to go with Richard Dysart.
In early drafts, Windows was called Sanchez, and later Sanders. The name Windows came when the actor for the role, Thomas Waites, was in a costume fitting and tried on a large pair of dark glasses, which the character wears in the film. Russell described the all-male story as interesting since the men had no one to posture for without women. Anita Dann served as casting director.
### Filming
The Thing was storyboarded extensively by Mike Ploog and Mentor Huebner before filming began. Their work was so detailed that many of the film's shots replicate the image layout completely. Cundey pushed for the use of anamorphic format aspect ratio, believing that it allowed for placing several actors in an environment, and making use of the scenic vistas available, while still creating a sense of confinement within the image. It also enabled the use of negative space around the actors to imply something may be lurking just offscreen.
Principal photography began on August 24, 1981, in Juneau, Alaska. Filming lasted about twelve weeks. Carpenter insisted on two weeks of rehearsals before filming as he wanted to see how scenes would play out. This was unusual at the time because of the expense involved. Filming then moved to the Universal lot, where the outside heat was over 100 °F (38 °C). The internal sets were climate-controlled to 28 °F (−2 °C) to facilitate their work. The team considered building the sets inside an existing refrigerated structure but were unable to find one large enough. Instead, they collected as many portable air conditioners as they could, closed off the stage, and used humidifiers and misters to add moisture to the air. After watching a roughly assembled cut of filming to date, Carpenter was unhappy that the film seemed to feature too many scenes of men standing around talking. He rewrote some already completed scenes to take place outdoors to be shot on location when principal photography moved to Stewart, British Columbia.
Carpenter was determined to use authentic locations instead of studio sets, and his successes on Halloween and The Fog (1980) gave him the credibility to take on the much bigger-budget production of The Thing. A film scout located an area just outside Stewart, along the Canadian coast, which offered the project both ease of access and scenic value during the day. On December 2, 1981, roughly 100 American and Canadian crew members moved to the area to begin filming. During the journey there, the crew bus slid in the snow toward the unprotected edge of the road, nearly sending it down a 500-foot (150 m) embankment. Some of the crew stayed in the small mining town during filming, while others lived on residential barges on the Portland Canal. They would make the 27-mile (43 km) drive up a small, winding road to the filming location in Alaska where the exterior outpost sets were built.
The sets had been built in Alaska during the summer, atop a rocky area overlooking a glacier, in preparation for snow to fall and cover them. They were used for both interior and exterior filming, meaning they could not be heated above freezing inside to ensure there was always snow on the roof. Outside, the temperature was so low that the camera lenses would freeze and break. The crew had to leave the cameras in the freezing temperatures, as keeping them inside in the warmth resulted in foggy lenses that took hours to clear. Filming, greatly dependent on the weather, took three weeks to complete, with heavy snow making it impossible to film on some days. Rigging the explosives necessary to destroy the set in the film's finale required 8 hours.
Keith David broke his hand in a car accident the day before he was to begin shooting. David attended filming the next day, but when Carpenter and Franco saw his swollen hand, they sent him to the hospital where it was punctured with two pins. He returned wearing a surgical glove beneath a black glove that was painted to resemble his complexion. His left hand is not seen for the first half of the film. Carpenter filmed the Norwegian camp scenes after the end scenes, using the damaged American base as a stand-in for the charred Norwegian camp. The explosive destruction of the base required the camera assistants to stand inside the set with the explosives, which were activated remotely. The assistants then had to run to a safe distance while seven cameras captured the base's destruction. Filmed when the heavy use of special effects was rare, the actors had to adapt to having Carpenter describe to them what their characters were looking at, as the effects would not be added until post-production. There were some puppets used to create the impression of what was happening in the scene, but in other cases, the cast would be looking at a wall or an object marked with an X.
Art director John J. Lloyd oversaw the design and construction of all the sets, as there were no existing locations used in the film. Cundey suggested that the sets should have ceilings and pipes seen on camera to make the spaces seem more claustrophobic.
### Post-production
Several scenes in the script were omitted from the film, sometimes because there was too much dialogue that slowed the pace and undermined the suspense. Carpenter blamed some of the issues on his directorial method, noting that several scenes appeared to be repeating events or information. Another scene featuring a snowmobile chase pursuing dogs was removed from the shooting script as it would have been too expensive to film. One scene present in the film, but not the script, features a monologue by MacReady. Carpenter added this partly to establish what was happening in the story and because he wanted to highlight Russell's heroic character after taking over the camp. Carpenter said that Lancaster's experience writing ensemble pieces did not emphasize single characters. Since Halloween, several horror films had replicated many of the scare elements of that film, something Carpenter wanted to move away from for The Thing. He removed scenes from Lancaster's script that had been filmed, such as a body suddenly falling into view at the Norwegian camp, which he felt were too clichéd. Approximately three minutes of scenes were filmed from Lancaster's script that elaborated on the characters' backgrounds.
A scene with MacReady absentmindedly inflating a blow-up doll while watching the Norwegian tapes was filmed but was not used in the finished film. The doll would later appear as a jump scare with Nauls. Other scenes featured expanded or alternate deaths for various characters. In the finished film, Fuchs's charred bones are discovered, revealing he has died offscreen, but an alternate take sees his corpse impaled on a wall with a shovel. Nauls was scripted to appear in the finale as a partly assimilated mass of tentacles, but in the film, he simply disappears. Carpenter struggled with a method of conveying to the audience what assimilation by the creature actually meant. Lancaster's original set piece of Bennings's death had him pulled beneath a sheet of ice by the Thing, before resurfacing in different areas in various stages of assimilation. The scene called for a set to be built on one of Universal's largest stages, with sophisticated hydraulics, dogs, and flamethrowers, but it was deemed too costly to produce. A scene was filmed with Bennings being murdered by an unknown assailant, but it was felt that assimilation, leading to his death, was not explained enough. Short on time, and with no interior sets remaining, a small set was built, Maloney was covered with K-Y Jelly, orange dye, and rubber tentacles. Monster gloves for a different creature were repurposed to demonstrate partial assimilation.
Carpenter filmed multiple endings for The Thing, including a "happier" ending because editor Todd Ramsay thought that the bleak, nihilistic conclusion would not test well with audiences. In the alternate take, MacReady is rescued and given a blood test that proves he is not infected. Carpenter said that stylistically this ending would have been "cheesy". Editor Verna Fields was tasked with reworking the ending to add clarity and resolution. It was finally decided to create an entirely new scene, which omitted the suspicion of Childs being infected by removing him completely, leaving MacReady alone. This new ending tested only slightly better with audiences than the original, and the production team agreed to the studio's request to use it. It was set to go to print for theaters when the producers, Carpenter, and executive Helena Hacker decided that the film was better left with ambiguity instead of nothing at all. Carpenter gave his approval to restore the ambiguous ending, but a scream was inserted over the outpost explosion to posit the monster's death. Universal executive Sidney Sheinberg disliked the ending's nihilism and, according to Carpenter, said, "Think about how the audience will react if we see the [Thing] die with a giant orchestra playing". Carpenter later noted that both the original ending and the ending without Childs tested poorly with audiences, which he interpreted as the film simply not being heroic enough.
### Music
Ennio Morricone composed the film's score, as Carpenter wanted The Thing to have a European musical approach. Carpenter flew to Rome to speak with Morricone to convince him to take the job. By the time Morricone flew to Los Angeles to record the score, he had already developed a tape filled with an array of synthesizer music because he was unsure what type of score Carpenter wanted. Morricone wrote complete separate orchestral and synthesizer scores and a combined score, which he knew was Carpenter's preference. Carpenter picked a piece, closely resembling his own scores, that became the main theme used throughout the film. He also played the score from Escape from New York for Morricone as an example. Morricone made several more attempts, bringing the score closer to Carpenter's own style of music. In total, Morricone produced a score of approximately one hour that remained largely unused but was later released as part of the film's soundtrack. Carpenter and his longtime collaborator Alan Howarth separately developed some synth-styled pieces used in the film. In 2012, Morricone recalled:
> I've asked [Carpenter], as he was preparing some electronic music with an assistant to edit on the film, "Why did you call me, if you want to do it on your own?" He surprised me, he said – "I got married to your music. This is why I've called you." ... Then when he showed me the film, later when I wrote the music, we didn't exchange ideas. He ran away, nearly ashamed of showing it to me. I wrote the music on my own without his advice. Naturally, as I had become quite clever since 1982, I've written several scores relating to my life. And I had written one, which was electronic music. And [Carpenter] took the electronic score.
Carpenter said:
> [Morricone] did all the orchestrations and recorded for me 20 minutes of music I could use wherever I wished but without seeing any footage. I cut his music into the film and realized that there were places, mostly scenes of tension, in which his music would not work ... I secretly ran off and recorded in a couple of days a few pieces to use. My pieces were very simple electronic pieces – it was almost tones. It was not really music at all but just background sounds, something today you might even consider as sound effects.
## Design
### Creature effects
The Thing's special effects were largely designed by Bottin, who had previously worked with Carpenter on The Fog (1980). When Bottin joined the project in mid-1981, pre-production was in progress, but no design had been settled on for the alien. Artist Dale Kuipers had created some preliminary paintings of the creature's look, but he left the project after being hospitalized following a traffic accident before he could develop them further with Bottin. Carpenter conceived the Thing as a single creature, but Bottin suggested that it should be constantly changing and able to look like anything. Carpenter initially considered Bottin's description of his ideas as "too weird", and had him work with Ploog to sketch them instead. As part of the Thing's design, it was agreed anyone assimilated by it would be a perfect imitation and would not know they were the Thing. The actors spent hours during rehearsals discussing whether they would know they were the Thing when taken over. Clennon said that it did not matter, because everyone acted, looked and smelled exactly the same before (or after) being taken over. At its peak, Bottin had a 35-person crew of artists and technicians, and he found it difficult to work with so many people. To help manage the team, he hired Erik Jensen, a special effects line producer who he had worked with on The Howling (1981), to be in charge of the special make-up effects unit. Bottin's crew also included mechanical aspect supervisor Dave Kelsey, make-up aspect coordinator Ken Diaz, moldmaker Gunnar Ferdinansen, and Bottin's longtime friend Margaret Beserra, who managed painting and hair work.
In designing the Thing's different forms, Bottin explained that the creature had been all over the galaxy. This allowed it to call on different attributes as necessary, such as stomachs that transform into giant mouths and spider legs sprouting from heads. Bottin said the pressure he experienced caused him to dream about working on designs, some of which he would take note of after waking. One abandoned idea included a series of dead baby monsters, which was deemed "too gross". Bottin admitted he had no idea how his designs would be implemented practically, but Carpenter did not reject them. Carpenter said, "What I didn't want to end up with in this movie was a guy in a suit ... I grew up as a kid watching science-fiction monster movies, and it was always a guy in a suit." According to Cundey, Bottin was very sensitive about his designs, and worried about the film showing too many of them. At one point, as a preemptive move against any censorship, Bottin suggested making the creature's violent transformations and the appearance of the internal organs more fantastical using colors. The decision was made to tone down the color of the blood and viscera, although much of the filming had been completed by that point. The creature effects used a variety of materials including mayonnaise, creamed corn, microwaved bubble gum, and K-Y Jelly.
During filming, then-21-year-old Bottin was hospitalized for exhaustion, double pneumonia, and a bleeding ulcer, caused by his extensive workload. Bottin himself explained he would "hoard the work", opting to be directly involved in many of the complicated tasks. His dedication to the project saw him spend over a year living on the Universal lot. Bottin said he did not take a day off during that time and slept on the sets or in locker rooms. To take some pressure off his crew, Bottin enlisted the aid of special effects creator Stan Winston to complete some of the designs, primarily the Dog-Thing. With insufficient time to create a sophisticated mechanical creature, Winston opted to create a hand puppet. A cast was made of makeup artist Lance Anderson's arm and head, around which the Dog-Thing was sculpted in oil-based clay. The final foam-latex puppet, worn by Anderson, featured radio-controlled eyes and cable-controlled legs, and was operated from below a raised set on which the kennel was built. Slime from the puppet would leak onto Anderson during the two days it took to film the scene, and he had to wear a helmet to protect himself from the explosive squibs simulating gunfire. Anderson pulled the tentacles into the Dog-Thing and reverse motion was used to create the effect of them slithering from its body. Winston refused to be credited for his work, insisting that Bottin deserved sole credit; Winston was given a "thank you" in the credits instead.
In the "chest chomp" scene, Dr. Copper attempts to revive Norris with a defibrillator. Revealing himself as the Thing, Norris-Thing's chest transforms into a large mouth that severs Copper's arms. Bottin accomplished this scene by recruiting a double amputee and fitting him with prosthetic arms filled with wax bones, rubber veins and Jell-O. The arms were then placed into the practical "stomach mouth" where the mechanical jaws clamped down on them, at which point the actor pulled away, severing the false arms. The effect of the Norris-Thing's head detaching from the body to save itself took many months of testing before Bottin was satisfied enough to film it. The scene involved a fire effect, but the crew were unaware that fumes from the rubber foam chemicals inside the puppet were flammable. The fire ignited the fumes, creating a large fireball that engulfed the puppet. It suffered only minimal damage after the fire had been put out, and the crew successfully filmed the scene. Stop-motion expert Randall William Cook developed a sequence for the end of the film where MacReady is confronted by the gigantic Blair-Thing. Cook created a miniature model of the set and filmed wide-angle shots of the monster in stop motion, but Carpenter was not convinced by the effect and used only a few seconds of it. It took fifty people to operate the actual Blair-Thing puppet.
The production intended to use a camera centrifuge – a rotating drum with a fixed camera platform – for the Palmer-Thing scene, allowing him to seem to run straight up the wall and across the ceiling. Again, the cost was too high and the idea abandoned for a stuntman falling into frame onto a floor made to look like the outpost's ceiling. Stuntman Anthony Cecere stood in for the Palmer-Thing after MacReady sets it on fire and it crashes through the outpost wall.
### Visuals and lighting
Cundey worked with Bottin to determine the appropriate lighting for each creature. He wanted to show off Bottin's work because of its details, but he was conscious that showing too much would reveal its artificial nature, breaking the illusion. Each encounter with the creature was planned for areas where they could justify using a series of small lights to highlight the particular creature-model's surface and textures. Cundey would illuminate the area behind the creature to detail its overall shape. He worked with Panavision and a few other companies to develop a camera capable of automatically adjusting light exposure at different film speeds. He wanted to try filming the creature at fast and slow speeds thinking this would create a more interesting visual effect, but they were unable to accomplish this at the time. For the rest of the set, Cundey created a contrast by lighting the interiors with warmer lights hung overhead in conical shades so that they could still control the lighting and have darkened areas on set. The outside was constantly bathed in a cold, blue light that Cundey had discovered being used on airport runways. The reflective surface of the snow and the blue light helped create the impression of coldness. The team also made use of the flamethrowers and magenta-hued flares used by the actors to create dynamic lighting.
The team originally wanted to shoot the film in black-and-white, but Universal was reluctant as it could affect their ability to sell the television rights for the film. Instead, Cundey suggested muting the colors as much as possible. The inside of the sets were painted in neutral colors such as gray, and many of the props were also painted gray, while the costumes were a mix of somber browns, blues, and grays. They relied on the lighting to add color. Albert Whitlock provided matte-painted backdrops, including the scene in which the Americans discover the giant alien spaceship buried in the ice. A scene where MacReady walks up to a hole in the ice where the alien had been buried was filmed at Universal, while the surrounding area, including the alien spaceship, helicopter, and snow, were all painted.
Carpenter's friend John Wash, who developed the opening computer simulation for Escape from New York, designed the computer program showing how the Thing assimilates other organisms. Model maker Susan Turner built the alien ship approaching Earth in the pre-credits sequence, which featured 144 strobing lights. Drew Struzan designed the film's poster. He completed it in 24 hours, based only on a briefing, knowing little about the film.
## Release
The lack of information about the film's special effects drew the attention of film exhibitors in early 1982. They wanted reassurance that The Thing was a first-rate production capable of attracting audiences. Cohen and Foster, with a specially employed editor and Universal's archive of music, put together a 20-minute showreel emphasizing action and suspense. They used available footage, including alternate and extended scenes not in the finished film, but avoided revealing the special effects as much as possible. The reaction from the exclusively male exhibitors was generally positive, and Universal executive Robert Rehme told Cohen that the studio was counting on The Thing's success, as they expected E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to appeal only to children. While finalizing the film, Universal sent Carpenter a demographic study showing that the audience appeal of horror films had declined by seventy percent over the previous six months. Carpenter considered this a suggestion that he lower his expectations of the film's performance. After one market research screening, Carpenter queried the audience on their thoughts, and one audience member asked, "Well what happened in the very end? Which one was the Thing ...?" When Carpenter responded that it was up to their imagination, the audience member responded, "Oh, God. I hate that."
After returning from a screening of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the audience's silence at a The Thing trailer caused Foster to remark, "We're dead". The response to public pre-screenings of The Thing resulted in the studio changing the somber, black-and-white advertising approved by the producers to a color image of a person with a glowing face. The tagline was also changed from "Man is the warmest place to hide" – written by Stephen Frankfort, who wrote the Alien tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream" – to "The ultimate in alien terror", trying to capitalize on Alien's audience. Carpenter attempted to make a last-minute change of the film's title to Who Goes There?, to no avail. The week before its release, Carpenter promoted the film with clips on Late Night with David Letterman. In 1981, horror magazine Fangoria held a contest encouraging readers to submit drawings of what the Thing would look like. Winners were rewarded with a trip to Universal Studios. On its opening day, a special screening was held at the Hollywood Pacific Theatre, presided over by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, with free admission for those in costume as monsters.
### Box office
The Thing was released in the United States on June 25, 1982. During its opening weekend, the film earned \$3.1 million from 840 theaters – an average of \$3,699 per theater – finishing as the number eight film of the weekend behind supernatural horror Poltergeist (\$4.1 million), which was in its fourth weekend of release, and ahead of action film Megaforce (\$2.3 million). It dropped out of the top 10 grossing films after three weeks, and ended its run earning a total of \$19.6 million against its \$15 million budget, making it only the 42nd highest-grossing film of 1982. It was not a box office failure, nor was it a hit.
## Reception
### Critical reception
The film received negative reviews on its release, and hostility for its cynical, anti-authoritarian tone and graphic special effects. Some reviewers were dismissive of the film, calling it the "quintessential moron movie of the 80's", "instant junk", and a "wretched excess". Starlog's Alan Spencer called it a "cold and sterile" horror movie attempting to cash in on the genre audience, against the "optimism of E.T., the reassuring return of Star Trek II, the technical perfection of Tron, and the sheer integrity of Blade Runner".
The plot was criticized as "boring", and undermined by the special effects. The Los Angeles Times's Linda Gross said that The Thing was "bereft, despairing, and nihilistic", and lacking in feeling, meaning the characters' deaths did not matter. Spencer said it featured sloppy continuity, lacked pacing, and was devoid of warmth or humanity. David Ansen of Newsweek felt the film confused the use of effects with creating suspense, and that it lacked drama by "sacrificing everything at the altar of gore". The Chicago Reader's Dave Kehr considered the dialogue to be banal and interchangeable, making the characters seem and sound alike. The Washington Post's Gary Arnold said it was a witty touch to open with the Thing having already overcome the Norwegian base, defeating the type of traps seen in the 1951 version, while New York's David Denby lamented that the Thing's threat is shown only externally, without focusing on what it is like for someone who thinks they have been taken over. Roger Ebert considered the film to be scary, but offering nothing original beyond the special effects, while The New York Times's Vincent Canby said it was entertaining only if the viewer needed to see spider-legged heads and dog autopsies.
Reviews of the actors' performances were generally positive, while criticizing the depictions of the characters they portrayed. Ebert said they lacked characterization, offering basic stereotypes that existed just to be killed, and Spencer called the characters bland even though the actors do the best they can with the material. Time's Richard Schickel singled Russell out as the "stalwart" hero, where other characters were not as strongly or wittily characterized, and Variety said that Russell's heroic status was undercut by the "suicidal" attitude adopted toward the film's finale. Other reviews criticized implausibilities such as characters wandering off alone. Kehr did not like that the men did not band together against the Thing, and several reviews noted a lack of camaraderie and romance, which Arnold said reduced any interest beyond the special effects.
The film's special effects were simultaneously lauded and lambasted for being technically brilliant but visually repulsive and excessive. Cinefantastique wrote that the Thing "may be the most unloved monster in movie history ... but it's also the most incredible display of special effects makeup in at least a decade." Reviews called Bottin's work "genius", noting the designs were novel, unforgettable, "colorfully horrific", and called him a "master of the macabre". Arnold said that the "chest chomp" scene demonstrated "appalling creativity" and the subsequent severed head scene was "madly macabre", comparing them to Alien's chest burster and severed head scenes. Variety called it "the most vividly gruesome horror film to ever stalk the screens". Conversely, Denby called them more disgusting than frightening and lamented that the trend of horror films to open the human body more and more bordered on obscenity. Spencer said that Bottin's care and pride in his craft were shown in the effects, but both they and Schickel found them to be overwhelming and "squandered" without strong characters and story. Even so, Canby said that the effects were too "phony looking to be disgusting". Canby and Arnold said the creature's lack of a single, discernible shape was to its detriment, and hiding it inside humans made it hard to follow. Arnold said that the 1951 version was less versatile but easier to keep in focus.
Gross and Spencer praised the film's technical achievements, particularly Cundey's "frostbitten" cinematography, the sound, editing, and Morricone's score. Spencer was critical of Carpenter's direction, saying it was his "futile" attempt to give the audience what he thinks they want and that Carpenter was not meant to direct science fiction, but was instead suited to direct "traffic accidents, train wrecks, and public floggings". Ansen said that "atrocity for atrocity's sake" was ill-becoming of Carpenter.
The Thing was often compared to similar films, particularly Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and The Thing from Another World. Ebert and Denby said that The Thing seemed derivative compared to those films, which had portrayed the story in a better way. Variety called it inferior to the 1951 version. Arnold considered The Thing as the result of Alien raising the requirement for horrific spectacle.
The Thing from Another World actor Kenneth Tobey and director Christian Nyby also criticized the film. Nyby said, "If you want blood, go to the slaughterhouse ... All in all, it's a terrific commercial for J&B Scotch". Tobey singled out the visual effects, saying they "were so explicit that they actually destroyed how you were supposed to feel about the characters ... They became almost a movie in themselves, and were a little too horrifying." In Phil Hardy's 1984 book Science Fiction, a reviewer described the film as a "surprising failure" and called it "Carpenter's most unsatisfying film to date". The review noted that the narrative "seems little more than an excuse for the various set-pieces of special effects and Russell's hero is no more than a cypher compared to Tobey's rounded character in Howard Hawks' The Thing". Clennon said that introductory scenes for the characters, omitted from the film, made it hard for audiences to connect with them, robbing it of some of the broader appeal of Alien.
### Accolades
The Thing received nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for Best Horror Film and Best Special Effects, but lost to Poltergeist and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, respectively. The film was nominated at the Razzie Awards for Worst Musical Score.
## Post-release
### Performance analysis and aftermath
In a 1999 interview, Carpenter said audiences rejected The Thing for its nihilistic, depressing viewpoint at a time when the United States was in the midst of a recession. When it opened, it was competing against the critically and commercially successful E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (\$619 million), a family-friendly film released two weeks earlier that offered a more optimistic take on alien visitation. Carpenter described it as the complete opposite of his film. The Thing opened on the same day as the science fiction film Blade Runner, which debuted as the number two film that weekend with a take of \$6.1 million and went on to earn \$33.8 million. It was also regarded as a critical and commercial failure at the time. Others blamed an oversaturation of science fiction and fantasy films released that year, including Conan the Barbarian (\$130 million), Poltergeist (\$121.7 million), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (\$97 million), Mad Max 2 (\$34.5 million), and Tron (\$33 million). Some analysts blamed Universal's poor marketing, which did not compete with the deluge of promotion for prominent films released that summer. Another factor was the R rating it was given, restricting the audience to those over the age of 17 unless accompanied by an adult. In contrast, Poltergeist, another horror film, received a PG rating, allowing families and younger children to view it.
The impact on Carpenter was immediate – he lost the job of directing the 1984 science fiction horror film Firestarter because of The Thing's poor performance. His previous success had gained him a multiple-film contract at Universal, but the studio opted to buy him out of it instead. He continued making films afterward but lost confidence, and did not openly talk about The Thing's failure until a 1985 interview with Starlog, where he said, "I was called 'a pornographer of violence' ... I had no idea it would be received that way ... The Thing was just too strong for that time. I knew it was going to be strong, but I didn't think it would be too strong ... I didn't take the public's taste into consideration." Shortly after its release, Wilbur Stark sued Universal for \$43 million for "slander, breach of contract, fraud and deceit", alleging he incurred a financial loss by Universal failing to credit him properly in its marketing and by showing his name during the end credits, a less prestigious position. Stark also said that he "contributed greatly to the [screenplay]". David Foster responded that Stark was not involved with the film's production in any way, and received proper credit in all materials. Stark later sued for a further \$15 million over Foster's comments. The outcome of the lawsuits is unknown.
### Home media
While The Thing was not initially successful, it was able to find new audiences and appreciation on home video, and later on television. Sidney Sheinberg edited a version of the film for network television broadcast, which added narration and a different ending, where the Thing imitates a dog and escapes the ruined camp. Carpenter disowned this version, and theorized that Sheinberg had been mad at him for not taking his creative ideas on board for the theatrical cut.
The Thing was released on DVD in 1998 and featured additional content, such as The Thing: Terror Takes Shape – a detailed documentary on the production, deleted and alternate scenes, and commentary by Carpenter and Russell. An HD DVD version followed in 2006 containing the same features, and a Blu-ray version in 2008 featuring just the Carpenter and Russell commentary, and some behind-the-scenes videos available via picture-in-picture during the film. A 2016 Blu-ray release featured a 2K resolution restoration of the film, overseen by Dean Cundey. As well as including previous features such as the commentary and Terror Takes Shape, it added interviews with the cast and crew, and segments that focus on the music, writing, editing, Ploog's artwork, an interview with Alan Dean Foster, who wrote the film's novelization, and the television broadcast version of The Thing that runs fifteen minutes shorter than the theatrical cut. A 4K resolution restoration was released in 2017 on Blu-ray, initially as a United Kingdom exclusive with a limited run of eight thousand units. The restoration was created using the original film negative, and was overseen by Carpenter and Cundey. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray was released in September 2021.
MCA released the soundtrack for The Thing in 1982. Varèse Sarabande re-released it in 1991 on compact disc and Compact Cassette. These versions eventually ceased being manufactured. In 2011, Howarth and Larry Hopkins restored Morricone's score using updated digital techniques and arranged each track in the order it appears in the film. The album also includes tracks composed by Carpenter and Howarth for the film. A remastered version of the score was released on vinyl on February 23, 2017; a deluxe edition included an exclusive interview with Carpenter. In May 2020, an extended play (EP), Lost Cues: The Thing, was released. The EP contains Carpenter's contributions to The Thing's score; he re-recorded the music because the original masterings were lost.
### Other media
A novelization of the film was published by Alan Dean Foster in 1982. It is based on an earlier draft of the script and features some differences from the finished film. A scene in which MacReady, Bennings, and Childs chase infected dogs out into the snow is included, and Nauls's disappearance is explained: Cornered by the Blair-Thing, he chooses suicide over assimilation.
In 2000, McFarlane Toys released two "Movie Maniacs" figures: the Blair-Thing and the Norris-Thing, including its spider-legged, disembodied head. SOTA Toys released a set featuring a MacReady figure and the Dog-Thing based on the film's kennel scene, as well as a bust of the Norris-Thing's spider-head. In 2017, Mondo and the Project Raygun division of USAopoly released The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, a board game. Players take on the role of characters from the film or the Thing, each aiming to defeat the other through subterfuge and sabotage.
## Thematic analysis
The central theme of The Thing concerns paranoia and mistrust. Fundamentally, the film is about the erosion of trust in a small community, instigated by different forms of paranoia caused by the possibility of someone not being who they say they are, or that your best friend may be your enemy. It represents the distrust that humans always have for somebody else and the fear of betrayal by those we know and, ultimately, our bodies. The theme remains timely because the subject of paranoia adapts to the age. The Thing focuses on being unable to trust one's peers, but this can be interpreted as distrust of entire institutions.
Developed in an era of cold-war tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the film refers to the threat of nuclear annihilation by mutually assured destruction. Diabolique's Daniel Clarkson Fisher notes that MacReady destroys the chess computer after being checkmate, and similarly vows to destroy the Thing, even at the expense of the team. The Cold War-style isolationism hurts the group, while a lack of trust destroys it. Screen Rant's Michael Edward Taylor draws allusions between The Thing and the accusatory Red Scares and McCarthyism, as the film conveys an anti-communist fear of infection of civilized areas that will lead to assimilation and imitation. Slant Magazine's John Lingsan said the men display a level of post-Vietnam War (1955–1975) "fatigued counterculturalism" – the rejection of conventional social norms, each defined by their own eccentricities.
The Atlantic's Noah Berlatsky said that unlike typical horror genre films, women are excluded, allowing the Thing to be identified as a fear of not being a man, or being homosexual. Vice's Patrick Marlborough considered The Thing to be a "scathing examination" of manliness, noting that identifying the Thing requires intimacy, confession, and empathy to out the creature, but "male frailty" prevents this as an option. Trapped by pride and stunted emotional growth, the men are unable to confront the truth out of fear of embarrassment or exposure. Berlatsky noted that MacReady avoids emotional attachments and is the most paranoid, allowing him to be the hero. This detachment works against him in the finale, which leaves MacReady locked in a futile mistrust with Childs, each not really knowing the other.
Nerdist's Kyle Anderson and Strange Horizons's Orrin Grey analyzed The Thing as an example of author H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror. Anderson's analysis includes the idea of cosmic horror in large part coming "from the fear of being overtaken," connecting it to Lovecraft's xenophobia and Blair's character arc of becoming what he most fears. In contrast, Anderson compares Blair to MacReady, who represents a more traditional Hollywood film protagonist. Grey describes the creature as fear of the loss of self, using Blair's character as an example. Discussing The Thing in the context of the first of three films in Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy", Grey states the threat the monster poses to the world "is less disconcerting than the threat posed to the individual concept of self."
The Thing never speaks or gives a motive for its actions, and ruthlessly pursues its goal. Den of Geek's Mark Harrison and Ryan Lambie said that the essence of humanity is free will, which is stripped away by the Thing, possibly without the individual being aware that they have been taken over. In a 1982 interview, when given the option to describe The Thing as "pro-science" like Who Goes There? or "anti-science" like The Thing from Another World, Carpenter chose "pro-human", stating, "It's better to be a human being than an imitation, or let ourselves be taken over by this creature who's not necessarily evil, but whose nature it is to simply imitate, like a chameleon." Further allusions have been drawn between the blood-test scene and the epidemic of HIV at the time, which could be identified only by a blood test.
Since its release, many theories have been developed to attempt to answer the film's ambiguous ending shared by MacReady and Childs. Several suggest that Childs was infected, citing Dean Cundey's statement that he deliberately provided a subtle illumination to the eyes of uninfected characters, something absent from Childs. Similarly, others have noted a lack of visible breath from the character in the frigid air. While both aspects are present in MacReady, their absence in Childs has been explained as a technical issue with the filming. During production, Carpenter considered having MacReady be infected, and an alternate ending showed MacReady having been rescued and definitively tested as uninfected. Russell has said that analyzing the scene for clues is "missing the point". He continued, "[Carpenter] and I worked on the ending of that movie together a long time. We were both bringing the audience right back to square one. At the end of the day, that was the position these people were in. They just didn't know anything ... They didn't know if they knew who they were ... I love that, over the years, that movie has gotten its due because people were able to get past the horrificness of the monster ... to see what the movie was about, which was paranoia." However, Carpenter has teased, "Now, I do know, in the end, who the Thing is, but I cannot tell you."
## Legacy
### Retrospective reassessment
In the years following its release, critics and fans have reevaluated The Thing as a milestone of the horror genre. A prescient review by Peter Nicholls in 1992 called The Thing "a bleak, memorable film [that] may yet be seen as a classic". It has been called one of the best films directed by Carpenter. John Kenneth Muir called it "Carpenter's most accomplished and underrated directorial effort", and critic Matt Zoller Seitz said it "is one of the greatest and most elegantly constructed B-movies ever made".
Trace Thurman described it as one of the best films ever, and in 2008, Empire magazine selected it as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, at number 289, calling it "a peerless masterpiece of relentless suspense, retina-wrecking visual excess and outright, nihilistic terror". It is now considered to be one of the greatest horror films ever made, and a classic of the genre. Several publications have called it one of the best films of 1982, including Filmsite.org, Film.com, and Entertainment Weekly. Muir called it "the best science fiction-horror film of 1982, an incredibly competitive year, and perhaps even the best genre motion picture of the decade". Complex named it the ninth-best of the decade, calling it the "greatest genre remake of all time". Numerous publications have ranked it as one of the best science fiction films, including number four by IGN (2016); number 12 by Thrillist (2018); number 17 by GamesRadar+ (2018); number 31 by Paste (2018); number 32 by Esquire (2015) and Popular Mechanics (2017); and number 76 by Rotten Tomatoes (2017) based on its average review score.
Similarly, The Thing has appeared on several lists of the top horror films, including number one by The Boston Globe; number two by Bloody Disgusting (2018); number four by Empire (2016); and number six by Time Out (2016). Empire listed its poster as the 43rd best film poster ever. In 2016, the British Film Institute named it one of ten great films about aliens visiting Earth. It was voted the ninth best horror film of all time in a Rolling Stone readers poll, and is considered one of the best examples of body horror. GamesRadar+ listed its ending as one of the 25 best of all time. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which has compiled old and contemporary reviews, reports that 84% of 83 critics provided positive reviews for the film, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Grimmer and more terrifying than the 1950s take, John Carpenter's The Thing is a tense sci-fi thriller rife with compelling tension and some remarkable make-up effects." On Metacritic, a similar website that aggregates both past and present reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
In a 2011 interview, Carpenter remarked that it was perhaps his favorite film from his own filmography. He lamented that it took a long time for The Thing to find a wider audience, saying, "If The Thing had been a hit, my career would have been different. I wouldn't have had to make the choices that I made. But I needed a job. I'm not saying I hate the movies I did. I loved making Christine (1983) and Starman (1984) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986), all those films. But my career would have been different."
### Cultural influence
The film has had a significant impact on popular culture, and by 1998, The Thing was already considered a cult classic. It is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, which says "one of the most influential horror movies of the 1980s, much imitated but rarely bettered ... It is one of the first films to unflinchingly show the rupture and warp of flesh and bone into grotesque tableaus of surreal beauty, forever raising the bar of cinematic horror." It has been referred to in a variety of media, from television (including The X-Files, Futurama, and Stranger Things) to games (Resident Evil 4, Tomb Raider III, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Among Us), and films (The Faculty, Slither, The Mist).
Several filmmakers have spoken of their appreciation for The Thing or cited its influence on their own work, including Guillermo del Toro, James DeMonaco, J. J. Abrams, Neill Blomkamp, David Robert Mitchell, Rob Hardy, Steven S. DeKnight, and Quentin Tarantino. In 2011, The New York Times asked prominent horror filmmakers what film they had found the scariest. Two, John Sayles and Edgar Wright, cited The Thing. The 2015 Tarantino film The Hateful Eight takes numerous cues from The Thing, from featuring Russell in a starring role, to replicating themes of paranoia and mistrust between characters restricted to a single location, and even duplicating certain angles and layouts used by Carpenter and Cundey. Pieces of Morricone's unused score for The Thing were repurposed for The Hateful Eight. Tarantino also cited The Thing as an inspiration for his 1992 film Reservoir Dogs.
The film is screened annually in February to mark the beginning of winter at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. In January 2010, Clarkesworld Magazine published "The Things", a short story by Peter Watts told from the Thing's point of view; it is unable to understand why humans are hostile toward it and horrified to learn that they do not shapeshift. The story received a 2011 Hugo Award nomination. In 2017, a 400-page art book was released featuring art inspired by The Thing, with contributions from 350 artists, a foreword by director Eli Roth, and an afterword by Carpenter.
The 2007 Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, featured "The Thing: Assimilation", a haunted attraction based on the film. The attraction included MacReady and Childs, both held in stasis, the Blair-Thing and the outpost kennel.
## Sequels
Dark Horse Comics published four comic book sequels starring MacReady, beginning in December 1991 with the two-part The Thing from Another World by Chuck Pfarrer, which is set 24 hours after the film. Pfarrer was reported to have pitched his comic tale to Universal as a sequel in the early 1990s. This was followed by the four-part The Thing from Another World: Climate of Fear in July 1992, the four-part The Thing from Another World: Eternal Vows in December 1993, and The Thing from Another World: Questionable Research. In 1999, Carpenter said that no serious discussions had taken place for a sequel, but he would be interested in basing one on Pfarrer's adaptation, calling the story a worthy sequel. A 2002 video game of the same name was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, and Xbox to generally favorable reviews. The game's plot follows a team of U.S. soldiers investigating the aftermath of the film's events.
In 2005, the Syfy channel planned a four-hour miniseries sequel produced by Frank Darabont and written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. The story followed a Russian team who recover the corpses of MacReady and Childs, as well as remnants of the Thing. The story moves forward 23 years, where the Thing escapes in New Mexico, and follows the attempts at containment. The project never proceeded, and Universal opted to continue with a feature film sequel. A prequel film, also titled The Thing, was released in October 2011 to a \$31 million worldwide box office gross and mixed reviews. The story follows the events after the Norwegian team discovers the Thing. In 2020, Universal Studios and Blumhouse Productions announced the development of a remake of Carpenter's The Thing. The remake was described as incorporating elements of The Thing from Another World and The Thing, as well as the novella Who Goes There? and its expanded version Frozen Hell, which features several additional chapters.
Although released years apart, and unrelated in terms of plot, characters, crew, or even production studios, Carpenter considers The Thing to be the first installment in his "Apocalypse Trilogy", a series of films based around cosmic horror, entities unknown to man, that are threats to both human life and the sense of self. The Thing was followed by Prince of Darkness in 1987, and In the Mouth of Madness in 1994. All three films are heavily influenced by Carpenter's appreciation for the works of Lovecraft.
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Huaynaputina
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"Volcanic winters"
] |
Huaynaputina (/ˌwaɪnəpʊˈtiːnə/ WY-nə-puu-TEE-nə; ) is a volcano in a volcanic high plateau in southern Peru. Lying in the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes, it was formed by the subduction of the oceanic Nazca Plate under the continental South American Plate. Huaynaputina is a large volcanic crater, lacking an identifiable mountain profile, with an outer stratovolcano and three younger volcanic vents within an amphitheatre-shaped structure that is either a former caldera or a remnant of glacial erosion. The volcano has erupted dacitic magma.
In the Holocene, Huaynaputina has erupted several times, including on 19 February 1600 – the largest eruption ever recorded in South America – which continued with a series of events into March. Witnessed by people in the city of Arequipa, it killed at least 1,000–1,500 people in the region, wiped out vegetation, buried the surrounding area with 2 metres (7 ft) of volcanic rock and damaged infrastructure and economic resources. The eruption had a significant impact on Earth's climate, causing a volcanic winter: temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere decreased; cold waves hit parts of Europe, Asia and the Americas; and the climate disruption may have played a role in the onset of the Little Ice Age. Floods, famines, and social upheavals resulted, including a probable link with the Russian Time of Troubles. This eruption has been computed to measure 6 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI).
The volcano has not erupted since 1600. There are fumaroles in the amphitheatre-shaped structure, and hot springs occur in the region, some of which have been associated with Huaynaputina. The volcano lies in a remote region where there is little human activity, but about 30,000 people live in the immediately surrounding area, and another one million in the Arequipa metropolitan area. If an eruption similar to the 1600 event were to occur, it would quite likely lead to a high death toll and cause substantial socioeconomic disruption. The Peruvian Geophysical Institute announced in 2017 that Huaynaputina would be monitored by the Southern Volcanological Observatory, and seismic observation began in 2019.
## Name
The name Huaynaputina, also spelled Huayna Putina, was given to the volcano after the 1600 eruption. According to one translation cited by the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Huayna means 'new', and Putina means 'fire-throwing mountain'; the full name is meant to suggest the aggressiveness of its volcanic activity and refers to the 1600 eruption being its first one. Two other translations are 'young boiling one' – perhaps a reference to earlier eruptions – or 'where young were boiled', which may refer to human sacrifices. Other names for the volcano include Chequepuquina, Chiquimote, Guayta, Omate and Quinistaquillas. The volcano El Misti was sometimes confused with and thus referred to mistakenly as Huaynaputina.
## Geography
The volcano is part of the Central Volcanic Zone of the Andes. Other volcanoes in this zone from northwest to southeast include Sara Sara, Coropuna, Ampato, Sabancaya, El Misti, Ubinas, Ticsani, Tutupaca and Yucamane. Ubinas is the most active volcano in Peru; Huaynaputina, El Misti, Sabancaya, Ticsani, Tutupaca, Ubinas and Yucamane have been active in historical time, while Sara Sara, Coropuna, Ampato, Casiri and Chachani are considered to be dormant. Most volcanoes of the Central Volcanic Zone are large composite volcanoes that can remain active over the span of several million years, but there are also conical stratovolcanoes with shorter lifespans. In the Central Volcanic Zone, large explosive eruptions with Volcanic Explosivity Index of 6 and higher occur on average every 2,000 to 4,000 years.
Huaynaputina is in the Omate and Quinistaquillas Districts, which are part of the General Sánchez Cerro Province in the Moquegua Region of southern Peru. The town of Omate lies 16 kilometres (10 mi) southwest of Huaynaputina. The city of Moquegua is 65 kilometres (40 mi) south-southwest of the volcano and Arequipa is 80 km (50 mi) to its north-northwest.
The region is generally remote and the terrain extreme, the area around Huaynaputina is not easily accessible and human activity low. Within 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) of Huaynaputina there are a number of small farms. A cattle-grazing footpath leads from Quinistaquillas to the volcano, and it is possible to approach the volcano over surrounding ash plains. The landscapes around the volcano have unique characteristics that make them an important geological heritage.
### Structure
Huaynaputina lies at an elevation of about 4,850 m (15,910 ft). It consists of an outer composite volcano, or stratovolcano, and three younger volcanic vents nested within an amphitheatre that is 2.5 km (1.6 mi) wide and 400 m (1,300 ft) deep. This horseshoe-shaped structure opens eastwards and is set in the older volcano at an elevation of 4,400 m (14,400 ft). The amphitheatre lies at the margin of a rectangular high plateau that is covered by about 2 m (6.6 ft) thick ash, extending over an area of 50 km<sup>2</sup> (19 sq mi). The volcano has generally modest dimensions and rises less than 600 m (2,000 ft) above the surrounding terrain, but the products of the volcano's 1600 eruption cover much of the region especially west, north and south from the amphitheatre. These include pyroclastic flow dunes that crop out from underneath the tephra. Deposits from the 1600 eruption and previous events also crop out within the amphitheatre walls. Another southeastward-opening landslide scar lies just north of Huaynaputina.
One of these funnel-shaped vents is a 70 m (230 ft) trough that cuts into the amphitheatre. The trough appears to be a remnant of a fissure vent. A second vent appears to have been about 400 m (1,300 ft) wide before the development of a third vent, which has mostly obscured the first two. The third vent is steep-walled, with a depth of 80 m (260 ft); it contains a pit that is 200 m (660 ft) wide, set within a small mound that is in part nested within the second vent. This third vent is surrounded by concentric faults. At least one of the vents has been described as an ash cone. A fourth vent lies on the southern slope of the composite volcano outside of the amphitheatre and has been described as a maar. It is about 70 m (230 ft) wide and 30 m (98 ft) deep and appears to have formed during a phreatomagmatic eruption. These vents lie at an elevation of about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), making them among the highest vents of a Plinian eruption in the world.
Slumps have buried parts of the amphitheatre. Dacitic dykes crop out within the amphitheatre and are aligned along a northwest–south trending lineament that the younger vents are also located on. These dykes and a dacitic lava dome of similar composition were formed before the 1600 eruption. Faults with recognizable scarps occur within the amphitheatre and have offset the younger vents; some of these faults existed before the 1600 eruption while others were activated during the event.
### Surroundings
The terrain west of the volcano is a high plateau at an elevation of about 4,600 m (15,100 ft); north of Huaynaputina the volcano Ubinas and the depression of Laguna Salinas lie on the plateau, while the peaks Cerro El Volcán and Cerro Chen are situated south of it. The lava dome Cerro El Volcán and another small lava dome, Cerro Las Chilcas, lie 3 km (1.9 mi) south from Huaynaputina. Northeast-east of Huaynaputina, the terrain drops off steeply (2.3 km or 1.4 mi vertically and 6 km or 3.7 mi horizontally) into the Río Tambo valley, which rounds Huaynaputina east and south of the volcano. Some tributary valleys join the Río Tambo from Huaynaputina; clockwise from the east these are the Quebradas Huaynaputina, Quebrada Tortoral, Quebrada Aguas Blancas and Quebrada del Volcán. The Río Tambo eventually flows southwestward into the Pacific Ocean.
## Geology
The oceanic Nazca tectonic plate is subducting at a rate of 10.3 cm/year (4.1 in/year) beneath the continental part of the South American tectonic plate; this process is responsible for volcanic activity and the uplift of the Andes mountains and of the Altiplano plateau. The subduction is oblique, leading to strike-slip faulting. Volcanic activity does not occur along the entire length of the Andes; where subduction is shallow, there are gaps with little volcanic activity. Between these gaps lie volcanic belts: the Northern Volcanic Zone, the Central Volcanic Zone, the Southern Volcanic Zone and the Austral Volcanic Zone.
There are about 400 Pliocene–Quaternary volcanoes in Peru, with Quaternary activity occurring only in the southern part of the country. Peruvian volcanoes are part of the Central Volcanic Zone. Volcanic activity in that zone has moved eastward since the Jurassic. Remnants of the older volcanism persist in the coastal Cordillera de la Costa but the present-day volcanic arc lies in the Andes, where it is defined by stratovolcanoes. Many Peruvian volcanoes are poorly studied because they are remote and difficult to access.
The basement underneath Huaynaputina is formed by almost 2 km-thick (1.2 mi) sediments and volcanic intrusions of Paleozoic to Mesozoic age including the Yura Group, as well as the Cretaceous Matalaque Formation of volcanic origin – these are all units of rock that existed before the formation of Huaynaputina. During the Tertiary, these were overlaid by a total of 300–500 m-thick (980–1,640 ft) deposits from the ignimbritic Capillune, Llallahui and Sencca Formations – all older rock units. Cretaceous sediments and Paleogene–Neogene volcanic rocks form the high plateau around Huaynaputina. The emplacement of the Capillune Formation continued into the earliest Pliocene; subsequently the Plio-Pleistocene Barroso Group was deposited. It includes the composite volcano that hosts Huaynaputina as well as ignimbrites that appear to come from calderas. One such caldera is located just south of Huaynaputina. The late Pleistocene to Holocene volcanoes have been classified as the Arequipa Volcanics.
### Local
The vents of Huaynaputina trend from the north-northwest to the south-southeast, and this trend encompasses the neighbouring volcanoes Ubinas and Ticsani. Ubinas is a typical stratovolcano while Ticsani has a similar structure to Huaynaputina. These volcanoes constitute a volcanic field located behind the major volcanic arc, associated with faults at the margin of the Río Tambo graben and regional strike-slip faults. The faults associated with the volcanic complex have influenced the evolution of the constituent volcanoes including Huaynaputina by acting as conduits for ascending magma especially at fault intersections. The volcanic rocks produced by these volcanoes have similar compositions, and historical seismic and volcanic activity at Ubinas and Ticsani indicate that they share a magma reservoir. A 40 km × 60 km (25 mi × 37 mi) magma reservoir may underpin this volcanic system.
### Composition
The eruption products of the 1600 eruption are dacites, which define a calc-alkaline, potassium-rich suite sometimes described as adakitic. The 1600 rocks also contain rhyolite inclusions and a rhyolite matrix. Andesite has also been found at Huaynaputina. Phenocrysts include biotite, chalcopyrite, hornblende, ilmenite, magnetite and plagioclase; amphibole, apatite and pyroxene have been reported as well. Aside from newly formed volcanic rocks, Huaynaputina in 1600 also erupted material that is derived from rocks underlying the volcano, including sediments and older volcanic rocks, both of which were hydrothermally altered. Pumices from Huaynaputina are white.
The amount of volatiles in the magma appears to have decreased during the 1600 eruption, indicating that it originated either in two separate magma chambers or from one zoned chamber. This may explain changes in the eruption phenomena during the 1600 activity as the "Dacite 1" rocks erupted early during the 1600 event were more buoyant and contained more gas and thus drove a Plinian eruption, while the latter "Dacite 2" rocks were more viscous and only generated Vulcanian eruptions. Interactions with the crust and crystal fractionation processes were involved in the genesis of the magmas as well, with the so-called "Dacite 1" geochemical suite forming deep in the crust, while the "Dacite 2" geochemical suite appears to have interacted with the upper crust.
The rocks had a temperature of about 780–815 °C (1,436–1,499 °F) when they were erupted, with the "Dacite 1" being hotter than the "Dacite 2". Their formation may have been stimulated by the entry of mafic magmas into the magmatic system; such an entry of new magma in a volcanic system is often the trigger for explosive eruptions. The magmas erupted early during the 1600 event (in the first stage of the eruption) appear to have originated from depths of more than 20 km (12 mi); petrological analysis indicates that some magmas came from depths greater than 15–25 km (9–16 mi) and others from about 4–6 km (2.5–3.7 mi). An older hypothesis by de Silva and Francis held that the entry of water into the magmatic system may have triggered the eruption. A 2006 study argues that the entry of new dacitic magma into an already existing dacitic magma system triggered the 1600 eruption; furthermore movement of deep andesitic magmas that had generated the new dacite produced movements within the volcano.
## Eruption history
The ancestral composite volcano that holds Huaynaputina is part of the Pastillo volcanic complex, which developed in the form of 500 m (1,600 ft) thick andesitic rocks after the Miocene, and appears to be of Miocene to Pleistocene age. It underwent sector collapses and glacial erosion, which altered its appearance and its flanks. The amphitheatre which contains the Huaynaputina vents formed probably not as a caldera but either a glacial cirque, a sector collapse scar or another kind of structure that was altered by fluvial and glacial erosion. Other extinct volcanoes in the area have similar amphitheatre structures. It is likely that the development of the later Huaynaputina volcano within the composite volcano is coincidental, although a similar tectonic stress field controlled the younger vents.
Recently emplaced, postglacial dacite bodies occur in the Huaynaputina area, some of which probably formed shortly before the 1600 eruption. Cerro Las Chilcas also predates the 1600 eruption and appears to be the earliest volcanic centre in the area. The Cerro El Volcán dome formed during the Quaternary and may be the remnant of a cluster of lava domes south of Huaynaputina.
### Holocene
Tephra and block-and-ash flow deposits from Holocene eruptions can be found within the amphitheatre. Some tephra layers that are 7,000 to 1,000 years old and close to Ubinas volcano have been attributed to activity at Huaynaputina. Three eruptions of the volcano have been dated to 9,700 ± 190, less than 7,480 ± 40 years ago and 5,750 years Before Present, respectively. The first two eruptions produced pumice falls and pyroclastic flows. The first of these, a Plinian eruption, also deposited tephra in Laguna Salinas, north of Huaynaputina, and produced a block-and-ash flow to its south. A debris avalanche deposit crops out on the eastern side of the Río Tambo, opposite to the amphitheatre; it may have been formed not long before the 1600 eruption.
The existence of a volcano at Huaynaputina was not recognized before the 1600 eruption, with no known previous eruptions other than fumarolic activity. As a result, the 1600 eruption has been referred to as an instance of monogenetic volcanism. The pre-1600 topography of the volcano was described as "a low ridge in the center of a Sierra", and it is possible that a cluster of lava domes existed at the summit before the 1600 eruption which was blown away during the event.
The last eruption before 1600 may have preceded that year by several centuries, based on the presence of volcanic eruption products buried under soil. Native people reportedly offered sacrifices and offerings to the mountain such as birds, personal clothing and sheep, although it is known that non-volcanic mountains in southern Peru received offerings as well. There have been no eruptions since 1600; a report of an eruption in 1667 is unsubstantiated and unclear owing to the sparse historical information. It probably reflects an eruption at Ubinas instead.
### Fumaroles and hot springs
Fumaroles occur in the amphitheatre close to the three vents, on the third vent, and in association with dykes that crop out in the amphitheatre. In 1962, there were reportedly no fumaroles within the amphitheatre. These fumaroles produce white fumes and smell of rotten eggs. The fumarolic gas composition is dominated by water vapour, with smaller quantities of carbon dioxide and sulfur gases. Investigations in 2010 recorded temperatures of 51.8–78.7 °C (125.2–173.7 °F) for the gases, with seasonal variations. Vegetation has grown at their vents.
Hot springs occur in the region and some of these have been associated with Huaynaputina; these include Candagua and Palcamayo northeast, Agua Blanca and Cerro Reventado southeast from the volcano on the Río Tambo and Ullucan almost due west. The springs have temperatures ranging from 22.8–75.4 °C (73.0–167.7 °F) and contain large amounts of dissolved salts. Cerro Reventado and Ullucan appear to be fed from magmatic water and a deep reservoir, while Agua Blanca is influenced by surface waters.
## 1600 eruption
Based on historical records, Huaynaputina's eruption commenced on 19 February 1600 (following earthquakes that began four days prior), with the earliest signs of the impending eruption perhaps in December 1599. The duration of the eruption is not well constrained but may have lasted up to 12–19 hours. The event continued with earthquakes and ash fall for about two weeks and ended on 6 March; the air was clear of ash from the eruption on 2 April 1600. Some reports of late ash falls may be due to wind-transported ash, and there are no deposits from a supposed eruption in August 1600; such reports may refer to mudflows or explosions in pyroclastic flows.
The eruption of 1600 was initially attributed to Ubinas volcano and sometimes to El Misti. Priests observed and recorded the eruption from Arequipa, and the friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote a second-hand account of the eruption based on a witness's report from the city. The scale of the eruption and its impact on climate have been determined from historical records, tree ring data, the position of glaciers, the thickness of speleothems and ice, plant flowering times, wine harvests and coral growth. Stratigraphically, the eruption deposits have been subdivided into five formations.
### Prelude and sequence of events
The eruption may have been triggered when new, "Dacite 1" magma entered into a magmatic system containing "Dacite 2" magma and pressurized the system, causing magma to begin ascending to the surface. In the prelude to the eruption, magma moving upwards to the future vents caused earthquakes beginning at a shallow reservoir at a depth of 6 km (3.7 mi); according to the accounts of priests, people in Arequipa fled their houses out of fear that they would collapse. The rising magma appears to have intercepted an older hydrothermal system that existed as much as 3 km (1.9 mi) below the vents; parts of the system were expelled during the eruption. Once the magma reached the surface, the eruption quickly became intense.
A first Plinian stage took place on 19 and 20 February, accompanied by an increase of earthquake activity. The first Plinian event lasted for about 20 hours and formed pumice deposits close to the vent that were 18–23 m (59–75 ft) thick. The pumice was buried by the ash erupted during this stage, which has been recorded as far as Antarctica. This stage of the eruption produced at least 26 km<sup>3</sup> (6.2 cu mi) of rocks, comprising the bulk of the output from the 1600 eruption. A sustained eruption column about 34–46 km (21–29 mi) high likely created a mushroom cloud that darkened the sky, obscuring the sun and the stars. Afterwards, collapses in the amphitheatre and within the vent enlarged both features; they also decreased the intensity of the eruption. A first pyroclastic flow was deposited already during this time when the column became unstable.
The Plinian stage was channelled by a fracture and had the characteristics of a fissure-fed eruption. Possibly, the second vent formed during this stage, but another interpretation is that the second vent is actually a collapse structure that formed late during the eruption. Much of the excavation of the conduit took place during this stage.
After a hiatus the volcano began erupting pyroclastic flows; these were mostly constrained by the topography and were erupted in stages, intercalated by ash fall that extended to larger distances. Most of these pyroclastic flows accumulated in valleys radiating away from Huaynaputina, reaching distances of 13 km (8 mi) from the vents. Winds blew ash from the pyroclastic flows, and rain eroded freshly deposited pyroclastic deposits. Ash fall and pyroclastic flows alternated during this stage, probably caused by brief obstructions of the vent; at this time a lava dome formed within the second vent. A change in the composition of the erupted rocks occurred, the "Dacite 1" geochemical suite being increasingly modified by the "Dacite 2" geochemical suite that became dominant during the third stage.
Pyroclastic flows ran down the slopes of the volcano, entered the Río Tambo valley and formed dams on the river, probably mainly at the mouth of the Quebrada Aguas Blancas; one of the two dammed lakes was about 28 km (17 mi) long. When the dams failed, the lakes released hot water with floating pumice and debris down the Río Tambo. The deposits permanently altered the course of the river. The volume of the ignimbrites has been estimated to be about 2 km<sup>3</sup> (0.48 cu mi), excluding the ash that was erupted during this stage. The pyroclastic flows along with pumice falls covered an area of about 950 km<sup>2</sup> (370 sq mi).
In the third stage, Vulcanian eruptions took place at Huaynaputina and deposited another ash layer; it is thinner than the layer produced by the first stage eruption and appears to be partly of phreatomagmatic origin. During this stage the volcano also emitted lava bombs; the total volume of erupted tephra is about 1.5 km<sup>3</sup> (0.36 cu mi). This third stage destroyed the lava dome and formed the third vent, which then began to settle along the faults as the underlying magma was exhausted. The fourth vent formed late during the eruption, outside of the amphitheatre.
### Witness observations
The eruption was accompanied by intense earthquakes, deafening explosions and noises that could be heard beyond Lima and as far away as 1,000 km (620 mi). In Arequipa, the sky was illuminated by lightning, and ash fell so thick that houses collapsed. The noise of the eruption was perceived as resembling artillery fire. There and in Copacabana the sky became dark. The blasts of the eruption could be heard (anecdotally) as far as Argentina and in the coastal localities of Lima, Chiquiabo and Arica. In these coastal localities it was thought that the sound came from naval engagements, likely with English corsairs. In view of this, the Viceroy of Peru sent reinforcement troops to El Callao. Closer to the vents, inhabitants of the village of Puquina saw large tongues of fire rising into the sky from Huaynaputina before they were enveloped by raining pumice and ash.
### Caldera collapse
It was initially assumed that caldera collapse took place during the 1600 event, as accounts of the eruption stated that the volcano was obliterated to its foundation; later investigation suggested otherwise. Normally very large volcanic eruptions are accompanied by the formation of a caldera, but exceptions do exist. This might reflect either the regional tectonics or the absence of a shallow magma chamber, which prevented the collapse of the chamber from reaching the surface; most of the magma erupted in 1600 originated at a depth of 20 km (12 mi). Some collapse structures did nevertheless develop at Huaynaputina, in the form of two not readily recognizable circular areas within the amphitheatre and around the three vents, probably when the magmatic system depressurized during the eruption. Also, part of the northern flank of the amphitheatre collapsed during the eruption, and some of the debris fell into the Río Tambo canyon.
### Volume and products
The 1600 eruption had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 6 and is considered to be the only major explosive eruption of the Andes in historical time. It is the largest volcanic eruption throughout South America in historical time, as well as one of the largest in the last millennium and the largest historical eruption in the Western Hemisphere. It was larger than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia and the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines. Huaynaputina's eruption column was high enough to penetrate the tropopause and influence the climate of Earth.
The total volume of volcanic rocks erupted by Huaynaputina was about 30 km<sup>3</sup> (7.2 cu mi), in the form of dacitic tephra, pyroclastic flows and pyroclastic surges, although smaller estimates have been proposed. It appears that the bulk of the fallout originated during the first stage of the eruption, the second and third stage contributing a relatively small portion. For comparison, another large Holocene eruption in the Central Andes—the eruption of Cerro Blanco in Argentina about 2,300 ± 60 BCE—produced a bulk volume of 110 km<sup>3</sup> (26 cu mi) of rock, equivalent to a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7. Estimates have been made for the dense-rock equivalent of the Huaynaputina eruption, ranging between 4.6 and 11 km<sup>3</sup> (1.1 and 2.6 cu mi), with a 2019 estimate, that accounts for far-flung tephra, of 13–14 km<sup>3</sup> (3.1–3.4 cu mi).
#### Tephra fallout
Ash fall from Huaynaputina reached a thickness of 1 cm (0.39 in) within a 95,000 km<sup>2</sup> (37,000 sq mi) area of southern Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and of over 1 m (3 ft 3 in) closer to the volcano. The tephra was deposited in a major westerly lobe and a minor northerly lobe; this is an unusual distribution, as tephra from volcanoes in the Central Andes is usually carried eastward by winds. The deposition of the tephra was influenced by topography and wind changes during the eruption, which led to changes in the fallout pattern. The ash deposits from the eruption are visible to this day, and several archeological sites are preserved under them.
Some tephra was deposited on the volcanoes El Misti and Ubinas, into lakes of southern Peru such as Laguna Salinas, possibly into a peat bog close to Sabancaya volcano where it reached thicknesses of 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in), as far south as in the Peruvian Atacama Desert where it forms discontinuous layers and possibly to the Cordillera Vilcabamba in the north. Ash layers about 8–12 cm (3.1–4.7 in) thick were noted in the ice caps of Quelccaya in Peru and Sajama in Bolivia, although the deposits in Sajama may instead have originated from Ticsani volcano. Reports of Huaynaputina-related ashfall in Nicaragua are implausible, as Nicaragua is far from Huaynaputina and has several local volcanoes that could generate tephra fallout.
The Huaynaputina ash layer has been used as a tephrochronological marker for the region, for example in archeology and in geology, where it was used to date an eruption in the Andagua volcanic field and fault movements that could have produced destructive earthquakes. The ash layer, which may have reached as far as East Rongbuk Glacier at Mount Everest in the Himalaya, has also been used as a tephrochronological marker in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores. It has been proposed as a marker for the onset of the Anthropocene.
### Local impact
The eruption had a devastating impact on the region. Ash falls and pumice falls buried the surroundings beneath more than 2 m (6 ft 7 in) of rocks, while pyroclastic flows incinerated everything within their path, wiping out vegetation over a large area. Of the volcanic phenomena, the ash and pumice falls were the most destructive. These and the debris and pyroclastic flows devastated an area of about 40 km × 70 km (25 mi × 43 mi) around Huaynaputina, and both crops and livestock sustained severe damage.
Between 11 and 17 villages within 20 km (12 mi) from the volcano were buried by the ash, including Calicanto, Chimpapampa, Cojraque, Estagagache, Moro Moro and San Juan de Dios south and southwest of Huaynaputina. The Huayruro Project began in 2015 and aims to rediscover these towns, and Calicanto was christened one of the 100 International Union of Geological Sciences heritage sites in 2021. The death toll in villages from toxic gases and ash fall was severe; reportedly, some villages lost their entire populations to the eruption and a priest visiting Omate after the eruption claimed to have "found its inhabitants dead and cooked with the fire of the burning stones". Estagagache has been deemed the "Pompeii of Peru".
The impact was noticeable in Arequipa, where up to 1 m (3.3 ft) of ash fell causing roofs to collapse under its weight. Ash fall was reported in an area of 300,000 km<sup>2</sup> (120,000 sq mi) across Peru, Chile and Bolivia, mostly west and south from the volcano, including in La Paz, Cuzco, Camaná, where it was thick enough to cause palm trees to collapse, Potosi, Arica as well as in Lima where it was accompanied by sounds of explosions. Ships observed ash fall from as far as 1,000 km (620 mi) west of the coast.
The surviving local population fled during the eruption and wild animals sought refuge in the city of Arequipa. The site of Torata Alta, a former Inka administrative centre, was destroyed during the Huaynaputina eruption and after a brief reoccupation abandoned in favour of Torata. Likewise, the occupation of the site of Pillistay close to Camana ended shortly after the eruption. Together with earthquakes unrelated to the eruption and El Niño-related flooding, the Huaynaputina eruption led to the abandonment of some irrigated land in Carrizal, Peru.
The eruption claimed 1,000–1,500 fatalities, not counting these from earthquakes or flooding on the Río Tambo. In Arequipa, houses and the cathedral collapsed during mass after an earthquake on 27 February, concomitant with the beginning of the second stage of the eruption. Tsunamis were reported during the eruption as well. Flooding ensued when volcanic dams in the Río Tambo broke, and debris and lahars reached the Pacific Ocean 120–130 km (75–81 mi) away. Occasionally the flows that reached the Pacific Ocean have been described as pyroclastic flows. Reportedly, fish were killed by the flood in the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the river.
Damage to infrastructure and economic resources of the southern then-Viceroyalty of Peru was severe. The colonial wine industry in southern Peru was wiped out; chroniclers tell how all wines were lost during the eruption and the tsunamis that accompanied it. Before the eruption the Moquegua region had been a source of wine, and afterwards the focus of viticulture shifted to Pisco, Ica and Nazca; later sugarcane became an important crop in Moquegua valley. Tephra fallout fertilized the soil and may have allowed increased agriculture in certain areas. Cattle ranching also was severely impacted by the 1600 eruption. The Arequipa and Moquegua areas were depopulated by epidemics and famine; recovery only began towards the end of the 17th century. Indigenous people from the Quinistacas valley moved to Moquegua because the valley was covered with ash; population movements resulting from the Huaynaputina eruption may have occurred as far away as Bolivia. After the eruption, taxes were suspended for years, and indigenous workers were recruited from as far as Lake Titicaca and Cuzco to aid in the reconstruction. Arequipa went from being a relatively wealthy city to be a place of famine and disease in the years after the eruption, and its port of Chule was abandoned. Despite the damage, recovery was fast in Arequipa. The population declined in the region, although some of the decline may be due to earthquakes and epidemics before 1600. New administrative surveys – called revisitas – had to be carried out in the Colca Valley in 1604 after population losses and the effects of the Huaynaputina eruption had reduced the ability of the local population to pay the tributes.
#### Religious responses
Historians' writings about conditions in Arequipa tell of religious processions seeking to soothe the divine anger, people praying all day and those who had lost faith in the church resorting to magic spells as the eruption was underway, while in Moquegua children were reportedly running around, women screaming and numerous anecdotes of people who survived eruption or did not exist. In the city of Arequipa church authorities organized a series of processions, requiem masses and exorcisms in response to the eruption. In Copacabana and La Paz, there were religious processions, the churches opened their doors and people prayed. Some indigenous people organized their own rituals which included feasting on whatever food and drink they had and battering dogs that were hanged alive. The apparent effectiveness of the Christian rituals led many previously hesitant indigenous inhabitants to embrace Christianity and abandon their clandestine native religion.
News of the event was propagated throughout the American colonies, and both Christians and native people of Peru interpreted the eruption in religious context. The Spaniards interpreted the event as a divine punishment, while native people interpreted it as a deity fighting against the Spanish invaders; one myth states that Omate volcano (Huaynaputina) wanted the assistance of Arequipa volcano (probably El Misti) to destroy the Spaniards but the latter could not, claiming that he was Christian now, and so Huaynaputina proceeded alone. Another states that instead, Huaynaputina asked Machuputina (Misti) to deal with the Catholic Arequipa; when the latter refused as it too had become Catholic Huaynaputina exploded from anger. El Misti had erupted less than two centuries before, and local populations were further concerned that after Huaynaputina, El Misti might erupt next. As a result, natives and Franciscan friars threw sacrifices such as relics of saints into its crater. Shamans in the Tambo valley urged a return to old customs, and processions and sacrifices to Huaynaputina took place. In Arequipa, a new patron saint, San Genaro, was named following the eruption and veneration of Martha – who was believed to have power over earthquakes – increased; she became the city's sole patron saint in 1693.
Reportedly, in November 1599 a Jesuit named Alonzo Ruiz had announced in Arequipa that divine punishment would strike the natives for continuing to worship their gods and the Spaniards for promiscuity. Mythology held that before the 1600 eruption the lack of sacrifices had upset the devil. It sent a large snake named chipiroque or pichiniqui to announce "horrifying storms" which eventually ended up killing the natives. Jesuits interpreted this as a deception attempt by the devil. Such prophecies may reflect prior knowledge about the volcanic nature of Huaynaputina. There are reports that a sacrificial offering was underway at the volcano a few days before the eruption.
### Global atmospheric impacts of the 1600 eruption
After the eruption, anomalies in the appearance of the sun were described in Europe and China as a "dimming" or "reddening" "haze" that reduced the sun's luminosity in a cloudless sky and reduced the visibility of shadows. Vivid sunsets and sunrises were noted. A darkened lunar eclipse described by observers in Graz, Austria, in 1601 may have been the consequence of the Huaynaputina aerosols.
Acid layers in ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland have been attributed to Huaynaputina, and their discovery led to initial discussion about whether the 1600 eruption had major effects on Earth's climate. In Antarctica these ice cores include both acid layers and volcanic tephra. The total amount of sulfuric acid erupted by Huaynaputina has been estimated at several values:
Other estimates are 50–100 million tons for the sulfur dioxide yield and 23 or 26–55 million tons for the sulfur. In Antarctica the sulfur yield was estimated to be about one-third that of the 1815 Tambora eruption, although the climate impact in the Northern Hemisphere might have been aggravated by the distribution of the aerosols; at one Antarctic site the Huaynaputina sulfate layer is thicker than the one from Tambora. Inferences from rock composition usually yield a higher sulfur output than ice core data; this may reflect either ice cores underestimating the amount of sulfur erupted as ice cores only record stratospheric sulfur, ice cores underestimating the amount of sulfur for other reasons or overestimating the amount of sulfur contained within magma-associated fluids. The Huaynaputina eruption was probably unusually rich in sulfur compared to its volume. A large amount of sulfur appears to have been carried in a volatile phase associated with the magma rather than in the magma proper. An even larger amount of sulfur may have originated from a relic hydrothermal system that underpins the volcano, and whose accumulated sulfur would have been mobilized by the 1600 eruption; some contradictions between the sulfur yield inferred from ice core data and these inferred from the magma composition can be resolved this way.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in 1610 decreased for reasons unknown; high mortality in the Americas after the European arrival may be the reason, but this decrease could have been at least in part the consequence of the Huaynaputina eruption. The vast tephra fallout of the eruption fell in part over the sea; the fertilizing effect of the tephra may have induced a draw-down of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
#### Climate impacts
Volcanic eruptions alter worldwide climate by injecting ash and gases into the atmosphere, which reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, often causing cold weather and crop failures. The Huaynaputina eruption decreased the amount on solar energy reaching Earth by about 1.9 W/m<sup>2</sup>. The summer of 1601 was among the coldest in the Northern Hemisphere during the last six centuries, and the impact may have been comparable to that of the 1815 Tambora, 1452/1453 mystery eruption, 1257 Samalas and 536 Ilopango eruptions. The eruption is thought to have caused a volcanic winter. Other volcanoes may have erupted alongside Huaynaputina and also contributed to the weather anomalies; several large volcanic eruptions took place in the decades preceding and following the Huaynaputina eruption.
The eruption had a noticeable impact on growth conditions in the Northern Hemisphere, which were the worst of the last 600 years, with summers being on average 0.8 °C (1.4 °F) colder than the mean. The climate impact has been noted in the growth rings of a centuries-old ocean quahog (a mollusc) individual that was found in Iceland, as well as in tree rings from Taiwan, eastern Tibet, Siberia, the Urals and Yamal Peninsula in Russia, Canada, the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains both in California, Lake Zaysan in Kazakhstan and in Mexico. Notably, the climate impacts became manifest only in 1601; in the preceding year, they may have been suppressed by a strong El Niño event.
Other climate effects attributed to the Huaynaputina eruption include:
- In climate simulations, after the 1600 eruption a strengthening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is observed along with sea ice growth, followed after a delay by a phase of decreased strength.
- An extraordinarily strong El Niño event in 1607–1608 and a concomitant northward shift of the Southern Hemisphere storm tracks have been attributed to the Huaynaputina eruption.
- Intense winds were reported from the present-day Philippines. Manila galleons reportedly were faster when crossing the Pacific Ocean after 1600, perhaps owing to volcanically-induced wind changes.
- A change in the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability around 1600 has been attributed to the Huaynaputina eruption.
#### Long-term climate effects
Temperatures decreased for a long time after the Huaynaputina eruption in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Together with the 1257 Samalas eruption and the 1452/1453 mystery eruption, the Huaynaputina eruption may have led to the Little Ice Age, or to the coldest period of the Little Ice Age in Europe during the "Grindelwald Fluctuation" between 1560-1630. Glacier growth, Arctic sea ice expansion and climatic cooling has been noted after these eruptions, and a cooling peak occurred around the time of the Huaynaputina eruption. In general, volcanic sulfate aerosol production was higher during the Little Ice Age than before or after it. In the Andes, the Little Ice Age had already begun before the 1600 eruption, although a major expansion of glaciers in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca occurred at the time.
The 1600 eruption of Huaynaputina occurred at the tail end of a cluster of mid-sized volcanic eruptions, which in a climate simulation had a noticeable impact on Earth's energy balance and were accompanied by a 10% growth of Northern Hemisphere sea ice and a weakening of the subpolar gyre which may have begun already before the eruption. Such a change in the ocean currents has been described as being characteristic for the Little Ice Age and mediates numerous effects of the Little Ice Age, such as colder winters.
### Distant consequences
#### North America
Thin tree rings and frost rings potentially correlated to the Huaynaputina eruption have been found in trees of what today are the Northeastern and Western United States such as in Montana. Tree rings dating to 1601 and 1603 found close to the tree line in Quebec indicate cold temperatures, and anomalous tree rings and cooling in Idaho have been linked to the eruption as well. In 1601, the coldest temperature of the last 600 years was recorded in Seward Peninsula, Alaska, as well as in other places of northwestern and southeastern Alaska. Noticeable cooling has been inferred for the Western US from tree ring data. Weather in the Arctic Archipelago of Canada was unusually wet.
The Huaynaputina eruption was followed by a drought in what today are the Eastern U.S. and may have hindered the establishment of the colony in Jamestown, Virginia, where mortality from malnutrition was high. The eruption may also have contributed to the disappearance of the Monongahela culture from North America, along with other climate phenomena linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation.
##### California
A major flooding episode in 1605 ± 5 recorded from sediments of the Santa Barbara Basin has been attributed to the Huaynaputina eruption. A global cooling period associated with the Huaynaputina eruption as well as eruptions of Mount Etna and Quilotoa may have forced storm tracks and the jet stream south, causing floods in the Southwestern United States. At that time, flooding also took place in Silver Lake in the Mojave Desert, and Mono Lake rose to the highest level of the past millennium. There were also wet spells between 1599 and 1606 in the Sacramento River system, according to analysis of tree rings. Colder temperatures may have contributed to the flooding in Silver Lake, as they would have reduced evaporation.
The Spanish explorers Sebastián Vizcaíno and Juan de Oñate visited the US west coast and the Colorado River Delta in the years following the Huaynaputina eruption. The effects of this eruption and the activity of other volcanoes – namely, large scale flooding – might have induced them to believe that California was an island; this later became one of the most well known cartographic misconceptions of history.
#### Western Europe
Tree rings indicate unusually cold weather in the Austrian Alps and Estonia, where the 1601–1602 winter became coldest in half a millennium. The summers in Quebec and Scandinavia after the eruption were the coldest of the past 420 years. Tree ring analysis suggested cooling in Greece, Lapland (Finland), the Pyrenees and central Spain, the Swiss Alps and Switzerland (in 1600) more generally, where reconstructed winter temperatures were the lowest of 1525–1860. Anomalous weather conditions relating to the 1600 eruption, possibly under additional influence from reduced solar activity, have been noted in sediment cores from peat bogs in England and Denmark. In Norway, cooling coinciding with the eruption was probably the reason for the development of palsas in Færdesmyra that for the most part disappeared only in the 20th century. Sea ice expanded around Iceland.
The winter of 1601 was extremely cold in Estonia, Ireland, Latvia and Switzerland, and the ice in the harbour of Riga broke up late. Climate impacts were also reported from Croatia. The 1601 wine harvest was delayed in France, and in Germany it was drastically lower in 1602. Frost continued into summer in Italy and England. A further cold winter occurred in 1602–1603 in Ireland. In Estonia, high mortality and crop failures from 1601 to 1603 led to an at least temporary abandonment of three quarters of all farms. Scotland saw the failure of barley and oat crops in 1602 and a plague outbreak during the preceding year, and in Italy silk prices rose due to a decline in silk production in the peninsula.
In Fennoscandia, the summer of 1601 was one of the coldest in the last four centuries. In Sweden, harvest failures are recorded between 1601 and 1603, with a rainy spring in 1601 reportedly leading to famine. Famine ensued there and in Denmark and Norway during 1602–1603. Finland saw one of the worst barley and rye harvests, and crop yields continued to be poor for some years to follow, accompanied by a colder climate there. The year 1601 was called a "green year" in Sweden and a "straw year" or "year of extensive frosts" in Finland, and it is likely that the 1601 crop failure was among the worst in Finland's history. The Huaynaputina eruption together with other factors led to changes in the social structure of Ostrobothnia, where a number of land holdings were deserted after the eruption and peasants with wider social networks had higher chances to cope with crises than these without.
#### Russia
Ice cores in the Russian Altai Mountains noted a strong cooling around 1601, with tree ring data also recording a cooling of 3.5 °C (6.3 °F). Cooling was also noted in tree rings of the Kola Peninsula and ice cores on Novaya Zemlya, where glacier melting rates declined.
The summer 1601 was wet, and the winter 1601–1602 was severe. The eruption led to the Russian famine of 1601–1603 after crops failed during these years; it is considered to be the worst famine of Russian history and claimed about two million lives, a third of the country's population. The events initiated the time of social unrest known as the Time of Troubles, and the tzar Boris Godunov was overthrown in part owing to the social impacts of the famine. This social unrest eventually led to a change in the ruling dynasty and interventions from Sweden and Poland.
#### Balkans and Ottoman Empire
Before the Huaynaputina eruption, severe droughts in Anatolia during 1591–1596 caused harvest failures. Intense snowfall and cold affected the countries of the Balkans and the Aegean Sea during the winters after the Huaynaputina eruption, forcing countries to acquire grain from abroad. The Ottoman-Bosnian chronicler İbrahim Peçevi reported that in 1601 the Danube froze and travel was hindered by snow. The extremely cold winters that followed, associated with Huaynaputina's eruption and an eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in 1595, caused epizootics that killed large numbers of livestock in Anatolia, Crimea and the Balkans. This weakened the Ottoman Empire just as it was conducting the Long Turkish War and appears to have contributed to the onset of the Celali rebellions in Anatolia.
#### China
Chronicles during the reign of Emperor Wanli from northern China mention severe frosts in 1601 and frequently cold weather, including snowfall in Huai'an County and Hebei and severe frost in Gansu, Shanxi and Hebei during summer. The frosts destroyed crops, causing famines severe enough that cannibalism took place. Epidemics in Shanxi and Shaanxi have also been linked to Huaynaputina. The cold snap was apparently limited to 1601, as there are no reports of extremely cold weather in the subsequent years.
Weather was anomalous in southern China as well, 1601 seeing a hot autumn and a cold summer and abrupt snowfall. Disease outbreaks occurred afterwards. Reports of snowfall and unusual cold also came from the Yangtze River valley, and summer in the Anhui, Shanghai and Zhejiang provinces began unusually with cold and snowy weather and then became hot.
#### Asia outside of China
Unusually narrow or entirely missing tree rings formed in 1601 in trees close to Khövsgöl Nuur lake, and tree ring records show decreased temperatures in Taiwan. Severe droughts recorded over the Tibetan Plateau in 1602 may have been caused by the Huaynaputina eruption. The eruption would have decreased the atmospheric water content and thus the strength of the monsoonal moisture transport towards the plateau. Likewise, droughts recorded in cave deposits of southern Thailand have been related to the Huaynaputina eruption and may reflect a typical response of tropical rainfall to volcanic events.
In Japan, Lake Suwa froze up considerably earlier than normal in 1601, and flooding and continuous rains were accompanied by harvest failures. Korea in 1601 saw an unusually cold spring and summer, followed by a humid and hot mid-summer. Epidemics ensued, although the epidemics in East Asia erupted under different weather conditions and linking them to the Huaynaputina eruption may not be straightforward. On the other hand, temperatures were not unusually cold in Nepal.
## Hazards and volcanological research
About 30,000 people live in the immediate area of Huaynaputina today, and over 69,000 and 1,000,000 live in the nearby cities of Moquegua and Arequipa, respectively. The towns of Calacoa, Omate, Puquina and Quinistaquillas and others would be threatened in case of renewed eruptions. A repeat of the 1600 eruption would likely cause a considerably greater death toll owing to population growth since 1600, as well as causing substantial socioeconomic disruption in the Andes. Evacuation of the area directly around the volcano would be difficult owing to the poor state of the roads, and the tephra fallout would impact much of Peru's economy. The 1600 eruption is often used as a worst-case scenario model for eruptions at Peruvian volcanoes. Huaynaputina is classified as a "high-risk volcano". In 2017, the Peruvian Geophysical Institute announced that Huaynaputina would be monitored by the future Southern Volcanological Observatory, and in 2019 seismic monitoring of the volcano began. As of 2021, there are three seismometers and one device measuring volcano deformation on Huaynaputina.
During the wet season, mudflows often descend from Huaynaputina. In 2010, earthquake activity and noises from the volcano alerted the local population and led to a volcanological investigation. As part of this investigation, seismic activity was recorded around the amphitheatre; there were no earthquakes within it and appeared to be associated mainly with the faults and lineaments in the region. The researchers recommended more extensive seismometer coverage of the area and regular sampling of fumaroles, as well as reconnaissance with georadar and of the electrical potential of the volcano.
## Climate and vegetation
Between 4,000–5,000 m (13,000–16,000 ft) in elevation average temperatures are about 6 °C (43 °F) with cold nights, while at Omate, mean temperatures reach 15 °C (59 °F) with little seasonal variation. Precipitation averages 154.8 mm/a (6.09 in/year), falling mainly during a summer wet season between December and March. This results in an arid climate, where little erosion occurs and volcanic products are well preserved. Vegetation in the area of Huaynaputina is scarce; only during the wet season do plants grow on the pumice deposits from the 1600 eruption. Cacti can be found on rocky outcrops and valley bottoms.
## See also
- Corral de Coquena
- Timeline of volcanism on Earth
|
1,201,014 |
Issy Smith
| 1,172,716,965 |
Recipient of the Victoria Cross
|
[
"1890 births",
"1940 deaths",
"British Army personnel of World War I",
"British Army recipients of the Victoria Cross",
"British World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross",
"Deaths from coronary thrombosis",
"Egyptian Jews",
"Egyptian emigrants to the United Kingdom",
"Jewish military personnel",
"Manchester Regiment soldiers",
"People from Alexandria",
"Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)"
] |
Issy Smith, VC (c. 18 September 1890 – 11 September 1940) was a British-Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to eligible forces of the Commonwealth and United Kingdom. In recognition of his VC, he was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre and Russian Cross of St. George (4th class) by the respective governments.
Born Ishroulch Shmeilowitz (and other renderings), to parents residing in Egypt, Smith travelled to Britain as a child stowaway and first volunteered to serve in the British Army in 1904. He emigrated to Australia after discharge, where he remained until mobilised as a reservist in 1914. As a corporal in the 1st Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, Smith was engaged in the Second Battle of Ypres. On 26 April 1915, Smith, on his own initiative, recovered wounded soldiers while exposed to sustained fire and attended to them "with the greatest devotion to duty regardless of personal risk". His conduct secured a recommendation for the Victoria Cross, which was awarded to Smith in August 1915.
After his demobilisation, Smith returned to Australia with his wife and daughter. He became a prominent figure in Melbourne's Jewish community, was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the United Australia Party in the 1931 general election.
## Early life
Smith was born in Alexandria, the son of French citizens Moses and Eva Shmeilowitz, who were of Russian Jewish origin. His father was employed by the French Consulate-General as a clerk. Aged 11, Smith embarked as a stowaway aboard a vessel proceeding to London. Undaunted by this unfamiliar environment, Smith attended Berner Street School, Commercial Street, and worked as a deliverer in the East End, then an impoverished ghetto where Yiddish was the predominant spoken language. Persecution and extreme deprivation had compelled millions of Eastern European Jews to migrate to Western Europe, the Americas, and elsewhere. By the time of Issy Smith's arrival, Jewish immigration to Britain had peaked but was curtailed by the enactment of the Aliens Act in 1905.
He joined the British Army in 1904, becoming a private in the Manchester Regiment. The pseudonym Issy Smith was adopted in the process of enlisting at the behest of a recruiting sergeant. Smith completed his training, serving in South Africa and India with the 1st Battalion. He boxed competitively, winning the British Army's middleweight championship, and played football. While in India, Smith was present at the Delhi Durbar parade, in which the 1st Manchesters participated, and was thus awarded the Delhi Durbar Medal.
Accepting his discharge in 1912, Smith emigrated to Australia after brief employment in London. He lived in the Melbourne suburb of Ascot Vale while working for the city's gas company. Retained as a reservist, Smith was mobilised by the British Army after the commencement of hostilities in August 1914. Some sources state that Smith was present at the capture of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.
## World War I
The 1st Manchester Regiment, stationed in India, sailed from Karachi for France on 29 August 1914 as the constituent British battalion of the Jullundur Brigade, 3rd (Lahore) Division. The battalion disembarked at Marseilles in late September, but was not deployed to the front until 26 October 1914, when it occupied trenches east of Festubert.
Actively engaged in the battles of Givenchy and Neuve Chapelle, the 1st Manchesters had incurred hundreds of casualties by the beginning of "Second Ypres" on 22 April 1915. Chemical warfare first emerged on the Western Front during the German offensive, and Smith himself would be temporarily incapacitated by gas. The 1st Manchesters were involved in an initially successful counter-attack conducted by the Jullundur and Ferozepore brigades on 26 April 1915, near Wieltje, in conjunction with other Allied units. Rudimentary forms of protection against the chlorine gas proved ineffectual, limiting the advance and causing many soldiers to succumb to its effects.
During the Allied counter-attack, Smith, of his own volition, ventured towards a German position to attend to a severely wounded soldier. He carried him some 250 yards (230 m) to relative safety while exposed to intense German fire. According to the Victoria Cross citation, he brought in "many more wounded men" throughout the day under similarly perilous conditions "regardless of personal risk". Recounting his own rescue by Smith to a Daily Mail correspondent, Sergeant Rooke said of the corporal: "He behaved with wonderful coolness and presence of mind the whole time, and no man deserved a Victoria Cross more thoroughly than he did".
Smith was hospitalised in Dublin, Ireland, where he recuperated from his gassing. His Victoria Cross was later presented to him at Buckingham Palace by King George V. He was feted by publications such as The Jewish Chronicle, and his status as a recipient of the VC was utilised by the British government for the purposes of stimulating further recruitment. His visits to Jewish communities in the United Kingdom generated much interest, attracting dignitaries and large crowds in the process. On one such occasion, in September 1915, he was invited back to his old school in the East End to receive a gold watch and chain in honour of his Victoria Cross from his former schoolmates. Also that month, Smith was received at Mansion House, Dublin, by the Under-Secretary for Ireland, Matthew Nathan, who took advantage of the occasion to reaffirm loyalty to both Britain and Ireland. Contemporaries, however, continued to report instances of discrimination against Jewish servicemen, including an incident involving Issy Smith in Leeds. While documenting his recruitment drive, The Jewish Chronicle reported that the proprietor of the Grand Restaurant had refused to serve Smith during his tour of Yorkshire because he was Jewish, while indicating the staff were prepared to accept his non-Jewish acquaintance. Smith's tour continued otherwise without disruption, taking him to Edinburgh, Scotland.
Meanwhile, on the Western Front, the demoralised and depleted Indian Corps fought its final European battle at Loos. With the exception of two cavalry divisions, the Indian Corps in Europe redeployed to the Middle East theatre, sailing from Marseilles on 10 December 1915 and arriving in Basra on 8 January 1916 to be integrated into the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force. Smith returned to active duty as a sergeant, serving in Mesopotamia and Palestine until the cessation of hostilities with the Ottoman Empire and Germany on 30 October and 11 November respectively. He had been wounded five times.
Demobilised after the war, Smith returned to London. As a war hero, he was intermittently invited to social functions. In June 1920, he attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace, given by the king for all surviving Victoria Cross recipients. They included veterans of the Indian Mutiny, Rorke's Drift, Relief of General Gordon, the First and Second Boer Wars, countless campaigns on the borders of the empire, and dozens from the Great War. In October 1921, with Harry Kenny, he unveiled the Hackney War Memorial. In 1922, he attended "The Pilgrimage to Ypres", in Belgium, laying a wreath at the Cloth Hall there.
## Legacy
Despite his fame and popularity, like many former servicemen contending with post-war economic hardship, Smith struggled financially – a predicament compounded by illness. As a consequence he pawned his medals for £20, only for them to be recovered by the Jewish Historical Society on the urging of the wife of Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz and ultimately reunited with Smith. Smith's varied occupations in post-war Britain included work as an actor with a theatre troupe. He emigrated to Australia in 1925 with his wife Elsie (née McKechnie), whom he had married at Camberwell Register Office. Marriage to Elsie produced two children (Olive and Maurice) and reputedly angered his parents despite the couple's later observance of Jewish religious tradition in a formal ceremony held at Central Synagogue, Hallam Street.
The family settled in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, where Smith's standing in the Jewish community became high. There he joined the Essendon sub branch of the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL). In 1928, he was appointed manager of British International Pictures in Melbourne, and then worked for Dunlop Rubber Company. His final job was with the Civil Aviation Board at Essendon Airport. Appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1930, Smith tried politics as a candidate in the 1931 federal election for the United Australia Party, contesting the seat of Melbourne in the House of Representatives, and "seriously challenged the hitherto unassailable Dr Maloney".
Smith died of coronary thrombosis on 11 September 1940. He was buried in the Jewish section of Fawkner Cemetery with full military honours. His Victoria Cross was sold by his family in 1990 and later auctioned as part of a collection of Smith's medals, selling for approximately £30,000 (US\$60,000).
Following representations from the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced in September 2013 that the plan to memorialise British-born First World War Victoria Cross medal holders by laying commemorative paving stones in their home towns would be extended to include Smith, who was born in Egypt.
|
70,435 |
Battle of Vimy Ridge
| 1,169,137,088 |
World War I battle (April 1917)
|
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"April 1917 events",
"Battles of World War I involving Canada",
"Battles of World War I involving Germany",
"Battles of World War I involving the United Kingdom",
"Battles of the Western Front (World War I)",
"Canada–France relations",
"Conflicts in 1917",
"Tunnel warfare in World War I",
"World War I in the Pas-de-Calais"
] |
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the Battle of Arras, in the Pas-de-Calais department of France, during the First World War. The main combatants were the four divisions of the Canadian Corps in the First Army, against three divisions of the German 6th Army. The battle took place from 9 to 12 April 1917 at the beginning of the Battle of Arras, the first attack of the Nivelle Offensive, which was intended to attract German reserves from the French, before the French attempt at a decisive offensive on the Aisne and the Chemin des Dames ridge further south, several days later.
The Canadian Corps were to capture the German-held high ground of Vimy Ridge, an escarpment on the northern flank of the Arras front. This would protect the First Army and the Third Army farther south from German enfilade fire. Supported by a creeping barrage, the Canadian Corps captured most of the ridge during the first day. The village of Thélus fell during the second day, as did the crest of the ridge, once the Canadian Corps overran a salient against considerable German resistance. The final objective, a fortified knoll outside the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, fell to the Canadians on 12 April. The German 6th Army then retreated to the Oppy–Méricourt line.
Historians attribute the success of the Canadian Corps to technical and tactical innovation, meticulous planning, powerful artillery support and extensive training, as well as the inability of the 6th Army to properly apply the new German defensive doctrine. The battle was the first occasion when the four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force fought together and it was made a symbol of Canadian national achievement and sacrifice. A 100 ha (250-acre) portion of the former battleground serves as a memorial park and site of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.
## Background
### Vimy Ridge 1914–1916
Vimy Ridge is an escarpment 8 km (5.0 mi) northeast of Arras on the western edge of the Douai Plain. The ridge rises gradually on its western side and drops more quickly on the eastern side. At approximately 7 km (4.3 mi) in length and culminating at an elevation of 145 m (476 ft) or 60 m (200 ft) above the Douai Plains, the ridge provides a natural unobstructed view for tens of kilometres in all directions. The ridge fell under German control in October 1914 during the Race to the Sea as the Franco-British and German forces continually attempted to outflank each other through northeastern France. The French Tenth Army attempted to dislodge the Germans from the region during the Second Battle of Artois in May 1915 by attacking their positions at Vimy Ridge and Notre Dame de Lorette. The French 1st Moroccan Division managed to briefly capture the height of the ridge but was unable to hold it owing to a lack of reinforcements. The French made another attempt during the Third Battle of Artois in September 1915 but only captured the village of Souchez at the western base of the ridge. The Vimy sector calmed following the offensive with both sides taking a largely live and let live approach. The French suffered approximately 150,000 casualties in their attempts to gain control of Vimy Ridge and surrounding territory.
### 1916–1917
The French Tenth Army was relieved in February 1916 by British XVII Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir Julian Byng) and transferred to join in the Battle of Verdun. The British soon discovered that German tunnelling companies had taken advantage of the relative calm on the surface to build an extensive network of tunnels and deep mines from which they would attack French positions by setting off explosive charges underneath their trenches. The Royal Engineers sent specialist tunnelling companies to the ridge to combat the German mining operations and German artillery and trench mortar fire intensified in early May 1916. On 21 May 1916, after shelling the British forward trenches and divisional artillery positions from eighty hidden batteries on the reverse slope of the ridge, the German infantry began Unternehmen Schleswig Holstein, an attack on the British lines along a 2,000 yd (1,800 m) front, to eject them from positions along the ridge. The Germans captured several British-controlled tunnels and mine craters before halting their advance and digging in. Small counter-attacks by battalions of the 140th and 141st Brigades took place on 22 May but were ineffective. The Canadian Corps relieved IV Corps along the western slopes of Vimy Ridge in October 1916.
## Prelude
### Strategic planning
On 28 May 1916, Byng took command of the Canadian Corps from Lieutenant-General Sir Edwin Alderson. Formal discussions for a spring offensive near Arras began, following a conference of corps commanders held at the First Army Headquarters on 21 November 1916. In March 1917, the First Army headquarters formally presented Byng with orders outlining Vimy Ridge as the Canadian Corps objective for the Arras Offensive. A formal assault plan, adopted in early March 1917, drew heavily on the briefings of staff officers sent to learn from the experiences of the French Army during the Battle of Verdun. For the first time the four Canadian divisions would fight together. The nature and size of the attack needed more resources than the Canadian Corps possessed; the British 5th Division, artillery, engineer and labour units were attached to the corps, bringing the nominal strength of the Canadian Corps to about 170,000 men, of whom 97,184 were Canadian.
### Tactical plan
In January 1917, three Canadian Corps officers accompanied other British and Dominion officers attending a series of lectures hosted by the French Army regarding their experiences during the Battle of Verdun. The French counter offensive devised by General Robert Nivelle had been one of a number of Allied successes of 1916. Following extensive rehearsal, eight French divisions had assaulted German positions in two waves along a 6 mi (9.7 km) front. Supported by extremely strong artillery, the French had recovered lost ground and inflicted heavy casualties on five German divisions.
On their return from the lectures, the Canadian Corps staff officers produced a tactical analysis of the Verdun battles and delivered a series of corps and divisional-level lectures to promote the primacy of artillery and stress the importance of harassing fire and company and platoon flexibility. The report of 1st Canadian Division commander Arthur Currie highlighted the lessons he believed the Canadian Corps could learn from the experiences of the French. The final plan for the assault on Vimy Ridge drew heavily on the experience and tactical analysis of the officers who attended the Verdun lectures. British First Army commander General Henry Horne approved the plan on 5 March 1917.
The plan divided the Canadian Corps advance into four coloured objective lines. The attack would be made on a front of 7,000 yd (6,400 m), with its centre opposite the village of Vimy, to the east of the ridge. The first objective, represented by the Black Line, was to seize the German forward defensive line. The final objective of the northern flank was the Red Line: taking the highest point on the ridge, the fortified knoll known as the Pimple, la Folie Farm, the Zwischen-Stellung (Intermediate Position) and the hamlet of Les Tilleuls. The southern two divisions were to achieve two additional objectives, the Blue Line encompassing the village of Thélus and the woods outside the village of Vimy and the Brown Line, which aimed at capturing the Zwölfer-Graben (Twelve Trench) and the German second line. The infantry would proceed close behind a creeping barrage by field guns, advancing in timed 100 yd (90 m) increments. The medium and heavy howitzers would establish a series of standing barrages further ahead of the infantry against defensive positions.
The plan called for units to leapfrog over one another, as the advance progressed, to maintain momentum during the attack. The initial wave would capture and consolidate the Black Line and then push forward to the Red Line. The barrage would pause, to enable reserve units to move up and then move forward with the units pushing beyond the Red Line to the Blue Line. Once the corps secured the Blue Line, advancing units would once again leapfrog established ones and capture the Brown Line. Conducted properly, the plan would leave the German forces little time to exit their deep dugouts and defend their positions against the infantry. If the corps maintained its schedule, the troops would advance as much as 4,000 yd (2.3 mi; 3.7 km) and have the majority of the ridge under control by 1:00 pm of the first day.
### German defences
The experience of the Battle of the Somme led the German command to conclude that the policy of rigidly defending a trench position line was no longer effective against the firepower that the Entente armies had accumulated. Ludendorff published a new defensive doctrine in December 1916, in which deeper defences were to be built, within which the garrison would have room to manoeuvre, rather than rigidly holding successive lines of trenches. Along Vimy Ridge, the German forces spent two years constructing fortifications designed for rigid defence. Little reconstruction based upon the new defence-in-depth doctrine had been accomplished by April 1917 because the terrain made it impractical.
The topography of the Vimy battlefield made defence-in-depth difficult to realize. The ridge was 700 m (2,300 ft) across at its narrowest point, with a steep drop on the eastern side, all but eliminating the possibility of counterattacks if the ridge was captured. The Germans were apprehensive about the inherent weakness of the Vimy Ridge defences. Their defensive scheme was to maintain a front line defence of sufficient strength to defend against an initial assault and move operational reserves forward, before the enemy could consolidate their gains or overrun remaining German positions. As a result, the German defence at Vimy Ridge relied largely on machine guns, which acted as force multipliers for the defending infantry.
Three line divisions, comprising seven infantry regiments were responsible for the immediate defence of the ridge. The paper strength of each division was approximately 15,000 men but their actual strength was significantly fewer. In 1917, a full-strength German rifle company consisted of 264 men; at Vimy Ridge, each rifle company contained approximately 150 men. Each German regiment held a zone approximately 1,000 m (1,100 yd) wide as far back as the rear area. When the Canadian Corps attacked, each German company faced two or more battalions of approximately 1,000 men each. Reserve divisions were kept about 24 km (15 mi) back instead of assembling close behind the second line according to the defence-in-depth theory.
### Artillery
The eight field artillery brigades of the Canadian Corps divisional artillery and two heavy artillery groups, were reinforced with British artillery units. Four heavy artillery groups, nine field artillery brigades, three divisional artillery groups and the artillery complement of the 5th Division was attached to the Canadian Corps. Ten heavy artillery groups of the flanking I and XVII Corps were assigned tasks in support of the Canadian Corps. The artillery batteries of I Corps were particularly important because they enfiladed German gun positions behind Vimy Ridge. The British provided twenty-four brigade artillery groups consisting of four hundred and eighty 18 pounder field guns, one hundred thirty-eight 4.5 inch howitzers, ninety-six 2 inch trench mortars, twenty-four 9.45 inch mortars, supported by 245 siege guns and heavy mortars. This firepower gave a density of one heavy gun for every 20 m (20 yd) and one field gun for every 10 m (10 yd) of the corps frontage, representing a considerable average increase, including three times the heavy guns, over the distribution of artillery at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
On 8 February, the First Army issued a 3,000-word artillery plan devised by Horne and his principal artillery commander, Major General H.F. Mercer. Brigadier-General Edward Morrison developed and subsequently issued a 35-page multi-phased fire support plan called Canadian Corps Artillery Instruction No. 1 for the Capture of Vimy Ridge to support the efforts of the infantry. For its operations, the Canadian Corps received three times the artillery normally assigned to a corps for regular operations. To manage the logistics associated with the increased artillery, Royal Artillery staff officer Major Alan Brooke developed coordinated communication and transport plans to work in conjunction with the complex barrage plans.
A 1.6 million shell allotment allowed the artillery along the Canadian Corps front to maintain a high sustained rate of fire. Improvements in the quality of the shells compared to those used earlier in the war ensured fewer duds. The introduction of the instantaneous No. 106 fuze greatly improved the effectiveness of the artillery since this fuse burst reliably with the slightest of contact, unlike older timed fuses, making it especially effective at cutting barbed wire before the advance. To maintain communications during the battle, particularly with the artillery, field units laid over 870 mi (1,400 km) of telegraph and field telephone cabling, normally at a depth of 2 m (7 ft). In addition, the corps conducted coordinated counter-battery initiatives before the battle. The First Army Field Survey Company printed barrage maps for all batteries, produced artillery boards and provided counter-battery support with their flash spotting groups and sound ranging sections. Utilizing flash spotting, sound ranging and aerial reconnaissance from No. 16 Squadron and Nos. 1 & 2 Balloon Companies of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in the week before the battle, the counter battery artillery under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew McNaughton fired 125,900 shells, harassing an estimated 83% of the German gun positions.
### Training
In February 1917, the British General Staff released a training pamphlet titled SS 143 Instructions for the Training of Platoons for Offensive Action, espousing the return to the pre-war emphasis on fire and movement tactics and the use of the platoon as the basic tactical unit. The pamphlet noted the importance of specialist hand grenade, rifle grenade, rifle and machine gun sections in suppressing enemy strong points with an appropriate level of fire to permit other military units to advance. Coupled with the observations and suggestions made by Currie in the report he submitted in January 1917 following the Verdun lectures, the Canadian Corps instilled the tactical change with vigour. The corps implemented the tactical doctrine for small units by assigning objectives down to the platoon level. Assaulting infantry battalions used hills behind the lines as full-scale models of the battlefield. Taped lines demarcated German trench lines while officers on horseback carried flags to represent the advancing front of the artillery barrage.
Recognizing that the men in leadership positions were likely to be wounded or killed, soldiers learned the jobs of those beside and above them. At the British First Army headquarters, a large plasticine model of the Vimy sector was constructed and used to show commissioned and senior non-commissioned officers the topographical features of the battlefield and details of the German trench system. Upwards of 40,000 topographical trench maps were printed and distributed to ensure that even platoon sergeants and section commanders possessed a wider awareness of the battlefield. The new measures gave each platoon a clearer picture of how it fitted into the greater battle plan and in so doing, reduced the command and control problems that plagued First World War combat.
### Underground operations
Operations along the Vimy Ridge were accompanied by extensive underground excavations. The Arras–Vimy sector was conducive to tunnelling owing to the soft, porous yet extremely stable nature of the chalk underground. Underground warfare had been conducted on the Vimy sector since 1915. Bavarian engineers had blown twenty mines in the sector by March 1915. By early 1916, German miners had gained an advantage over their French counterparts. British tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers took over progressively from the French between February and May 1916.
On their arrival, the British began offensive mining against German miners, first stopping the German underground advance and then developing a defensive strategy that prevented the Germans from gaining a tactical advantage by mining. From spring 1916, the British had deployed five tunnelling companies along the Vimy Ridge and during the first two months of their tenure of the area, 70 mines were fired, mostly by the Germans. Between October 1915 and April 1917 an estimated 150 French, British and German charges were fired in this 4.3 mi (7 km) sector of the Western Front. In May 1916, Operation Schleswig-Holstein, a German infantry attack, forced the British back 700 yd (640 m), to stop British mining by capturing the shaft entrances. In the second half of 1916, the British constructed strong defensive underground positions and from August 1916, the Royal Engineers developed a mining scheme for a big infantry attack on the Vimy Ridge proposed for autumn 1916, although this was postponed. After September 1916, when the Royal Engineers had completed their network of defensive galleries along most of the front line, offensive mining largely ceased although activities continued until 1917. The British gallery network beneath Vimy Ridge eventually grew to a length of 7.5 mi (12 km).
The Canadian Corps was posted to the northern part of Vimy Ridge in October 1916 and preparations for an attack were revived in February 1917. British tunnelling companies created extensive underground networks and fortifications. Twelve subways, up to 1.2 km (0.75 mi) long were excavated at a depth of 10 m (33 ft) and used to connect reserve lines to front lines, permitting soldiers to advance to the front quickly, securely and unseen. Often incorporated into subways were light rail lines, hospitals, command posts, water reservoirs, ammunition stores, mortar and machine gun posts and communication centres. The Germans dug a number of similar tunnels on the Vimy front, to provide covered routes to the front line and protection for headquarters, resting personnel, equipment, and ammunition. The Germans also conducted counter-mining against the British tunnellers and destroyed a number of British attempts to plant mines under or near their lines.
Prior to the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the British tunnelling companies also secretly laid 13 mines under German positions to destroy surface fortifications before the assault. To protect some advancing troops from German machine gun fire, as they crossed no man's land during the attack, eight smaller Wombat charges were laid at the end of the subways to allow troops to move more quickly and safely enter the German trench system by creating an elongated trench-depth crater that spanned the length of no man's land. At the same time, 19 crater groups existed along this section of the Western Front, each with several large craters. To assess the consequences of infantry having to advance across cratered ground after a mining attack, officers from the Canadian Corps visited La Boisselle and Fricourt where the mines had been blown on the First day of the Somme. Their reports and the experience of the Canadians at The Actions of St Eloi Craters in April 1916, where mines had so altered and damaged the landscape as to render occupation of the mine craters by the infantry all but impossible, led to the decision to remove offensive mining from the central sector allocated to the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge. Further British mines in the area were vetoed following the blowing by the Germans on 23 March 1917 of nine craters along no man's land as it was probable that the Germans were aiming to restrict an Allied attack to predictable points. The three mines already laid by 172nd Tunnelling Company were also dropped from the British plans. The mines were left in place after the assault and were only removed in the 1990s. Another mine, prepared by 176th Tunnelling Company against the German strongpoint known as the Pimple, was not completed in time for the attack. The gallery had been pushed silently through the clay, avoiding the sandy and chalky layers of the Vimy Ridge but by 9 April 1917 was still 21 m (70 ft) short of its target. In the end, two mines were blown before the attack, while three mines and two Wombat charges were fired to support the attack, including those forming a northern flank.
### Trench raiding
Trench raiding involved making small-scale surprise attacks on enemy positions, often in the middle of the night for reasons of stealth. All belligerents employed trench raiding as a tactic to harass their enemy and gain intelligence. In the Canadian Corps trench raiding developed into a training and leadership-building mechanism. The size of a raid would normally be anything from a few men to an entire company, or more, depending on the size of the mission. The four months before the April attack saw the Canadian Corps execute no fewer than 55 separate trench raids. Competition between units even developed with units competing for the honour of the greatest number of prisoners captured or most destruction wrought. The policy of aggressive trench raiding was not without its cost. A large-scale trench raid on 13 February 1917, involving 900 men from the 4th Canadian Division, resulted in 150 casualties. An even more ambitious trench raid, using chlorine gas, on 1 March 1917, once again by the 4th Canadian Division, failed and resulted in 637 casualties including two battalion commanders and a number of company commanders killed. This experience did not lessen the extent to which the Canadian Corps employed trench raiding with raids being conducted nightly between 20 March and the opening of the offensive on 9 April, resulting in approximately 1,400 additional Canadian casualties. The Germans operated an active patrolling policy and although not as large and ambitious as those of the Canadian Corps, they also engaged in trench raiding. As an example, a German trench raid launched by 79 men against the 3rd Canadian Division on 15 March 1917 was successful in capturing prisoners and causing damage.
### Air operations
The RFC launched a determined effort to gain air superiority over the battlefield in support of the spring offensive. The Canadians considered activities such as artillery-observation and photography of opposing trench systems, troop movements and gun emplacements essential to continue their offensive. The Royal Flying Corps deployed 25 squadrons totalling 365 aircraft along the Arras sector, outnumbering the Luftstreitkräfte (Imperial German Air Service) by 2-to-1. Byng was given use of No. 2 Squadron, No. 8 (Naval) Squadron, No. 25 Squadron, No. 40 Squadron and No. 43 Squadron, with No. 16 Squadron permanently attached to the Canadian Corps and employed exclusively for reconnaissance and artillery-observation.
Aerial reconnaissance was often a hazardous task because of the necessity of flying at slow speeds and at low altitude. The task was made more dangerous with the arrival of German air reinforcements, including the highly experienced and well equipped Jasta 11 (Manfred von Richthofen) which led to a sharp increase in RFC losses. Although significantly outnumbering the Germans, the RFC lost 131 aircraft during the first week of April (Bloody April). Despite the losses suffered by the RFC, the Luftstreitkräfte failed to prevent the British from carrying out its priority, air support of the army during the Battle of Arras with up-to-date aerial photographs and other reconnaissance information.
## Battle
### Belligerents
German 6th Army commander General Ludwig von Falkenhausen was responsible for the Cambrai–Lille sector and commanded 20 divisions, plus reserves. Vimy Ridge itself was principally defended by the ad hoc Gruppe Vimy formation based under I Bavarian Reserve Corps commander General der Infanterie Karl von Fasbender. However, a division of Gruppe Souchez, under VIII Reserve Corps General of the Infantry Georg Karl Wichura, was involved in the frontline defence along the northernmost portion of the ridge.
Three divisions were ultimately responsible for manning the frontline defences opposite the Canadian Corps. The 16th Bavarian Division was located opposite the village of Souchez and responsible for the defence of the northernmost section of the ridge. The division had been created in January 1917 by amalgamating existing Bavarian formations and had so far only opposed the Canadian Corps. The 79th Reserve Division was responsible for the defence of the vast central section, including the highest point of the ridge, Hill 145. The 79th Reserve Division had fought for two years on the Eastern Front before being transferred to the Vimy sector at the end of February 1917. The 1st Bavarian Reserve Division had been in the Arras area since October 1914 and held the villages of Thélus, Bailleul and the southern slope of the ridge.
Byng commanded four attacking divisions, one division in reserve and numerous support units. He was supported to the north by the 24th Division, I Corps, which advanced north of the Souchez river and by the XVII Corps to the south. The 4th Canadian Division was responsible for the northern portion of the advance that included the capture of the highest point of the ridge, followed by the elaborately fortified Pimple just west of the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle. The 3rd Canadian Division was responsible for the narrow central section of the ridge, including the capture of La Folie Farm. The 2nd Canadian Division, which later included a brigade from the 5th Division, was directly south of 3rd Canadian Division and entrusted with the capture of the village of Thélus. The 1st Canadian Division was responsible for the broad southern sector of the corps advance and expected to cover the longest distance. Byng planned for a healthy reserve for contingencies that included the relief of forward troops, help in consolidating positions and aiding the 4th Canadian Division with the capture of the Pimple. As a result, the 9th Canadian Brigade and the British 15th and 95th Brigades were kept in corps reserve.
### Preliminary attack
Foreign intelligence gathering by the Germans, big Allied trench raids and troop concentrations seen west of Arras, made it clear to the Germans that a spring offensive in the area was being prepared. In February 1917, a German-born Canadian soldier deserted and helped confirm many of the suspicions held by the Germans, providing them with a great deal of useful information. By March 1917, the 6th Army knew that an offensive was imminent and would include operations aimed at capturing Vimy Ridge. General of Infantry Ernst August Marx von Bachmeister, commanding the German 79th Reserve Division, reported in late March that he believed the Canadian Corps was moving into an echelon formation and were preparing for a big attack. The Germans quickly planned Operation Munich (Unternehmen München), a spoiling attack to capture the northern section of the Zouave Valley, along the northernmost portion of the Canadian front. Munich was not undertaken because the extent of Canadian Corps artillery fire made it impracticable.
The preliminary phase of the Canadian Corps artillery bombardment began on 20 March 1917, with a systematic two-week bombardment of German batteries, trenches and strong points. The Canadian Corps gunners paid particular attention to eliminating German barbed wire, a task made easier with the introduction of the No. 106 instantaneous fuse. Only half of the artillery fired at once and the intensity of the barrage was varied to confuse the Germans about Canadian intentions. Phase two lasted the week beginning 2 April 1917 and employed all of the guns supporting the Canadian Corps, massing the equivalent of a heavy gun for every 18 m (20 yd) and a field gun for every 9.1 m (10 yd). The German soldiers came to refer to the week before the attack as "the week of suffering". In the German account, their trenches and defensive works were almost completely demolished. The health and morale of the German troops suffered from the stress of remaining at the ready for eleven straight days under extremely heavy artillery bombardment. Compounding German difficulties was the inability of ration parties to bring food supplies to the front lines. On 3 April, General von Falkenhausen ordered his reserve divisions to prepare to relieve front line divisions over the course of a long drawn-out defensive battle in a manner similar to the Battle of the Somme and the divisions were kept 24 km (15 mi) from the battlefield to avoid being shelled.
### Main assault
#### 9 April
The attack was to begin at 5:30 am on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917. The attack was originally planned for the morning of 8 April (Easter Sunday) but it was postponed for 24 hours at the request of the French. During the late hours of 8 April and early morning of 9 April the men of the leading and supporting wave of the attack were moved into their forward assembly positions. The weather was cold and later changed to sleet and snow. Although physically discomforting for everyone, the northwesterly storm provided some advantage to the assaulting troops by blowing snow in the faces of the defending troops. Light Canadian and British artillery bombardments continued throughout the night but stopped in the few minutes before the attack, as the artillery recalibrated their guns in preparation for the synchronized barrage. At 5:30 am, every artillery piece at the disposal of the Canadian Corps began firing. Thirty seconds later, engineers detonated the mine charges laid under no man's land and the German trench line, destroying a number of German strong points and creating secure communication trenches directly across no man's land.
Field guns laid down a barrage that mostly advanced at a rate of 100 yd (91 m) in three minutes while medium and heavy howitzers established a series of standing barrages further ahead against known defensive systems. During the early fighting, the German divisional artilleries, despite many losses, were able to maintain their defensive firing. As the Canadian assault advanced, it overran many of the German guns because large numbers of their draught horses had been killed in the initial gas attack. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions reported reaching and capturing their first objective, the Black Line, by 6:25 am. The 4th Canadian Division encountered a great deal of trouble during its advance and was unable to complete its first objective until some hours later. After a planned pause when the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Divisions consolidated their positions, the advance resumed. Shortly after 7:00 am, the 1st Canadian Division captured the left half of its second objective, the Red Line and moved the 1st Canadian Brigade forward to mount an attack on the remainder. The 2nd Canadian Division reported reaching the Red Line and capturing the village of Les Tilleuls at approximately the same time.
A mine explosion that killed many German troops of Reserve Infantry Regiment 262 manning the front line, preceded the advance of the 3rd Canadian Division. The remaining German troops could do no more than man temporary lines of resistance until later manning a full defence at the German third line. As a result, the southern section of the 3rd Canadian Division was able to reach the Red Line at the western edge of the Bois de la Folie at around 7:30 am. At 9:00 am the division learned of its exposed left flank, as the 4th Canadian Division had not yet captured Hill 145. The 3rd Canadian Division was thus called upon to establish a divisional defensive flank to its north. Although the German commanders were able to maintain open lines of communication and issue orders, even with swift staff work the tempo of the assault was such that German decision cycle was unable to react decisively.
The only portion of the Canadian assault that did not go as planned was the advance of the 4th Canadian Division, collapsing almost immediately after exiting their trenches. The commanding officer of one of the assaulting battalions requested that the artillery leave a portion of German trench undamaged. Machine gun nests in the undamaged sections of the German line pinned down, wounded, or killed much of the 4th Canadian Division's right flank. The progress on the left flank was eventually impeded by harassing fire from the Pimple that was made worse when the creeping barrage got too far ahead of the advancing troops. In view of the German defence, the 4th Canadian Division did not attempt a further frontal assault throughout the afternoon.
Reserve units from the 4th Canadian Division came forward and once again attacked the German positions on the top of the ridge. Persistent attacks eventually forced the German troops holding the southwestern portion of Hill 145 to withdraw, but only after they had run out of ammunition, mortar rounds, and grenades. Towards midday, the 79th Reserve Division was ordered to recapture the portions of its third line lost during the progression of the Canadian attack. However, it was not until 6:00 pm that the force was able to organize and counterattack, clearing the Canadian Corps troops out of the ruined village of Vimy, but not recapturing the third line south of the village. By night time, the German forces holding the top of the ridge believed they had overcome the immediate crisis for the time being. Additional German reinforcements began arriving and by late evening portions of the 111th Infantry Division occupied the third line near Acheville and Arleux, with the remainder of the division arriving the following day.
#### 10 April
The British moved three fresh brigades up to the Red Line by 9:30 am on 10 April to support the advance of the 1st and 2nd Canadian Division, whereupon they were to leapfrog existing units occupying the Red line and advance to the Blue Line. Fresh units including two sections of tanks and the 13th British Brigade were called up from reserve to support the advance of the 2nd Canadian Division. By approximately 11:00 am, the Blue Line, including Hill 135 and the village of Thélus, had been captured. To permit the troops time to consolidate the Blue Line, the advance halted and the barrage remained stationary for 90 minutes while machine guns were brought forward. Shortly before 1:00 pm, the advance recommenced with both the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions reporting their final objective. The tank-supported advance via Farbus and directed at the rear of the 79th Reserve Division, was eventually halted by concentrated German fire short of the village. The Canadian 1st and 2nd Divisions were nonetheless able to secure the Brown Line by approximately 2:00 pm.
The 4th Canadian Division had made an attempt to capture the northern half of Hill 145 at around 3:15 pm, briefly capturing the peak before a German counterattack retook the position. The Germans occupying the small salient on the ridge soon found themselves being attacked along their flanks by continuously reinforced Canadian Corps troops. When it became obvious that the position was completely outflanked and there was no prospect of reinforcement, the German troops pulled back. The German forces were evacuated off the ridge with German artillery batteries moved west of the Vimy–Bailleul railway embankment or to the Oppy–Méricourt line. By nightfall of 10 April, the only Canadian objective not yet achieved was the capture of the Pimple.
#### 12 April
The 4th Canadian Division faced difficulties at the start of the battle that forced it to delay its assault on the Pimple until 12 April. The Pimple was initially defended by the 16th Bavarian Infantry Division but the Canadian Corps' preliminary artillery bombardment leading up to the assault on 9 April caused heavy casualties amongst its ranks. On 11 April, the 4th Guards Infantry Division first reinforced and then relieved affected 16th Bavarian Infantry Division units. The night before the attack, artillery harassed German positions while a gas section of Royal Engineers, employing Livens Projectors, fired more than 40 drums of gas directly into the village of Givenchy-en-Gohelle to cause confusion. The defending German troops managed to drive back the initial Canadian assaults at around 4:00 am using small arms fire. The 10th Canadian Brigade attacked once again at 5:00 am, this time supported by a significant amount of artillery and the 24th Division of I Corps to the north. The German defensive artillery fire was late and too light to cause the assaulting troops great difficulty, allowing the Canadian Corps to exploit wide gaps and break into the German positions. The 10th Canadian Brigade, assisted by snow and a westerly wind, fought hastily entrained German troops to capture the entire Pimple by 6:00 pm.
## Aftermath
By nightfall on 12 April 1917, the Canadian Corps was in firm control of the ridge, having suffered 10,602 casualties; 3,598 men had been killed and 7,004 wounded. The 6th Army casualties were not known at first in the disorganisation after the defeat. Later sources state around 20,000 casualties, German historians credit the high number of German casualties to Canadian and British artillery. Approximately 4,000 men were taken prisoner. The German Historical Service estimated that the 6th Army suffered 79,418 casualties during April and May 1917, 22,792 were classified as missing. Crown Prince Rupprecht estimated 85,000 casualties for the 6th Army, with 3,404 men taken prisoner at Vimy Ridge. Losses of the 79th Reserve Division from 1 to 11 April were 3,473 and in the 1st Bavarian Reserve Division 3,133. Casualties from the bombardment amongst reinforcements and Eingreif divisions are additional.
Following the defeat, the chief of the German General Staff, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, ordered Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Supreme Army Command) to conduct a court of enquiry into the defensive collapse of the Arras sector. The court concluded that the 6th Army headquarters had disregarded reports from commanders in the front line noting a possible imminent attack and reserve units were too distant to counter-attack before the Canadians could consolidate. The court concluded that 6th Army commander General Ludwig von Falkenhausen failed to apply an elastic defence according to German defensive doctrine. Instead, the defensive system comprised strong points and lines of resistance, which the Allied artillery had isolated and destroyed. Hindenburg removed Falkenhausen from his command and transferred him to Belgium, where he served the remainder of the war as governor-general.
The Germans did not see the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps as a loss. Contemporary German sources viewed the action, at worst, as a draw, given that no breakthrough occurred following the attack. The Germans did not attempt to recapture the ridge, even during the Spring Offensive, and it remained under British control until the end of the war. The loss of Vimy Ridge forced the Germans to reassess their defensive strategy in the area. Instead of mounting a counterattack, they pursued a scorched earth policy and retreated to the Oppy–Méricourt line. The failure of the French Nivelle Offensive in the week after the Arras Offensive placed pressure on Field Marshal Douglas Haig to keep the Germans occupied in the Arras sector to minimize French losses. The Canadian Corps participated in several of these actions including the Battle of Arleux and the Third Battle of the Scarpe in late April and early May 1917. After the end of the war, Byng was raised to the peerage as Baron Byng of Vimy, of Thorpe-le-Soken in the County of Essex, on 7 October 1919. The next month, he retired from the military.
### Awards
#### Victoria Cross
Four members of the Canadian Corps received the Victoria Cross, highest military award of the British honours system for their actions during the battle:
- Private William Johnstone Milne, 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion
- Lance-Sergeant Ellis Wellwood Sifton, 18th (Western Ontario) Battalion
- Private John George Pattison, 50th (Calgary) Battalion
- Captain Thain Wendell MacDowell, 38th (Ottawa) Battalion
#### Pour le Mérite
At least two Orders Pour le Mérite, the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order, were awarded to German commanders for their actions during the battle:
- Oberstleutnant Wilhelm von Goerne, commander of the 261st Prussian Reserve Infantry Regiment, of the German 79th Reserve Division.
- General of the Infantry Georg Karl Wichura commander of the VIII Reserve Corps and Gruppe Souchez.
## Commemoration
### Influence on Canada
The Battle of Vimy Ridge has considerable significance for Canada. Although the battle is not generally considered the greatest achievement of the Canadian Corps in strategic importance or results obtained, it was the first instance in which all four Canadian divisions, made up of troops drawn from all parts of the country, fought together. The image of national unity and achievement is what, according to one of many recent patriotic narratives, initially gave the battle importance for Canada. According to Pierce, "The historical reality of the battle has been reworked and reinterpreted in a conscious attempt to give purpose and meaning to an event that came to symbolize Canada's coming of age as a nation". That Canadian national identity and nationhood were born out of the battle is an opinion that in the late twentieth century became widely held in military and general histories of Canada. McKay and Swift contend that the theory that Vimy Ridge is a source of Canada's rise as a nation is highly contested and developed in the latter part of the twentieth century after most of those who experienced the Great War had died but in 1919 Hopkins had attributed to F.A. MacKenzie the recognition "...that Dominions sharing the common burden shall share the common direction of the Empire's war policy" and related Lloyd George's commitment that the Dominions would not again be engaged in wars without consultation.
### Vimy Memorial
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is its largest and principal overseas war memorial. Located on the highest point of the Vimy Ridge, the memorial is dedicated to the commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War and those killed in France during the First World War with no known grave. France granted Canada perpetual use of a section of land at Vimy Ridge in 1922 for a battlefield park and memorial. A 100 ha (250-acre) portion of the former battlefield is preserved as part of the memorial park that surrounds the monument. The grounds of the site are still honeycombed with wartime tunnels, trenches, craters and unexploded munitions and are largely closed for public safety. A section of preserved trenches and a portion of a tunnel have been made accessible to visitors.
The memorial was designed by Toronto architect and sculptor Walter Seymour Allward, who described it as a "sermon against the futility of war". The memorial took eleven years and cost \$1.5 million (\$ million in present terms) to build. The unveiling was conducted on 26 July 1936, by King Edward VIII accompanied by President Albert Lebrun of France and a crowd of over 50,000 people, including at least 6,200 Canadian veterans and their families.
The Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King was absent, it being well understood that he was reluctant to meet veterans and felt it more appropriate for a war veteran in Cabinet to act as minister in attendance. Edward VIII thanked France, in both English and French, for its generosity and assured those assembled that Canada would never forget its war missing and dead. A restoration project began in 2004, which included general cleaning and the recarving of many inscribed names. Queen Elizabeth II rededicated the restored monument on 9 April 2007, during a ceremony commemorating the 90th anniversary of the battle. Veterans Affairs Canada maintains the memorial site. The commemoration at the memorial on 9 April 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge was attended by dignitaries including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Governor General David Johnston, Charles, Prince of Wales, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry and President of France François Hollande.
## See also
|
34,134 |
Wendell Willkie
| 1,167,671,244 |
American lawyer and corporate executive (1892–1944)
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"American people of German descent",
"Businesspeople from Manhattan",
"Candidates in the 1940 United States presidential election",
"Candidates in the 1944 United States presidential election",
"Culver Academies alumni",
"Indiana Democrats",
"Indiana Republicans",
"Indiana University Maurer School of Law alumni",
"Indiana lawyers",
"Lawyers from Manhattan",
"Liberalism in the United States",
"Military personnel from Indiana",
"New York (state) Democrats",
"New York (state) Republicans",
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"People from Coffeyville, Kansas",
"People from Elwood, Indiana",
"People from Rushville, Indiana",
"Politicians from Akron, Ohio",
"Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees",
"United States Army officers",
"United States Army personnel of World War I",
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] |
Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 Republican nominee for President. Willkie appealed to many convention delegates as the Republican field's only interventionist: although the U.S. remained neutral prior to Pearl Harbor, he favored greater U.S. involvement in World War II to support Britain and other Allies. His Democratic opponent, incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the 1940 election with about 55% of the popular vote and took the electoral college vote by a wide margin.
Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1892; both his parents were lawyers, and he also became one. He served in World War I but was not sent to France until the final days of the war, and saw no action. Willkie settled in Akron, Ohio, where he was initially employed by Firestone, but left for a law firm, becoming one of the leaders of the Akron Bar Association. Much of his work was representing electric utilities, and in 1929 Willkie accepted a job in New York City as counsel for Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), a utility holding company. He was rapidly promoted, and became corporate president in 1933. Roosevelt was sworn in as U.S. president soon after Willkie became head of C&S, and announced plans for a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that would supply power in competition with C&S. Between 1933 and 1939, Willkie fought against the TVA before Congress, in the courts, and before the public. He was ultimately unsuccessful, but sold C&S's property for a good price, and gained public esteem.
A longtime Democratic activist, Willkie changed his party registration to Republican in late 1939. He did not run in the 1940 presidential primaries, but positioned himself as an acceptable choice for a deadlocked convention. He sought backing from uncommitted delegates, while his supporters—many youthful—enthusiastically promoted his candidacy. As German forces advanced through western Europe in 1940, many Republicans did not wish to nominate an isolationist like Robert A. Taft, or a non-interventionist like Thomas E. Dewey, and turned to Willkie, who was nominated on the sixth ballot. Willkie's support for aid to Britain removed it as a major factor in his race against Roosevelt, and Willkie also backed the president on a peacetime draft. Both men took more isolationist positions towards the end of the race. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term, taking 38 of the 48 states.
After the election, Willkie made two wartime foreign trips as Roosevelt's informal envoy, and as nominal leader of the Republican Party gave the president his full support. This angered many conservatives, especially as Willkie increasingly advocated liberal or internationalist causes. Willkie ran for the Republican nomination in 1944, but bowed out after a disastrous showing in the Wisconsin primary in April. He and Roosevelt discussed the possibility of forming a liberal political party after the war, but Willkie died in October 1944 before the idea could bear fruit. Willkie is remembered for giving Roosevelt vital political assistance in 1941, which helped the president to pass Lend-Lease to send supplies to the United Kingdom and other Allied nations.
## Youth, education and World War I service
Lewis Wendell Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, on February 18, 1892, the son of Henrietta (Trisch) and Herman Francis Willkie. Both of his parents were lawyers, his mother being one of the first women admitted to the Indiana bar. His father was born in Germany, son of Joseph Wilhelm Willecke or Willcke, born 1826. His mother was born in Indiana, to German parents; his grandparents were involved in the unsuccessful 1848 revolutions in Germany. The Trisches initially settled in Kansas Territory but, as they were abolitionists, moved to Indiana after the territory was opened to slavery in the mid-1850s. Willkie was the fourth of six children, all intelligent, and learned skills during the nightly debates around the dinner table that would later serve him well.
Although given the first name Lewis, Willkie was known from childhood by his middle name. Herman Willkie, who had come from Prussia with his parents at age four, was intensely involved in progressive politics, and in 1896 took his sons to a torchlight procession for Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who had come to Elwood during his campaign. The Willkie boys had a sidewalk fight with Republican youths, and though the Willkies won their battle, Bryan lost his to William McKinley. When Bryan ran again in 1900, he stayed overnight at the Willkie home, and the Democratic candidate for president became the first political hero for the boy who would later seek that office.
By the time Willkie reached age 14 and enrolled in Elwood High School, his parents were concerned about a lack of discipline and a slight stoop, and they sent him to Culver Military Academy for a summer in an attempt to correct both. Willkie began to shine as a student in high school, inspired by his English teacher; one classmate said that Philip "Pat" Bing "fixed that boy up. He started preaching to Wendell to get to work and that kid went to town." Faced with a set of athletic brothers—Edward became an Olympic wrestler—Willkie joined the football team but had little success; he enjoyed the debate team more, but was several times disciplined for arguing with teachers. He was class president his final year, and president of the most prominent fraternity, but resigned from the latter when a sorority blackballed his girlfriend, Gwyneth Harry, as the daughter of immigrants.
During Willkie's summer vacations from high school, he worked, often far from home. In 1909, aged 17, his journey took him from Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he rose from dishwasher to co-owner of a flophouse, to Yellowstone National Park, where he was fired after losing control of the horses drawing a tourist stagecoach. Back in Elwood, Herman Willkie was representing striking workers at the local tin plate factory, and in August journeyed with Wendell to Chicago in an attempt to get liberal attorney Clarence Darrow to take over the representation. They found Darrow willing, but at too high a price for the union to meet; Darrow told Wendell Willkie, "there is nothing unethical in being adequately compensated for advocating a cause in which you deeply believe."
After graduation from Elwood High in January 1910, Willkie enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington. There, he became a student rebel, chewing tobacco, reading Marx, and petitioning the faculty to add a course on socialism to the curriculum. He also involved himself in campus politics, successfully managing the campaign of future Indiana governor Paul McNutt for student office, but when Willkie ran himself, he was defeated. He graduated in June 1913, and to earn money for law school, taught high school history in Coffeyville, Kansas, coaching debaters and several sports teams. In November 1914, he left his job there for one as a lab assistant in Puerto Rico arranged by his brother Fred. Wendell Willkie's commitment to social justice was deepened by the sight of workers suffering abuse there.
Willkie enrolled at Indiana School of Law in late 1915. He was a top student, and graduated with high honors in 1916. At the commencement ceremony, with the state supreme court present, he gave a provocative speech criticizing his school. The faculty withheld his degree, but granted it after two days of intense debate. Willkie joined his parents' law firm, but volunteered for the United States Army on April 2, 1917, the day President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. An army clerk transposed his first two names; with Willkie unwilling to invest the time to have the bureaucracy correct it, he kept his name as Wendell Lewis Willkie. Commissioned as a first lieutenant, Willkie was sent for artillery training. He arrived in France as the war was ending and did not see combat. In January 1918 he married Edith Wilk, a librarian from Rushville, Indiana; the couple had one son, Philip. In France, Willkie was assigned to defending soldiers who had slipped away for time in Paris against orders. He was recommended for promotion to captain, but was discharged in early 1919 before the paperwork went through.
## Lawyer and executive (1919–1939)
### Akron attorney and activist
Discharged from the army, Willkie returned to Elwood. He considered a run for Congress as a Democrat, but was advised that the district was so Republican he would be unlikely to keep the seat even if he could win it, and his chances might be better in a more urban area. Herman Willkie wanted Wendell and Robert to rejoin the family law firm, but Henrietta was opposed, feeling that opportunities in Elwood were too limited for her sons. She got her way, and in May 1919 Wendell Willkie successfully applied for a job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio as head of the legal office that advised workers on wills and other personal matters. He was soon bored there, and on the advice of his wife, left for a law firm despite an offer from Harvey Firestone to double his salary. Firestone told the departing lawyer that he would never amount to anything because he was a Democrat.
Willkie became active in the Akron Democratic Party, becoming prominent enough while still with Firestone to introduce the Democratic presidential nominee, Ohio Governor James M. Cox, when he came to town during the 1920 campaign. He was a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, and supported New York Governor Al Smith through the record 103 ballots, when the nomination fell to former West Virginia congressman John W. Davis. More important to Willkie, though, was a fight against the Ku Klux Klan, which had become powerful in much of the nation and in the Democratic Party, but he and other delegates were unsuccessful in their attempt to include a plank in the party platform condemning the Klan. He also backed a proposed plank in support of the League of Nations that ultimately failed. In 1925, Willkie led a successful effort to oust Klan members on the Akron school board.
After leaving Firestone in 1920, Willkie joined leading Akron law firm Mather & Nesbitt, which represented several local public utilities. Although he quickly gained a reputation as a leading trial lawyer, he was especially noted for presenting utility cases before the Ohio Public Utilities Commission. In 1925, he became president of the Akron Bar Association. One of Willkie's clients, Ohio Power & Light, was owned by New York-based Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), whose chairman, B.C. Cobb, noticed him. Cobb wrote to the senior partner of Willkie's firm, "I think he is a comer and we should keep an eye on him." In 1929, Cobb offered Willkie a salary of \$36,000 (equal to \$ today) to be corporate counsel to C&S, a job which would involve a move to New York, and Willkie accepted.
### Commonwealth & Southern executive
Wendell and Edith Willkie moved to New York in October 1929, only weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and found an apartment overlooking Central Park. Initially intimidated by the size and anonymity of the big city, Wendell Willkie soon learned to love it. He attended the Broadway theatre, and read through ten newspapers each day. Willkie and his wife had little in common, and grew apart through the 1930s. He acquired a social life, and met Irita Van Doren, the book review editor of the New York Herald Tribune who became a friend, and later his lover. Cultured, brilliant and well connected, Van Doren introduced him to new books, new ideas, and new circles of friends. Unlike Van Doren, Willkie was indiscreet about their relationship, and their affair was well known to the reporters covering him during his 1940 presidential campaign. None of them printed a word.
At C&S, Willkie rose rapidly under the eye of Cobb, impressing his superiors. Much of his work was outside New York City; Willkie was brought in to help try important cases or aid in the preparation of major legal briefs. Cobb, a pioneer in the electricity transmission business, had presided over the 1929 merger of 165 utilities that made C&S the largest electric utility holding company in the country. He promoted Willkie over 50 junior executives, designating the younger man as his successor. In January 1933, Willkie became president of C&S.
Willkie maintained his interest in politics, and was a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention. Since the incumbent Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was widely blamed for the Depression that had followed the stock market crash, the nominee would have a good chance of becoming president. The major candidates were Smith (the 1928 nominee), Smith's successor as New York's governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speaker of the House John Nance Garner, and former Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Willkie backed Baker, and was an assistant floor manager for his campaign. With a two-thirds majority needed to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, Willkie and others tried to deadlock the convention in the hope that it would turn to Baker. Roosevelt was willing to swing his votes to Baker in the event of a stalemate, but this did not occur, as Governor Roosevelt gained the nomination on the fourth ballot. Willkie, although disappointed, backed Roosevelt, and donated \$150 to his successful campaign.
### TVA battle
Soon after taking office, President Roosevelt proposed legislation creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government agency with far-reaching influence that promised to bring flood control and cheap electricity to the impoverished Tennessee Valley. However, the TVA would compete with existing private power companies in the area, including C&S subsidiaries. Willkie appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee on April 14, 1933. He approved of the ideas for development of the Tennessee Valley, but felt that the government role should be limited to selling power generated by dams. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill limiting the TVA's powers, the Senate took the opposite stance, and the latter position prevailed.
Negotiations took place through the remainder of 1933 for C&S to sell assets, including a transmission line, to allow the TVA to distribute energy to retail customers, leading to an agreement on January 4, 1934. TVA head David Lilienthal was impressed by Willkie, who left him "somewhat overwhelmed" and "pretty badly scared". C&S agreed to sell some of its properties in part of the Tennessee Valley, and the government agreed that the TVA would not compete with C&S in many areas. In October 1934, holders of securities issued by a C&S subsidiary filed suit to block the transfer. Willkie angrily denied that he had prompted the lawsuit, though plaintiffs' counsel proved later to have been paid by the Edison Electric Institute, of which Willkie was a board member. Willkie warned that New York capital might avoid Tennessee if the TVA experiment continued, and when Roosevelt gave a speech in praise of the agency, issued a statement rebutting him. By 1934, Willkie had become the spokesman for the private electric power industry.
Amid this tension, Willkie and Roosevelt met for the first time, at the White House on December 13, 1934. The meeting was outwardly cordial, but each man told his own version of what occurred: the president boasted of having outtalked Willkie, while the executive sent a soon-to-be-famous telegram to his wife: "CHARM OVERRATED ... I DIDNT TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM" Roosevelt decided that the utility holding companies had to be broken up, stated so in his 1935 State of the Union address and met with Willkie later in January to inform him of his intent. In the meantime, the companies did their best to sabotage the TVA; farmers were told by corporate representatives that lines from the new Norris Dam could not carry enough power to make a light bulb glow, and the company ran "spite lines" that might not even carry power in an effort to invoke the non-compete agreement over broad areas.
Through 1935, as the breakup legislation wound through Congress, and litigation through the courts, Willkie was the industry's chief spokesman and lobbyist. When the Senate narrowly passed a bill for the breakup, Willkie made a series of speeches asking the public to oppose the legislation, and a storm of letters to congressmen followed. After the House of Representatives defeated the breakup clause, investigation proved that many of these communications were funded by the electric companies, signed with names taken from the telephone book, though Willkie was not implicated. Amid public anger, Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass a bill requiring the breakup to take place within three years.
In September 1936, Roosevelt and Willkie met again at the White House, and a truce followed as both sides waited to see if Roosevelt would be re-elected over the Republican, Kansas Governor Alf Landon. Willkie, who voted for Landon, expected a narrow victory for the Republican, but Roosevelt won an overwhelming landslide as Landon won only Maine and Vermont. In December, a federal district court judge granted the C&S companies an injunction against the TVA, and negotiations broke off by Roosevelt's order as the litigation continued. Willkie took his case to the people, writing columns for major publications, and proposing terms for an agreement that The New York Times described as "sensible and realistic". He received favorable press, and many invitations to speak.
The January 1938 Supreme Court ruling in Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, resolving the 1934 case, and the lifting of the injunction by an appeals court, sent the parties back to the negotiating table. Willkie kept the public pressure on: like most corporate executives, he had not spoken out against Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but in January stated in a radio debate that anti-utility policies were depressing share prices, making it hard to attract investment that would help America to recover. "For several years now, we have been listening to a bedtime story, telling us that the men who hold office in Washington are, by their very positions, endowed with a special virtue." The Saturday Evening Post dubbed Willkie "the man who talked back".
Willkie and Lilienthal negotiated for a year, with Willkie wanting \$88 million for C&S's properties in and around the Tennessee Valley, and the TVA offering \$55 million. After a final, January 1939, legal defeat for C&S in the Supreme Court, the pace of the talks quickened, and on February 1, 1939, C&S sold the assets to the TVA for \$78.6 million. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William O. Douglas deemed Willkie to have outsmarted Lilienthal. Though defeated in the courts, Willkie had gained national stature for driving a hard bargain for his shareholders, and was seen by some as a potential presidential candidate in 1940.
## 1940 presidential election
### Dark horse candidate
The 1940 presidential campaign was conducted against the backdrop of World War II raging in Europe. Although the United States remained neutral, the nation—and especially the Republican Party—was deeply divided between isolationists, who felt the nation should avoid any steps that could lead America into the war, and interventionists, who felt that America's survival depended upon helping the Allies defeat Nazi Germany. The three leading candidates for the 1940 Republican nomination were all isolationists to varying degrees: Senators Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Thomas E. Dewey, the young (only 38 years old), "gangbusting" Manhattan District Attorney in New York City. Roosevelt's popularity had declined since the 1936 landslide, but many still hoped he would run for an unprecedented third term. He had long contemplated one, but made no announcement. Roosevelt's decision-making on this point is uncertain: as late as April 1940, he may have been thinking of retirement. If he stepped aside, possible candidates included Vice President Garner, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Postmaster General and patronage handler James A. Farley.
On the assumption Roosevelt would not seek a third term, Willkie had been spoken of as a possible Democratic presidential candidate as early as 1937. He raised his stock considerably when on January 3, 1938, he debated Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Jackson on the radio show Town Meeting of the Air. With the topic of the debate being the cooperation between the public and private sectors, Willkie came across as a businessman with a heart, while Jackson appeared dull. A stream of positive press mentions for Willkie continued through 1938 and into 1939, culminating with a favorable cover story in Time magazine in July 1939. Willkie was initially dismissive of the many letters he received urging him to run for president, but soon changed his mind. Van Doren thought Willkie could be president, and worked to persuade her contacts. After hosting the Willkies for a weekend, Fortune magazine managing editor Russell Davenport became convinced Wendell Willkie had presidential timber; he devoted the magazine's April 1940 issue to Willkie, and later served as his campaign manager. In that issue, Willkie wrote an article, "We The People: A Foundation for a Political Platform for Recovery," urging both major parties to omit anti-business policies from their party platforms, protect individual rights, and oppose foreign aggression while supporting world trade. This piece won him applause and supporters from the press.
Willkie never had any doubt that Roosevelt would run for a third term, and that his route to the White House would have to be through the Republican Party. In late 1939 he changed his registration from Democratic to Republican, and early in 1940 announced that he would accept the Republican nomination if it were offered to him. He blamed his allegiance shift on the Roosevelt policies that he deemed anti-business. He had voted for Landon in 1936, he said, and he felt that the Democrats no longer represented the values he advocated. As he later characterized it, "I did not leave my party. My party left me."
The start of the war in September 1939 alarmed Americans, but the majority thought the U.S. should not get involved. Willkie spoke often about the threat to America and the need to aid Britain and other Allies. Willkie biographer Steve Neal wrote that the war "transformed Willkie from a big-business critic of the New Deal into a champion of freedom. And it gave his candidacy new purpose." Despite the chatter about Willkie, there were many who were skeptical about his chances should he seek the nomination. Kenneth F. Simpson, Republican National Committeeman from New York, initially thought the idea of a Willkie run to be silly. Indiana Senator James Eli Watson stated that he did not mind if "the town whore" joined the church, but she should not lead the choir the first week.
Willkie did not enter the Republican primaries, placing his hope in a deadlocked convention. His campaign was composed mostly of political amateurs. New York lawyer Orem Root, Jr. (grandnephew of former Secretary of State Elihu Root) formed a network of local Willkie Clubs, which attracted a large membership among Republicans discontented with their leadership and seeking a new figure who might beat Roosevelt. He especially appealed to liberal, Eastern Establishment Republicans who saw none of the declared candidates to their liking. His rumpled suits, country-style haircut, and Indiana twang were reminiscent of ordinary midwesterners, which led to some derision as the efforts to nominate him became more obvious. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes mocked Willkie as "a simple, barefoot Wall Street lawyer". Alice Roosevelt Longworth stated that the Willkie campaign came "from the grass roots of ten thousand country clubs".
His failure to enter primaries did not greatly disadvantage Willkie because most were "beauty contests" serving only to show voter preferences and not to elect delegates. The primaries were governed by a complex set of unwritten rules about who would enter which primary and Taft ran only in his native Ohio, where Dewey did not enter his name. Even those delegates who were pledged to support a candidate were not strongly committed: what was important to most Republicans was to field a nominee who could beat Roosevelt. The run-up to the June convention in Philadelphia coincided with Hitler's advance in Western Europe, and delegates had second thoughts about running an isolationist, let alone a young one without national experience such as Dewey. Willkie, who had spoken out against isolationism, and who was a successful executive, was an attractive possibility. Willkie made speeches widely, including in a tour of New England that paid off with promises of support, though delegates might first support a favorite son candidate for a ballot or two. Important converts to Willkie's cause included Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall. The move to Willkie was reflected in polls; he went from 3 to 29 percent in the seven weeks before the convention, while Dewey, the frontrunner, fell from 67 to 47 percent.
### Convention
The 1940 Republican National Convention opened at the Philadelphia Civic Center on June 24, 1940. As the delegates assembled, they discussed the war, the candidates, and Roosevelt's appointment of two Republican interventionists to his cabinet four days before the convention. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War under President Taft and Secretary of State under Hoover, was restored to the War position, and Landon's 1936 running mate, Frank Knox, was appointed Navy Secretary. The cabinet appointments divided the Republicans, who accused Roosevelt of dirty politics.
Willkie arrived by train in Philadelphia on June 22, two days before the convention, and immediately attracted attention by walking from 30th Street Station to his hotel, answering questions from reporters and anyone else who could get close enough to be heard. Dewey, Vandenberg and Taft had large public headquarters, but Willkie's campaign was run from clandestine rooms at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Root's Willkie Clubs and other supporters bombarded the delegates with telegrams urging support for their candidate, to the annoyance of some. Key convention officials were Willkie supporters; these included House Minority Leader Joe Martin, Massachusetts' favorite son and permanent chairman of the convention. When the head of the Committee on Arrangements, Ralph Williams (deemed likely to support Taft), died just before the convention, he was succeeded by the vice chairman, Sam Pryor, a firm Willkie backer. This placed a Willkie supporter in charge of tickets for the public galleries. With noted publicist Steve Hannagan, the Willkie campaign gained tremendous momentum.
The opening night of the convention saw the keynote speech by Governor Stassen; he subsequently announced his support for Willkie and became one of the candidate's floor managers. The second night featured a speech by the only living former president, Herbert Hoover, who hoped to stampede the convention to a third nomination. His address went almost unheard in the hall because of problems with the sound system. In the meantime, the Dewey campaign, faced with the German announcement that with France taken, Hitler's forces would sail on Britain, did its best to stem the flow of delegates to Willkie. Negotiations among Dewey, Taft, and Vandenberg came to nothing because none would accept less than the presidential nomination. A blaze of publicity followed Willkie wherever he went, as he caucused with delegates and appeared at press conferences with supporters, including the entire Connecticut delegation. A strong minority of African Americans still supported the Republicans, and Willkie met with a group of them, urging those delegates to visit him in the White House in 1941.
Indiana Congressman Charles Halleck gave the nominating speech for Willkie on the evening of June 26, arguing that Willkie's recent conversion to the Republican Party was no reason not to nominate him, "is the Republican Party a closed corporation? Do you have to be born into it?" When Halleck mentioned Willkie's name, there were initially boos from some delegates, but they were quickly drowned out by those in the public balconies, who thunderously chanted, "We want Willkie!". Pryor had cut ticket allocations to delegations that were not for Willkie, and distributed thousands of standing room passes to Willkie partisans. The vocal support for Willkie among spectators led to complaints that other campaigns had been shorted in the distribution of tickets, but provided one of the convention's most dramatic moments.
Dewey had predicted he would have 400 of the 501 votes needed to be nominated on the first ballot and he kept nothing in reserve so that he might show momentum in future ballots. When delegates first balloted on the afternoon of June 27, he had only 360 to 189 for Taft, 105 for Willkie, and 76 for Vandenberg. On the second ballot, Dewey began to slip, falling to 338 to Taft's 203 and 171 for Willkie. The losses greatly damaged Dewey's campaign, because other than the trivial losses suffered in the early rounds of balloting by Warren G. Harding in 1920, no Republican candidate had ever lost support from the previous ballot and won the nomination. Dewey came under pressure from his advisors to withdraw during the dinner break that followed the second ballot, and when the convention resumed to chants of "We want Willkie!" from the packed galleries, Dewey continued to slip as the convention became a two-horse race between Taft and Willkie. Listening by radio from his hotel room, Willkie refused to make a deal to get support from Taft delegates in exchange for making the Ohioan his running mate, and became convinced he would lose on the fifth ballot. Dewey had planned to go to the convention and withdraw, hoping to stop Willkie by endorsing Taft, but by the time he decided this, the fifth ballot was about to begin and he could not get to the Civic Center in time. Willkie led with 429 delegates after the fifth ballot, while Taft held 377 and Dewey only 57. The large states whose votes still were not committed to one of the two leaders were Pennsylvania (Governor Arthur James was the favorite son) and Michigan, most of whose delegates stayed with Senator Vandenberg. Although Willkie had thus far refrained from making deals, to get Michigan he agreed to allow the Republican organization there to pick that state's federal judges. The sixth ballot, held at 12:20 am on June 28, saw Taft, then Willkie take the lead. As those in the gallery continued to call for Willkie, Vandenberg released his delegates, most of whom went to Willkie. Pennsylvania also broke for him, making Willkie the Republican nominee for president on a vote that was made unanimous.
Willkie had offered the vice presidential nomination to Connecticut Governor Raymond Baldwin, a key supporter, but scuttled those plans after his advisors and Republican officials felt that a New York-Connecticut ticket would not give sufficient geographic balance. They urged Willkie to select Senator Charles McNary of Oregon instead. A lawyer, advocate of public power, and farmer, McNary was popular and respected in the West. Willkie agreed, and got Baldwin to withdraw as others persuaded McNary, who had called Willkie a tool of Wall Street after arriving in Philadelphia. The convention dutifully nominated McNary. Before departing Philadelphia, Willkie went to the Civic Center to appear before the delegates who had chosen him, becoming the first Republican nominee to speak to the convention after gaining its endorsement:
> Democracy and our way of life is facing the most crucial test it has ever faced in all its long history; and we here are not Republicans, alone, but Americans, to dedicate ourselves to the democratic way of life in the United States because here stands the last firm, untouched foothold of freedom in all the world.
### General election campaign
After the convention, Willkie returned to New York. When he went to the movies or play, he received a standing ovation. He resigned from C&S on July 8, 1940, confident that even if he lost his presidential bid, he would not lack for work. He had Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman John Hamilton dismissed on the advice of some of his advisors, who felt Hamilton was too conservative and isolationist, though the former chairman was given the post of executive director with partial responsibility for the Willkie campaign. Congressman Martin became RNC chair. At a time when little campaigning was done until after Labor Day, Willkie left on a five-week working vacation to The Broadmoor, a resort in Colorado Springs, but found neither peace nor privacy.
Roosevelt had been surprised by the outcome of the Republican convention, having expected to oppose a conservative isolationist. The polls showed Willkie behind by only six points, and the president expected this to be a more difficult race than he had faced in his defeats of Hoover and Landon. Roosevelt felt that Willkie's nomination would remove the war issue from the campaign. Roosevelt was nominated by the Democratic convention in Chicago in July, though he stated that because of the world crisis, he would not actively campaign, leaving that to surrogates. The fact that both major-party presidential candidates favored intervention frustrated isolationists, who considered wooing Charles Lindbergh as a third-party candidate.
Willkie formally accepted the nomination at Elwood on August 17 before a crowd of at least 150,000, the largest political gathering in U.S. history to that point. It was an extremely hot day, and Willkie, who tried to read his speech from a typed manuscript without enlargement, failed to ignite the crowd. He remained in Rushville, where he owned farmland, over the next month, trying to become more associated with his native state than with Wall Street. He gave interviews to reporters there, and his firm support of Roosevelt's aid to the Allies led Congressman Martin and Senator McNary to support a peacetime draft despite the strident objections of many Republicans and some Democrats. Roosevelt contacted Willkie through intermediaries to ensure the Republican candidate would not make a political issue out of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement; Willkie was supportive of the transfer, though he felt Congress should act, and opposed Roosevelt sending armaments to Britain by executive order.
Conservatives and isolationists had little enthusiasm for the Willkie campaign, and the moderates wanted to see stronger positions on progressive issues and foreign policy. Publisher Henry Luce decried both Roosevelt and Willkie for failing to be honest with the American people, "America will never be ready for any war until she makes her mind up there is going to be a war." (italics in original) Despite his pledge not to campaign, Roosevelt made inspection tours to military installations, well covered by the press. The president did not mention Willkie by name, seeking to avoid giving him publicity. According to Susan Dunn in her book in the 1940 campaign, this forced Willkie "to box against a phantom opponent and carry on a one-sided partisan debate ... Even in Willkie's speeches, Roosevelt occupied center stage". Willkie promised to keep New Deal social welfare programs intact, expand Social Security, and provide full employment, a job for everyone: "I pledge a new world".
On September 12, Willkie began a whistle-stop tour by train, and between then and November 2, he reached 31 of the 48 states. He did not visit the Solid South, though he spoke in Texas, hoping to win it as Hoover had in 1928. Willkie filled the Los Angeles Coliseum with 70,000 middle-class supporters, but reporters saw few working-class people at his rallies, and he cancelled some appearances at auto plants in the Midwest. Other people in working-class areas booed the candidate, held up signs in support of Roosevelt, or pelted his motorcade with overripe fruit. Although Edith Willkie accompanied her husband on his tour (he had little time for contact with Van Doren), she disliked the media attention and did not give interviews, completing the campaign without ever giving a speech. On one occasion, she looked at her husband and stated, "Politics makes strange bedfellows". The Democrats knew of Willkie's affair with Van Doren, but the Republicans had letters from Henry A. Wallace, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, to his former guru, Russian mystic Nicholas Roerich, and neither issue became a factor in the campaign.
With polls released on October 6 showing Roosevelt well ahead, Willkie began to sound an isolationist theme, accusing Roosevelt of being a warmonger. Many of Willkie's speeches to that point had been on domestic issues, but he had been advised by Martin, Hamilton, and other advisors that the war was the issue the voters really cared about. Willkie began to argue that Roosevelt would not keep the U.S. out of war, but that he would. He was given room to make this argument by the United Kingdom's increasing success in the Battle of Britain, as it was clear a German invasion was not imminent. The polls showed voters responding positively to this new tack, and Willkie kept on this course for the remainder of the campaign. Roosevelt reacted by scheduling five speeches for the final days, in which he proposed to rebut Willkie's "falsifications". The president stated, "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war." Willkie was prone to ad lib remarks, which sometimes led to gaffes: addressing steelworkers, he pledged to appoint a new Secretary of Labor, "and it will not be a woman either". This allusion to Secretary Frances Perkins, the only woman to hold a cabinet position in American history to that point, did not aid him among female voters.
Willkie concluded his campaign on November 2 with a large rally at New York's Madison Square Garden. Polls showed him four points behind Roosevelt, but with a trend towards the Republicans. Many pundits expected a tight race. On Election Day, November 5, 1940, the returns were initially encouraging, but quickly turned against Willkie. By 11 pm, radio commentators were reporting that Roosevelt had won a third term. Willkie received 45 percent of the popular vote to Roosevelt's 55 percent. The president received 27.2 million votes to Willkie's 22.3 million, and won 449 to 82 in the Electoral College. Willkie won 10 states to the president's 38 though he did better than Hoover and Landon had against Roosevelt. Willkie's popular vote total of 22,348,480 set a record for a Republican not broken until Eisenhower in 1952.
The endorsement of CIO head John L. Lewis probably gave Willkie Michigan, and he gained ground in the suburbs and rural areas, but Roosevelt consolidated his 1936 coalition of working-class Americans, ethnics, and white Southerners to take the election. On the evening of November 11, Willkie gave a nationwide radio address, urging those who had voted for him not to oppose Roosevelt on all issues, but to give support where it was called for. In late November, Willkie interrupted a Florida vacation for a speech he concluded by offering a toast "to the health and happiness of the President of the United States"; Roosevelt confided to his son James: "I'm happy I've won, but I'm sorry Wendell lost".
## Activist and statesman (1940–1943)
### Visit to the United Kingdom
Although defeated in the election, Willkie had become a major figure on the public scene, and at age 48, was deemed likely to remain one for years to come. Landon had received some 6,000 letters commiserating with him in his defeat; Willkie received over 100,000. Financially independent, he was in no hurry to decide among the many offers of employment from top law firms and major corporations. He resumed his affair with Van Doren.
While on vacation, Willkie decided his next cause should be military aid to embattled Britain, and announced support of the president's Lend-Lease program on January 13, 1941. Lend-Lease was highly unpopular in the Republican Party, and Willkie's announcement created a firestorm, with Landon and Taft decrying his actions. Former RNC chairman Hamilton wrote that of the almost 200 Republican members of the House and Senate, "Willkie couldn't dig up ten friends if his life depended on it."
Roosevelt, both appreciating Willkie's talents, and seeking to divide and conquer his opposition, had been mulling over ways his former opponent might be of use. The president's onetime advisor, Justice Felix Frankfurter, had suggested that Willkie should travel across the Atlantic to demonstrate bipartisan support of Britain. Willkie had already been planning a visit in support for Britain. Roosevelt believed that the visit of the nominal head of the opposition party would be far more effective in demonstrating American support than sending one of his advisors.
Willkie visited the president at the White House for the first time as an ally on January 19, 1941, the evening before Roosevelt's third swearing-in. The president asked Willkie to be his informal personal representative to Britain, and Willkie accepted. Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that family members and White House staff found excuses to observe Willkie, and she would have done so herself had she been aware of the visit as it was happening. Roosevelt urged Willkie to see W. Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins, both in London on missions from Roosevelt, and gave his former rival a letter to be hand-delivered to the British prime minister, Winston Churchill. At this time it was not routine for politicians to travel abroad; McNary, with considerable influence in foreign affairs, had never left North America. Thus, there was much public attention to Willkie's mission. He departed from New York Municipal Field for London on January 22.
Upon arrival, Willkie told the press, "I want to do all I can to get the United States to give England the utmost aid possible in her struggle". Willkie saw the damage Nazi bombing had inflicted on Britain, visiting bombed-out sites in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester and Liverpool. In London during the Blitz, he walked the streets at night without helmet or gas mask (until Churchill gave him some), visiting bomb shelters. Churchill hosted Willkie at an official luncheon at 10 Downing Street and had him as a guest at Chequers. In his writings, Churchill recalled "a long talk with this most able and forceful man".
Although it was cut short by Roosevelt's desire to have him testify before Congress on Lend-Lease, Willkie's visit to Britain was deemed a triumph. Willkie also went to Ireland, hoping to persuade Éamon de Valera to abandon neutrality, but his urging was unavailing. Willkie left London for Washington on February 5; because of the risk of being shot down by Nazi aircraft, the roundabout journey home took four days. He testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 11, and his support was key to passing Lend-Lease.
Willkie's Senate testimony made him the leading interventionist outside the government, with Lindbergh (who had testified against Lend-Lease) the leading isolationist, and they debated in the pages of magazines. Roosevelt weighed in, backing his former opponent in a radio address on March 29. "The leader of the Republican Party himself—Mr. Wendell Willkie—in word and in action is showing what patriotic Americans mean by rising above partisanship and rallying to the common cause." That same month, a Gallup poll showed that 60 percent of Americans believed Willkie would have made a good president.
In April 1941, Willkie joined the New York law firm of Miller, Boston, and Owen as a senior partner, with the firm changing its name to Willkie, Owen, Otis, Farr, and Gallagher. Two months later, he agreed to represent motion picture producers before a Senate subcommittee which was investigating claims that Hollywood was producing pro-war propaganda. Willkie defended the rights of the studios to make films that reflected their views, and warned, "the rights of the individuals mean nothing if freedom of speech and freedom of the press are destroyed." Congress took no further action.
In late 1941, Willkie fought for the repeal of the Neutrality Act. In September, Lindbergh accused American Jews of "agitating for war"; Willkie responded that the aviator's speech was "the most un-American made in my time". Willkie lobbied Republican congressmen to repeal the act. The measure passed Congress with the aid of Republican votes, though most of that party voted against it. Roosevelt invited Willkie to dedicate Mount Rushmore, but because of other commitments, Willkie could not. Roosevelt also sought to have Willkie join his administration, which the Republican was reluctant to do, wishing to preserve independence of word and action.
### Wartime advocate
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Willkie offered his full support to Roosevelt. Willkie was interested in the post of war production czar, but that position went to Donald M. Nelson. Labor Secretary Perkins offered to have Willkie arbitrate between management and labor in war industries, but Willkie declined after White House officials informed the press. In early 1942, Willkie considered a run for Governor of New York. He later stated that Roosevelt had been willing to endorse him, but Willkie ultimately concluded that the Dewey forces were too strong and a defeat might eliminate him from a possible run for president in 1944. In July, Willkie proposed to Roosevelt that he go on another foreign mission, and the following month Willkie announced that he would be visiting the Soviet Union, China, and the Middle East. Dewey wrote, "I hear he is going to Russia before the Republican [state] convention, so he will be where he belongs and I hope he stays there until Christmas".
According to Dunn, Willkie's mission was to be Roosevelt's personal representative, "demonstrating American unity, gathering information, and discussing with key heads of state plans for the postwar future". After leaving the U.S. on August 26, Willkie's first stop was in North Africa, where he met General Montgomery and toured the front at El Alamein. In Beirut, he stayed with General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French. In Jerusalem, Willkie met with Jews and Arabs, told the British rulers of Palestine that both peoples should be brought into the government, and he later wrote that the conflict there was so ancient, it was unrealistic to think that it could "be solved by good will and simple honesty". Willkie had been moved to add the Soviet Union to his itinerary when three Western reporters there urged him by telegram to do so. There, he met with Stalin, and upon his return he advocated more liberal Lend-Lease terms for the USSR. In China, Willkie was hosted by Chiang Kai-shek and was deeply fascinated by Madame Chiang. Willkie was taken to the front in order to observe the Chinese military forces in their fight against the Japanese, and he spoke out against colonialism, in China and elsewhere. His statements were reported widely in Britain, angering Churchill, who responded by saying, "We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."
While in the USSR, Willkie urged the opening of a second front against the Germans; when reporters asked Roosevelt about those comments, the president responded flippantly by saying that he had read the headlines but had not considered the speculative comments worth the reading. This angered Willkie, and on his return from his 49-day trip, he confronted Roosevelt about it when making his report at the White House.
On October 26, 1942, Willkie made a "Report to the People", telling Americans about his trip in a radio speech heard by about 36 million people. The following April, he published One World, a book Van Doren edited, in which he recounted his travels and urged America to join a supernational global organization after the war was successfully concluded. The book was an immediate bestseller, selling a million copies in its first month. It was especially influential because Willkie was seen by many as having transcended partisan politics. According to Samuel Zipp's The Idealist, Willkie was interested in creating 'a body of public opinion' to force policymakers and politicians of both parties to embrace the robust multilateralism he envisioned.
### Civil rights activism
During his 1940 campaign, Willkie had pledged to integrate the civil service and armed forces, and proudly pointed to what he deemed the strongest civil rights plank in history in the Republican platform. He also promised to end racial segregation in Washington, D.C. He gained the endorsements of the two largest African American newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier and the Baltimore Afro-American. With Willkie running to the left of Roosevelt on civil rights, Roosevelt feared that blacks would return to their traditional home in the Republican Party, and he secured several prominent promotions or hirings of African Americans. Roosevelt was successful in keeping the majority of the black vote. After the election, Willkie promised to keep fighting for civil rights.
Willkie warned Republicans that only a full commitment to equal rights for minorities would woo African Americans back to the party, and he criticized Roosevelt for yielding to Southern racists among the Democrats. Willkie addressed a convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1942, one of the most prominent politicians to do so up to that point. He urged integration of the armed forces, and when a violent race riot broke out in Detroit in June 1943, he went on national radio in order to criticize both parties for ignoring racial issues. When the movie hearings of 1941 ended without further action, Willkie had been made chairman of the board of Twentieth-Century Fox. In 1943, he worked with Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, to try to convince Hollywood to give blacks better treatment in films. Movie moguls promised changes, and some films featured blacks in major roles, but faced with objections from white Southerners, they reverted to giving blacks stereotyped roles after Willkie's death in 1944, such as servants. After his death, the NAACP named its headquarters the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building.
On November 9, 1942, soon after making his reports to Roosevelt and the American people, Willkie argued the case of Schneiderman v. United States before the Supreme Court. William Schneiderman, secretary of the California Communist Party, was a naturalized American until the government revoked his citizenship, stating that he had concealed his membership on his application for naturalization in 1927. Two lower federal courts upheld the denaturalization. Representing a communist, even in wartime, did nothing to shore up Willkie's diminishing support in the Republican Party, but he wrote to a friend saying, "I am sure I am right in representing Schneiderman. Of all the times when civil liberties should be defended, it is now." In his argument Willkie quoted Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson by saying that the people could, if they deemed it necessary, remake the government, and he stated that Marx's view of revolution was mild by comparison. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled for Schneiderman, 5–3, restoring his citizenship. Although Willkie refrained from criticizing Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans, he stated in a speech that war was no excuse for depriving groups of people of their rights. He spoke out against those who blamed the Jews for the war, warning against "witch-hanging and mob-baiting". For his activities, he received the American Hebrew Medal for 1942.
## 1944 presidential campaign
Willkie spent much of 1943 preparing for a second presidential run, addressing Republican and nonpartisan groups. He did not meet with Roosevelt; with the presidential election approaching and with both men likely to run in it as candidates, their continued association would have been awkward. Although they differed with him on many issues, Republican leaders recognized Willkie's appeal and they had wanted him to campaign for the party in the 1942 midterm elections, but he went around the world instead. The huge publicity received by the titular head of the Republican Party as an emissary for a Democratic president frustrated leading Republicans. In 1942, the Republicans gained seats in both the House and the Senate. Though they still remained in the minority, they formed a Conservative coalition with Southern Democrats that took control of domestic issues in Congress. Few Republican members of Congress were by then willing to support Willkie, and he dropped to second place behind General Douglas MacArthur in polls of likely voters in the party's 1944 presidential primaries. By 1943, even liberal Democrats did not doubt Willkie's progressive credentials. He spoke of appointing an African American to either the cabinet or the Supreme Court, and he warned California's Republican committee that the New Deal was irreversible and he stated that all they would get by opposing it was oblivion.
Willkie made his candidacy clear in an interview with Look magazine in early October 1943, arguing that a return to isolationism would lead the party to disaster. He decided to enter several presidential primaries in order to demonstrate his public support of the party, and he chose Wisconsin, with a primary on April 4, 1944, as the first major test. Willkie had not taken Wisconsin's electoral votes in 1940, though he had won in all parts of the state except Milwaukee. His advisors feared the large German-American vote in Wisconsin, which had contributed to the state being firmly isolationist until Pearl Harbor. None of the other major candidates—Dewey, Stassen, MacArthur and Ohio Governor John Bricker—spoke in Wisconsin; MacArthur and Stassen were on active duty and could not do so. Willkie stated that if he did badly in Wisconsin, he would end his campaign.
The New Hampshire primary had not taken on the significance it later would, and Willkie won it on March 14, taking six out of eleven delegates. This was deemed a disappointment because he had spoken there many times since 1940, and was expected to do better. In Wisconsin, Willkie ran a slate of delegates led by future governor Vernon W. Thomson, and he devoted two weeks to campaigning there. He was endorsed by most newspapers, but polls showed him well behind Dewey both in the state and nationwide.
On March 16, his first day of campaigning in Wisconsin, Willkie made eight speeches, and the pace took a toll on his voice. The weather did not cooperate, and he travelled 200 miles (320 km) through a blizzard to reach a rally in the northern part of the state. Willkie attracted large crowds in most places, and he told them that the Republican party would fail unless it accepted the New Deal and recognized the need for the U.S. to remain active in the world after the war. The Democrats, he alleged, had been in office too long and they did not have the vision that was needed in the postwar world. Willkie's speech in Milwaukee attracted 4,000 people to a hall that could hold 6,000, and he left the state on the 29th for Nebraska, where he had also entered the primary. Once he was gone, Dewey's backers, including most of the Wisconsin Republican leadership, flooded the state with billboard advertisements and radio commercials. On April 4, Dewey gained 17 of Wisconsin's 24 delegates, Stassen 4, and MacArthur 3. Willkie's delegates ran last in every district. The following night, after giving his speech in Omaha, Willkie addressed the crowd:
> I quite deliberately entered the Wisconsin primary to test whether the Republican voters of that state would support me ... It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated. I therefore am asking my friends to desist from any activity toward that end and not to present my name at the convention. I earnestly hope that the Republican convention will nominate a candidate and write a platform that really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions of Americans. I shall continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years.
## Final months and death
Defeated in his second bid for the White House, Willkie announced that he was returning to the practice of law, but his friends doubted that he would be content there. Roosevelt was anxious to dump Vice President Wallace from the ticket in his bid for a fourth term, and he had an intermediary sound out Willkie about running in Wallace's place. Willkie was reluctant even to respond, knowing that Roosevelt had made promises to potential running mates which he did not follow through on. There were further discussions between Willkie and the White House, of which third parties were aware though the details are not known; the vice presidential nomination went to Harry S. Truman. Willkie got Roosevelt interested in a new liberal party which would be formed once peace came that would combine the left of the two existing major parties, but Willkie broke off contact with the White House after there were leaks of this to the press, because he felt that Roosevelt had used him for political gain. Roosevelt sent a letter expressing his regret for the leak, but that too was printed in the papers, and Willkie stated, "I've been lied to for the last time."
In spite of their breach, Roosevelt continued to try to conciliate Willkie. Roosevelt's son Elliott later stated that his father hoped to have Willkie be the first Secretary General of the United Nations, and the two men agreed to meet later in the year. Willkie had not been invited to speak at the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated Dewey for president, and he declined a pass as an "honored guest". Dewey hoped to get Willkie's endorsement, and he sent his foreign policy advisor, John Foster Dulles, to see Willkie. The former candidate refused to be drawn, and he made no endorsement before he died. Willkie wrote two articles for Collier's, one urging an internationalist foreign policy, and the other demanding advances in civil rights for African Americans. He also explored becoming a newspaper publisher.
Willkie had long been neglectful of his health and diet, smoking heavily and rarely exercising. His heavy drinking had charmed the reporters in Philadelphia in 1940, but by 1944 it was becoming a problem. In August 1944, Willkie felt weak while traveling by train to his Rushville home. There, he suffered a heart attack, but he had to be persuaded to see a doctor and he refused to be admitted to a hospital.
Willkie's condition only worsened as the weeks went on. He went to New York by rail in mid-September, but on the trip he was stricken with another heart attack. Although his advisors told him to seek treatment and abandon the trip, Willkie pressed on. When he arrived in New York, Willkie was in great pain and his press secretary called an ambulance to take him to Lenox Hill Hospital. He recovered to some extent, enough so that his friends expected him to be discharged. He spent time working on the galleys of his second book, An American Program, and planned future projects. On October 4, Willkie caught a throat infection, which was treated with penicillin. As he was recovering, Willkie's now chronic heart attacks struck again and he suffered three more attacks on October 7. The hospital, which had been issuing reassuring bulletins to the public, was now forced to inform the public that Willkie's condition had worsened and that he was critically ill. The next morning, Willkie suffered one last attack, which proved fatal. He had suffered over a dozen heart attacks in Lenox Hill Hospital.
Roosevelt released a statement applauding Willkie's "tremendous courage" which "prompted him more than once to stand alone ... In this hour of grave crisis the nation loses a great citizen." War Secretary Stimson offered to have Willkie buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but Edith Willkie wanted her husband to be buried in his native Indiana, at Rushville. His casket was placed in the center aisle of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; 60,000 people filed by his casket, and 35,000 crowded around the church during the service, including many blacks—as, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in her column, was fitting. Wendell and Edith Willkie rest together in Rushville's East Hill Cemetery, the gravesite was marked by a cross, and a book was carved in stone, designed by sculptor Malvina Hoffman, and inscribed with quotations from One World.
## Legacy and remembrance
Soon after the 1940 convention, Roosevelt described Willkie's nomination as a "Godsend to our country", because it ensured that the presidential race would not turn on the issue of aid to Britain. Walter Lippmann believed Willkie's nomination to have been crucial to Britain's survival, "second only to the Battle of Britain, the sudden rise and nomination of Willkie was the decisive event, perhaps providential, which made it possible to rally the free world when [Britain] was almost conquered. Under any other leadership but his the Republican party in 1940 would have turned its back on Great Britain, causing all who resisted Hitler to feel abandoned". Charles Peters wrote that "it is arguable that [Willkie's] impact on [the United States] and the world was greater than that of most men who actually held the office [of president]. At a crucial moment in history, he stood for the right things at the right time." When Georgia Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat, gave the keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention, he urged unity instead of partisan strife in the War on Terror, and recalled Willkie's actions, "He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time. And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue."
Historian Hugh Ross argued that in gaining the nomination, Willkie "gave exceptional promise of being a winner. There were ample precedents from American political history in which a minority party, queasy over prospects for survival, bypassed professional leadership in order to entrust its political fortunes to a man without political experience. In most of the previous instances, the nomination had gone to a military man. In 1940, it went to a businessman." Richard Moe, in his book on the 1940 election, suggested that the nomination of Willkie left long-lasting scars on the Republican Party, with conservatives angered by the success of its Eastern Establishment wing; "whatever else it did, Philadelphia gave birth to the bitter proprietary division within the Republican Party, one accentuated by ideology and geography, that would define the party for decades to come." Among those converted from isolationism by Willkie's oratory, and who worked intensely on the Willkie campaign in Michigan, was Gerald R. Ford, who wrote many years later in his memoirs, "I now realize that my participation did not make much difference at all to the political fate of Wendell Willkie. But it made a lot of difference to me."
Correspondent and author Warren Moscow wrote that after 1940, Willkie helped Roosevelt, who was always careful not to go too far in front of public opinion, "as a pace-setter with the President's blessing". Willkie's global trip and the publication of One World increased public support for the idea that the United States should remain active internationally once the war was won, and should not withdraw into a new isolationism. Indiana University president Herman B Wells noted that One World "has had such a profound influence on the thinking of Americans". Historian Samuel Zipp noted, "He launched the most successful and unprecedented challenge to conventional nationalism in modern American history ... He urged [Americans] to imagine and feel a new form of reciprocity with the world, one that millions of Americans responded to with unprecedented urgency."
His advocacy came at a cost to his standing in the Republican Party. According to Moscow, "his appeal for the party to be the party of the Loyal Opposition, supporting the President, was treason to the diehards; his trip around the world marked him as a Presidential agent seeking to infiltrate the Republican Party". This decline was accelerated as it became apparent that Willkie was a liberal, standing to the left of Roosevelt and proposing even higher taxes than the president was willing to stomach.
The World War II Liberty Ship SS Wendell L. Willkie was named in his honor.
In 1965, Indiana University completed Willkie Quadrangle, an 11-story undergraduate residence hall, on the Bloomington campus that was named after Willkie.
In 1992, the United States Postal Service marked the centennial of Willkie's birth with a 75-cent stamp in the Great Americans series. Dunn concluded that Willkie "died as he had lived, an idealist, a humanitarian—and a lone wolf". Willkie's biographer, Neal, wrote of him,
> Though he never became President, he had won something much more important, a lasting place in American history. Along with Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, and Hubert Humphrey, he was the also-ran who would be long remembered. "He was a born leader," wrote historian Allan Nevins, "and he stepped to leadership at just the moment when the world needed him." Shortly before his death, Willkie told a friend, "If I could write my own epitaph and if I had to choose between saying, 'Here lies an unimportant President', or, 'Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril', I would prefer the latter."
## Works
- One World (1943)
- An American Program, Simon and Schuster, 1944 (short essay collection)
## See also
- State of the Union, play believed to be based on Willkie's presidential run.
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USS Orizaba
| 1,173,780,360 |
United States Navy transport ship
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[
"1917 ships",
"Auxiliary ships of the Brazilian Navy",
"Maritime incidents in 1947",
"Passenger ships of the United States",
"Ships built by William Cramp & Sons",
"Ships of the Ward Line",
"Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Brazilian Navy",
"Transport ships of the United States Army",
"Transports of the United States Navy",
"World War I auxiliary ships of the United States",
"World War II auxiliary ships of Brazil"
] |
USS Orizaba (ID-1536/AP-24) was a transport ship for the United States Navy in both World War I and World War II. She was the sister ship of Siboney but the two were not part of a ship class. In her varied career, she was also known as USAT Orizaba in service for the United States Army, and as SS Orizaba in interwar civilian service for the Ward Line, and as Duque de Caxias (U-11) as an auxiliary in the Brazilian Navy after World War II.
Orizaba made 15 transatlantic voyages for the navy carrying troops to and from Europe in World War I with the second-shortest average in-port turnaround time of all navy transports. The ship was turned over to the War Department in 1919 for use as army transport USAT Orizaba. After her service in World War I ended, Orizaba reverted to the Ward Line, her previous owners. The ship was briefly engaged in transatlantic service to Spain and then engaged in New York–Cuba–Mexico service until 1939, when the ship was chartered to United States Lines. While Orizaba was in her Ward Line service, American poet Hart Crane leapt to his death from the rear deck of the liner off Florida in April 1932.
In World War II the ship was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and again assigned to the War Department as USAT Orizaba. After completing one voyage as an Army transport, the ship was transferred to the U.S. Navy, where she was re-commissioned as USS Orizaba (AP-24). The ship made several transatlantic runs, was damaged in an air attack in the Allied invasion of Sicily, and made trips to South America. The transport also served in the Pacific Theatre, making several transpacific voyages, and one to the Aleutians.
In June 1945, Orizaba was transferred under Lend-Lease to the Brazilian Navy where she served as Duque de Caxias (U-11). In August 1945, Duque de Caxis carried parts of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force from Naples back to Rio de Janeiro. The ship was badly damaged by a fire in 1947, but was repaired and remained in service. Permanently transferred to Brazil in 1953, Duque de Caxias was decommissioned in 1959 and scrapped in 1963.
## Description
Orizaba was 423 feet 0 inches (128.93 m) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 60 feet 0 inches (18.29 m). She had a depth of 15 feet 7 inches (4.75 m) and a draft of 35 feet 0 inches (10.67 m). Propulsion was four steam turbines of 1,908 nhp driving twin screw propellers through single reduction gearing. She was fitted with 13,107 cubic feet (371.1 m<sup>3</sup>) of refrigerated cargo space. The refrigerant was brine and insulation was by means of cork.
## World War I
Orizaba—named after the town of Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico—was laid down for the Ward Line by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company of Philadelphia and launched in February 1917. In mid-1917 the United States Shipping Board (USSB) commandeered and received title to all private shipbuilding projects in progress, including the still-incomplete Orizaba and her sister ship Siboney. Plans for both ships were modified for troop-carrying duties. Upon Orizaba's completion, the USSB delivered her to the US Navy for transport duty on 11 April 1918, and she was commissioned as USS Orizaba (ID-1536) on 27 May.
Assigned to the Atlantic Transport Service, Orizaba carried over 15,000 troops in six convoy trips to France before the end of World War I. In one such voyage, Orizaba's executive officer, ordnance expert William Price Williamson, worked closely with Commander Richard Drace White—Orizaba's commanding officer, himself an ordnance expert—to develop a workable depth charge launcher which would provide the transport with a measure of protection from enemy submarines. Williamson set about modifying a Lyle gun into a depth charge launcher, and successfully tested it on 16 August 1918. While attempting another test with an increased propellant charge the following day, a defective fuse exploded the depth charge prematurely, killing Williamson and three other sailors. White, four other officers, and twenty-two enlisted men were also wounded in the blast.
Four days later on 21 August at 08:30, Orizaba, traveling with Siboney, spotted a submarine in the act of submerging. Orizaba attempted to ram the sub and dropped depth charges, but there was no indication that the attack was successful.
In December 1918, she was temporarily assigned to assist the French government in repatriating French, Belgian, and Italian prisoners of war. Detached from that duty on 10 January 1919, she joined the Cruiser and Transport Force at Brest, and in nine voyages returned over 31,700 troops to the United States. After the completion of transport duty service in the summer of 1919, she was decommissioned on 4 September and subsequently turned over to the Army for further transport service as USAT Orizaba. The boat served in that capacity until returned to the Ward Line in 1920.
According to the Statistical Department of the US Navy, Orizaba had the second-shortest average in-port turnaround time out of 37 US Navy transports used in World War I. The ship completed 15 round trips with an average turn-around time of just over 30 days per trip, while the overall Navy average was 39.8 days.
## Post-war civilian service
After Orizaba and Siboney were reacquired by the Ward Line, Orizaba was registered as a merchant vessel. Her port of registry was New York, and United States Official Number 216294 and Code Letters LJKM were allocated to her. Orizaba and Siboney were placed in transatlantic service on New York–Cuba–Spain routes in 1920, with Orizaba calling at Corunna, Santander, and Bilbao in Spain. The two ships accommodated 306 first-class, 60 second-class, and 64 third-class passengers, with each ship making several trips on the route, but a lack of passengers (along with the grounding of Siboney at Vigo in September 1920) led to the abandonment of the route.
By October 1921, Orizaba was placed in New York–Cuba–Mexico service, where business thrived, in part because of Prohibition in the United States. Ward Line cruises to Havana were one of the quickest and least expensive ways to what one author called "alcohol-enriched vacations". Three years later, the ship underwent a major refit that, among other things, lengthened her funnels. A typical voyage at this time sailed from New York and called at Nassau, Havana, Progreso, Veracruz and Tampico.
By the early 1930s, Orizaba's typical route had remained virtually the same, though Nassau and Tampico were dropped as ports of call. It was in this period that American poet Hart Crane leapt to his death from Orizaba. At around noon on 27 April 1932, while the ship was headed to New York—some 275 miles (443 km) north of Havana and 10 miles (16 km) off the Florida coast—Crane, clad in pajamas and overcoat, climbed the rail at the stern of the ship and plunged into the ocean. The captain of Orizaba immediately stopped the ship and launched four lifeboats that searched in vain for two hours, but no trace of the poet was ever found. Before he jumped, Crane had been drinking and, the night before, had been the victim of violence after an unwanted pick-up attempt of a crewman ended with a severe beating.
In 1934, Orizaba was allocated the Code Letters WECX. In April 1934, American actress Katharine Hepburn sailed from New York on Orizaba, eventually ending up in Mérida, Yucatán. After her arrival there on 22 April, she filed for divorce from businessman Ludlow ("Luddy") Ogden Smith, whom she had married in December 1928. After the divorce was finalized she and her travel companion, Laura Harding, planned to spend a week in Havana and return to New York on the Ward Line ship Morro Castle. Other notable passengers on Orizaba in the 1930s included Ecuadorean diplomat Gonzalo Zaldumbide and Cuban president Fulgencio Batista. Zaldumbide, the Ecuadorean Minister to the United States, sailed to Mexico for his new posting as Minister to Mexico in August 1932. In February 1939, Orizaba carried Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista back to Havana after a two-week goodwill visit to Mexico.
Beginning in the mid-1930s, Orizaba often carried gold and silver bars from Veracruz to New York for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Chase National Bank, or for later transshipment to London. In October 1933 three short tons (2.7 tonnes) of gold bars and coins were shipped on Orizaba for eventual delivery to London, prompting some to believe that gold was being smuggled into Mexico to take advantage of its policy of not charging duties on gold. In July 1934 Orizaba brought in 16 cases of Mexican gold, and in January 1935, 20 cases; in both instances, for delivery to Chase National Bank. Twice in 1935, the Ward liner delivered over 1,000 bars of silver for the Federal Reserve Bank, bringing 1,390 bars in March, and 1,933 bars in July. Mexico was not the only place from which Orizaba delivered precious metals. In March 1934, she delivered 12 cases of gold—consisting of 84 bars, and worth \$1,624,000—from Havana for Chase.
In mid-1939, Orizaba was chartered to United States Lines as one of five ships added to increase what was perceived as a slow rate of return of US citizens fleeing war-torn Europe. In September, the ship was diverted to Galway to pick up American survivors of SS Athenia, torpedoed by U-30 on 3 September; Orizaba returned with 240 of the survivors later that month. After completing evacuation service, the ship was laid up in New York in the summer of 1940, and subsequently purchased by the Maritime Commission on behalf of the Army on 27 February 1941.
## Pre World War II
After her reacquisition by the War Department, Orizaba completed one round trip to the Panama Canal Zone. On her return she put in for a refit by the Bethlehem Steel Company at New York. After she was transferred to the Navy on 4 June 1941, she was commissioned as Orizaba (AP-24) on 15 June 1941.
### The Preamble to Convoy WS-12X (the USA has not declared war on Japan or Germany yet)
The Atlantic Conference was held on 9 August 1941 in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt. Besides the "official" agenda, Churchill hoped to obtain considerable assistance from the US, but the American President had his political hands tied. On 1 September 1941, Roosevelt received an urgent and most secret message asking for US Navy troopships manned by Navy crews and escorted by U.S.N. fighting ships to carry British troops for the purpose of reinforcing the Middle East. On 4 September the US destroyer, USS Greer (DD-145), came under an unsuccessful U-boat attack. Roosevelt gave authority to the US Navy to "shoot to kill". On 5 September the President assured the British leader that six vessels would be provided to carry twenty thousand troops and would be escorted by the American Navy.
The chief of Naval Operations ordered troop ships divisions seventeen and nineteen, on 26 September 1941, to prepare their vessels for approximately six months at sea. These transports were to load to capacity with food, ammunition medical supplies, fuel and water and were to arrive at Halifax, NS on or about 6 November and after the arrival of a British convoy from the UK were to load twenty thousand troops. The Prime Minister mentioned in his letter that it would be for the President to say what would be required in replacement if any of these ships were to be sunk by enemy action. Agreements were worked out for the troops to be carried as supernumeraries and rations to be paid out of Lend Lease Funds and officer laundry bills were to be paid in cash. All replenishments of provisions, general stores, fuel and water would be provided by the UK. Fuel and water would be charged for the escorts to the UK in Trinidad and Cape Town only. The troops would conform to US Navy and ships regulation. Intoxicating liquors were prohibited. It was further agreed that the troops were to rig and man their own anti-aircraft guns to augment the ships batteries.
So, convoy WS-12X is most extraordinary. 30 days BEFORE the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and the German declaration of war on the USA on 11 December 1941; we have six American transports and American escort carrying British soldiers.
#### Convoy William Sail WS-12X
In early November, the troopship proceeded to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take on board British troops.
Wakekfield (AP-21), with 6,000 men embarked, and five other transports Mount Vernon (AP-22), West Point (AP-23), Orizaba (AP-24), Leonard Wood (AP-25) and Joseph T. Dickman (AP-26) got underway as Convoy WS12-X on 10 November 1941. Escorted by a strong screen – which, as far as Trinidad, included Ranger (CV-4) – the convoy was destined for Basra, Iraq.
On 17 November 1941, the convoy reaches Trinidad. All ships were replenished, and the convoy departs Trinidad on 19 November 1941.
On 7 December at 2000, the convoy receives a radio communication of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
## World War II service
### Convoy WS12-X (continued)
On 9 December, convoy WS12-X arrived in Cape Town, South Africa.
At about 0800 on 13 December 1941, the troopships departed Cape Town headed for Bombay.
At 650 on 21 December 1941, the USS Mount Vernon (AP-22) and USS Orizaba detached from the convoy headed for Bombay, and are bound for Mombasa. The remainder of the convoy continued to Bombay under the escort of DORSETSHIRE, arriving on 27 December 1941.
### 1942-1945
Following several months of coastal operations, Orizaba, now armed with two 5-inch (130 mm) guns and four 3-inch (76 mm) guns, departed New York in April 1942 on the first transatlantic run of her Second World War. Sailing via Iceland, she steamed to England, Cape Town, Recife, and Norfolk, Virginia, from which she got underway for Bermuda and Puerto Rico. Returning to Norfolk in January 1943, she plied the eastern seaboard for a month, then took up transatlantic duties again. Until July she traversed the ocean to Oran, Algeria, carrying troops over and prisoners of war back to New York.
On 5 July she left Oran in Task Force (TF) 81. The next day, she rendezvoused with TF 85 and on 9 July stood off Gela, Sicily, disembarking troops into landing craft. On 11 July, she sustained slight damage in an enemy air attack and retired to Algeria the next day with casualties and prisoners on board. She returned to Sicily at the end of the month to discharge troops and cargo at Palermo and then, on the night of 1 August, weighed anchor and stood out for home.
Arriving at New York on 22 August 1943, she underwent an overhaul, then took on runs to Brazil and the Caribbean. At the end of the year she left the east coast, passed through the Panama Canal, and sailed on to the southwestern Pacific. After calls at Samoa, Nouméa, Brisbane, and Milne Bay, she returned to the west coast in March 1944, only to leave again for another central Pacific run. Back at San Francisco in June, she underwent repairs; completed a run to the Marshalls and Marianas; and then sailed north to the Aleutians. Completing her northern run at Seattle, Washington, on 1 December, she carried men and supplies to Hawaii, then returned to San Francisco, later sailing to New Guinea, the Philippines, and Ulithi to add men and materiel to forces gathering for the Battle of Okinawa.
From Ulithi, Orizaba sailed east, passed through the Panama Canal again, and, as the battle for Okinawa raged, arrived at Tampa, Florida. Decommissioned on 23 April, she underwent an overhaul and on 16 July 1945 she was transferred to Brazil under the terms of Lend-Lease. The ship was permanently transferred to Brazil in June 1953 and struck from the US Naval Vessel Register on 20 July of that same year. Orizaba received one battle star for her US Navy service in World War II.
## Brazilian Navy service
Assuming control of the vessel at Tampa on 16 July 1945, the Brazilian Navy renamed the veteran transport Duque de Caxias (U-11), the second ship of that navy named in honor of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, the patron of the Brazilian Army.
Duque de Caxias headed to Naples and on 28 August 1945 left there with elements of the returning Brazilian Expeditionary Force. The ship arrived at Rio de Janeiro for the first time on 17 September 1945. The ship then loaded American military stores from US bases in Brazil and sailed for New York, arriving on 10 November 1945, with plans to repatriate wounded Brazilian soldiers who had been recuperating in the US.
On 31 July 1947, a day after sailing from Rio de Janeiro for Europe, oil spilled on the ship's boilers, causing an engine-room fire that quickly spread through the first class cabins and killed 27. The ship was towed from its position off Cabo Frio into Rio de Janeiro on 1 August 1947. The ship had been carrying 1,060 passengers bound for Lisbon, Naples, and Marseille, along with 500 crew members, and had been scheduled to carry Italian refugees on its return voyage.
In 1953, Duque de Caxias was converted into a training ship, and in August of that year began a European and Mediterranean training cruise, which included a 12-day visit to New York in March 1954 as part of its homeward leg. The ship visited the United States again in December 1955, with midshipmen aboard who were touring the United States Naval Academy and who were honored at a cocktail party by the Brazilian Ambassador, João Carlos Muniz, at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, D.C. In October the following year, Duque de Caxias called at Philadelphia, and the new Brazilian Ambassador Ernani do Amaral Peixoto—also an Admiral in the Brazilian Navy—and his wife sponsored a tea dance in honor of Captain Antonio Andrade, other officers of the ship, and the midshipmen aboard the ship; Peixoto had traveled to Philadelphia to greet Andrade, a former naval attaché at the embassy. The ship was decommissioned 13 April 1959, and finally scrapped in 1963. It was the last surviving member of the older Ward Line to survive above water.
|
30,294,909 |
Petter's big-footed mouse
| 1,139,121,963 |
Species of Madagascan rodent
|
[
"Macrotarsomys",
"Mammals described in 2005",
"Mammals of Madagascar"
] |
Petter's big-footed mouse (Macrotarsomys petteri), is a Madagascan rodent in the genus Macrotarsomys. With a head and body length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and body mass of 105 g (3.7 oz), it is the largest species of its genus. Its upper body is brown, darkest in the middle of the back, and the lower body is white to yellowish. The animal has long whiskers, short forelimbs, and long hindfeet. The tail ends in a prominent tuft of long, light hairs. The skull is robust and the molars are low-crowned and cuspidate.
Petter's big-footed mouse is now found only in the Mikea Forest of southwestern Madagascar, but subfossil records indicate that it used to be more widely distributed in southern Madagascar. Climatic changes and competition with introduced species may have led to the shift in its distribution. The Mikea Forest, the only place where it is still known to occur, is threatened by human development.
## Taxonomy
During a 2003 biological inventory of the Mikea Forest, a forest region of southwestern Madagascar, a single specimen of the rodent genus Macrotarsomys was collected. This animal turned out to be distinct from both previously known species of the genus—bastard big-footed mouse, which is widespread in western Madagascar, and the larger greater big-footed mouse, known only from the Ankarafantsika National Park. Accordingly, Steven Goodman and Voahangy Soarimalala named it in 2005 as a new species, Macrotarsomys petteri. The specific name, petteri, honors French zoologist Francis Petter for his contributions to the study of Malagasy rodents. Petter's big-footed mouse, the largest species in the genus, is most similar to greater big-footed mouse, which may be its closest relative.
## Description
Petter's big-footed mouse is a terrestrial rodent with short forelimbs and long hindfeet. With a head and body length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and body mass of 105 g (3.7 oz) in the only known complete specimen, it is much larger than M. bastardi, and its measurements fall at or above the upper end of the known range of variation in M. ingens. The upperparts are covered with soft and short, brown fur. Most cover hairs (the main part of the fur) are dark brown for the two-thirds closest to the base, then light brown, with a short dark brown tip. The middle of the back appears darker, because the cover hairs there are entirely dark brown. The hairs are 6 to 8 mm (0.2 to 0.3 in) long on the shoulders and 7 to 9 mm (0.3 to 0.4 in) on the back. The guard hairs are gray. Because the flanks lack entirely dark cover hairs, they are slightly lighter than the rest of the upperparts. They are sharply separated in color from the underparts, which are entirely white to buffish. The mystacial vibrissae (whiskers above the mouth) are long, up to 60 mm (2.4 in), and white or black in color. The pinnae (external ears) are dark brown and covered with fine gray hairs, and ear length is 32 mm (1.3 in).
Hindfoot length is 37 mm (1.5 in). The upper sides of the feet are covered with grayish white fur, which extends around the claws to form ungual tufts. On the hindfeet, the fifth digit is relatively short at 6 mm (0.2 in); the hallux (first digit) is 8 mm (0.3 in) long, and the other digits 11 to 12 mm (0.4 to 0.5 in). The tail is 238 mm (9.4 in) long and naked in part. At the base, it is dark brown both above and below, but slightly lighter below. The upper side remains dark brown for much of its length, though the color does become lighter towards the tip. The lower side becomes mottled at about 55 mm (2.2 in) from the tip and then whitish at about 65 mm (2.6 in). It has a well-developed tuft at its tail tip, consisting of whitish and occasional light brown hairs. This tuft commences at about 130 mm (5.1 in) from the base with fairly short hairs and becomes more pronounced at 180 mm (7.1 in). In contrast, the greater big-footed mouse has a weaker, dark brown tuft.
Petter's big-footed mouse has a large and robust skull with well-developed zygomatic arches (cheekbones). The interorbital region of the skull (between the eyes) is smooth, as in greater big-footed mouse, and lacks the shelves characteristic of the bastard big-footed mouse. The palate is broad and the incisive foramina (openings in the front portion of the palate) are long and broad. In the mandible (lower jaw), the root of the lower incisor is housed in a distinct capsular process, a protuberance at the back of the jawbone. The lower masseteric ridge (a crest on the outer side of the mandible) is prominent. As is typical of Macrotarsomys, the molars are cuspidate and low-crowned.
## Distribution and ecology
The single known living specimen, a young adult male, was collected at 80 m (260 ft) altitude in the Andaladomo forest (part of the Mikea Forest) in 2003. The Andaladomo forest is different in vegetation from the rest of the Mikea Forest, and is similar to forests further to the north on Madagascar. The animal was found in an isolated fragment of dry deciduous forest amid land cleared for maize cultivation. The trap was set at the foot of a tree surrounded by bushes and succulent plants. Other small mammals known from the Mikea Forest include the bastard big-footed mouse, the introduced black rat (Rattus rattus), several species of tenrecs, and the shrew Suncus madagascariensis. Although only a single individual of Petter's big-footed mouse was caught during Goodman and Soarimalala's survey, which accrued 3100 trap-nights, they argue that this does not necessarily mean the species is rare, since trapping rates for rodents in the dry forests of Madagascar are often variable depending on year and season. Nothing is known of its behavior, but the animal's morphology suggests it lives on the ground.
Subsequent to its discovery at the Mikea Forest, Petter's big-footed mouse was also found as a subfossil in cave deposits at Andrahomana in far southeastern Madagascar, a find reported in 2006. There, it was found together with more abundant remains of the introduced black rat and house mouse (Mus musculus), as well as indigenous rodents such as the bastard big-footed mouse. Two Petter's big-footed mouse bones were radiocarbon dated to 790–410 BCE and 150–390 CE, respectively, a period when the local climate became drier and humans first appeared. Macrotarsomys species are thought to burrow in sandy ground and would not be expected to enter caves; therefore, the subfossils are probably remains of animals eaten by birds of prey. Although Petter's big-footed mouse could conceivably persist in remnant pockets of wet habitat in southeastern Madagascar, searches at two sites near Andrahomana failed to confirm its presence. It may have become locally extinct in the area because of the drying climate and competition with the black rat.
In 2009, it was also recorded from the cave of Ankilitelo in southwestern Madagascar. Remains of a large Macrotarsomys had previously been reported from other southern Madagascar sites, and at least some of these may be M. petteri. A karstic deposit near Lake Tsimanampetsotsa (dated to the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene on unclear grounds) contained three species of Macrotarsomys, including a very large one that may well be M. petteri. Remains identified as greater big-footed mouse have been reported from a cave at Ankazoabo in southern Madagascar; these may also be Petter's big-footed mouse.
## Conservation status
The IUCN Red List assesses Petter's big-footed mouse as "Data Deficient", but notes that the species will very probably qualify as threatened if its current distribution turns out to be restricted to primary forest in the Mikea Forest. The Mikea Forest is one of the largest remaining forests of southwestern Madagascar, but it is not protected and is threatened by logging, pasture, and conversion to agricultural land.
|
659,458 |
Percheron
| 1,162,704,520 |
Breed of draft horse from France
|
[
"Conservation Priority Breeds of the Livestock Conservancy",
"Horse breeds",
"Horse breeds originating in France"
] |
The Percheron is a breed of draft horse that originated in the Huisne river valley in western France, part of the former Perche province from which the breed takes its name. Usually gray or black in color, Percherons are well muscled, and known for their intelligence and willingness to work. Although their exact origins are unknown, the ancestors of the breed were present in the valley by the 17th century. They were originally bred for use as war horses. Over time, they began to be used for pulling stagecoaches and later for agriculture and hauling heavy goods. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Arabian blood was added to the breed. Exports of Percherons from France rose exponentially in the late 19th century, and the first purely Percheron stud book was created in France in 1893.
Before World War I, thousands of Percherons were shipped from France to the United States, but after the war began, an embargo stopped shipping. The breed was used extensively in Europe during the war, with some horses being shipped from the US back to France to help in the war effort. Beginning in 1918, Percherons began to be bred in Great Britain, and in 1918 the British Percheron Horse Society was formed. After a series of name and studbook ownership changes, the current US Percheron registry was created in 1934. In the 1930s, Percherons accounted for 70 percent of the draft horse population in the United States, but their numbers declined substantially after World War II. However, the population began to recover and as of 2009, around 2,500 horses were registered annually in the United States alone. The breed is still used extensively for draft work, and in France they are used for food. They have been crossed with several light horse breeds to produce horses for range work and competition. Purebred Percherons are used for forestry work and pulling carriages, as well as work under saddle, including competition in English riding disciplines such as show jumping.
## Characteristics
The size considered ideal for the Percheron varies between countries. In France, height ranges from and weight from 1,100 to 2,600 pounds (500 to 1,200 kg). Percherons in the United States generally stand between , with a range of . American Percherons average 1,900 pounds (860 kg), and their top weight is around 2,600 pounds (1,200 kg). In Great Britain, is the shortest acceptable height for stallions and for mares, while weights range from around 2,000–2,200 pounds (910–1,000 kg) for stallions and 1,800–2,000 pounds (820–910 kg) for mares. They are generally gray or black in coloring, although the American registry also allows the registration of roan, bay and chestnut horses. Only gray or black horses may be registered in France and Britain. Many horses have white markings on their heads and legs, but registries consider excessive white to be undesirable.
The head has a straight profile, broad forehead, large eyes and small ears. The chest is deep and wide and the croup long and level. The feet and legs are clean and heavily muscled. The overall impression of the Percheron is one of power and ruggedness. Enthusiasts describe the temperament as proud and alert, and members of the breed are considered intelligent, willing workers with good dispositions. They are considered easy keepers and adapt well to many conditions and climates. In the 19th century, they were known to travel up to 60 kilometres (37 mi) a day at a trot. Horses in the French registry are branded on the neck with the intertwined letters "SP", the initials of the Société Hippique Percheronne.
## History
The Percheron breed originated in the Huisne river valley in France, which arises in Orne, part of the former Perche province, from which the breed gets its name. Several theories have been put forth as to the ancestry of the breed, though its exact origins are unknown. One source of foundation bloodstock may have been mares captured by Clovis I from the Bretons some time after 496 AD. Another may have been Andalusian cavalry stallions brought from Spain by Moors in the 8th century. The Moorish were defeated at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD, and some of their horses may have been taken by warriors from Perche. A final theory posits that the Percheron and the Boulonnais breed are closely related, and that the Boulonnais influenced the Percheron when they were brought to Brittany as reinforcements for the legions of Caesar. It is known that during the 8th century, Andalusian stallions were crossed with mares native to the area, and more Oriental horse blood was introduced by the Comte du Perche upon his return from the Crusades and expeditions into territory claimed by Spain. Further blood from Spanish breeds was added when Rotrou III imported horses from Castile. No matter the theory of origin, breed historians agree that the terrain and climate of the Perche area had the greatest influence on the development of the breed. A possible reference to the horse is made in the 13th-century romance Guillaume de Dole, in which the title character asks for "the Count of Perche's horse" to be made ready, possibly indicating the "'great horse,' which could accommodate an armored knight" and was bred in the geographical setting of the poem.
During the 17th century, horses from Perche, ancestors of the current Percheron, were smaller, standing between high, and more agile. These horses were almost uniformly gray; paintings and drawings from the Middle Ages generally show French knights on mounts of this color. After the days of the armored knight, the emphasis in horse breeding was shifted so as to develop horses better able to pull heavy stage coaches at a fast trot. Gray horses were preferred because their light coloring was more visible at night. This new type of horse was called the "Diligence Horse", because the stage coaches they pulled were named "diligences". After the stage coach was replaced by rail, the modern Percheron type arose as a slightly heavier horse for use in agriculture and heavy hauling work, moving goods from docks to railway terminals.
### 19th century
Arabian stallions were made available to Percheron breeders for use in breeding army mounts, beginning in 1760 at the royal stud at Le Pin. Between 1789 and the early 1800s, the Percheron was in danger of becoming extinct as horse breeding was suppressed during the French Revolution and its aftermath. Early histories of the breed point to two gray Arabian stallions from Le Pin, Godolphin and Gallipoly, as the blood that helped to restart Percheron breeding. However, later research found that Godolphin was a chestnut Arabian of ordinary conformation and no special worth, while Gallipoly was a gray saddle horse of unknown breeding. Modern breed historians contest that there was enough breeding stock left after the early 19th century to restart the breed without further Arabian influence, and state that it is unlikely that two horses of unremarkable breeding and conformation had a significant influence on the breed. Jean le Blanc, a founding stallion of the Percheron breed, was foaled in 1823. Today, all Percherons trace their ancestry to this stallion. At this time the breed also became larger, with horses from other French districts being imported to Perche to change the Percheron from a coach horse averaging 1,200–1,400 pounds (540–640 kg) to a draft horse averaging 2,000 pounds (910 kg). In 1893, the first Percheron stud book was created in France. By 1910, French registrations had risen to almost 32,000 horses. Between 1880 and 1920, Percheron breeders in France exported horses all over the world, including South Africa, South America, Australia and North America.
#### In the United States and Great Britain
Percherons were first imported into the United States in 1839 by Edward Harris II of Moorestown, New Jersey. Only one of the initial four horses survived the ocean trip. Soon after, two stallions and two mares were imported; one mare died shortly after arrival and one stallion went blind and was retired within a year. Although the first importations of Percherons were less than successful, the remaining stallion owned by Edward Harris II, named Diligence, was credited with siring almost 400 foals. In 1851, three stallions were imported: Normandy 351, Louis Napoleon 281 and Gray Billy. Throughout their stud careers, each had significant influence on American draft horse stock. In the mid-19th century in the United States, Percheron stallions were crossed with homebred mares to improve the local stock, resulting in thousands of crossbred horses. After the American Civil War in the 1860s greatly reduced the number of horses, there was a significant need for large draft horses, especially in growing cities and in the expanding West. Large numbers of Percherons were imported to the United States beginning in the early 1870s, and they became popular with draft horse breeders and owners. In the 1880s, approximately 7,500 horses were exported to the United States. This extensive importation lasted until 1893, when the US experienced a financial panic, and virtually no Percheron imports occurred between 1894 and 1898. In addition, many existing horses were lost as people were too poor to purchase or care for large draft horses. In 1898, importations began again as abruptly as they had ceased, with an average of 700 horses a year imported between 1898 and 1905. In 1906 alone, over 13,000 horses were imported to the United States from France. In the American traveling circuses of the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Percheron was the most frequently seen draft horse. Drivers appreciated the breed's agility, stamina and quick-footed gait.
In 1876, the Norman-Percheron Association was formed by a group of Percheron breeders in Chicago, and at the same time the stud book was begun. The Norman-Percheron Association was the United States' first purebred livestock association. In 1877, the word "Norman" was dropped from the name. Later, in the panic of 1893, the Percheron Association went bankrupt and ceased to function. In 1905, also in Chicago, Percheron breeders met again to reform as the Percheron Society of America. Since 1934, the group has been known as the Percheron Horse Association of America. At its height, the organization was the largest draft horse association in the world, in the early 20th century registering over 10,000 horses annually.
In the late 19th century, Percherons also began to be exported from the United States to Great Britain, where they were used to pull horse-drawn buses in large cities. The first Percherons imported to Britain included some of the thousands of crossbreds from the United States. In Britain, many of the horses, once they finished their bus-pulling career, were sold to farmers. Other imported horses were sold to the British Army, and in 1900, 325 horses were shipped to South Africa for use in the Boer War.
### 20th and 21st centuries
In 1911, the French society restricted registration to horses with both parents already registered with the society. In the early 20th century, the Percheron was one of the four major draft horse breeds, along with the Belgian, the Clydesdale and the Shire. Breeders could sell their horses for significant amounts of money, especially in the United States and Canada, where breeding stock brought a premium price.
Prior to World War I, a flourishing trade route for Percherons existed between Nogent-le-Rotrou, Le Havre and the United States. However, after the war began, an embargo was placed on French Percherons, disallowing them from exportation. Other than an exception in April 1916 to allow 59 horses to be shipped from France to the US, this embargo remained in place until the end of the war. The war took its toll on the Percheron breed as horses, fodder, and handlers were requisitioned for the fighting, and even after the embargo was lifted France did not have the quality or quantity of stock to fulfill the needs of American breeders. The embargo created a breeding boom in the US, replacing the previous practice of importing the majority of Percherons from France, and late in the war horses were shipped the other way – from the US to Europe – to supply those needed in the war. The lack of feathering on the Percheron's lower legs made them easier to care for in the mud that they often worked in during wartime. Their quick trot on paved roads made them more versatile than motorized vehicles, and they were useful for work with guns and in forward units due to their calm temperaments.
Between 1918 and 1922, over 350 Percherons were imported to Britain from France and, combined with stock from the US and Canada, were used as breeding stock to establish the breed in the country. In 1918, the British Percheron Horse Society was formed. British breeders and owners continue to import Percherons from France, and also occasionally from Canada, when not prohibitively expensive.
By the 1930s, Percherons accounted for over 70 percent of the purebred draft horses in the United States, and all of the major land-grant universities maintained stables of Percherons. A 1930 census of horses found over 33,000 Percherons in the United States, with the next most popular breed, the Belgian, having a population of less than 10,000. One Percheron historian attributes this popularity to the breed's "strength, energy, activity, robustness and endurance". After World War II, increasing mechanization prompted a decline in the Percheron population. In 1954, only 85 Percherons were registered in the US, a record low. The 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s were bad years for the US Percheron population, and breeding was reduced to only a few farms. These breeders kept the American population alive through these years, however, and the 1980s saw renewed interest in the breed.
In 1966, the French stud book was changed to include draft types from other areas of France that were closely related to the Percheron – including the horses of Berrichon, Nivernais, Marne, Augeron, Bourbonnais, Loire and Saône-et-Loire. French Percherons were also hit hard by the advent of mechanization, and between 1970 and 1990 focus was placed on breeding horses of greater mass for the meat market. The largest and heaviest stallions were selected for breeding. Beginning at the 1989 World Percheron Congress, French breeders realized that they needed a lighter breed for tourism, export to Japan for draft work, and other markets. In 1993, a trend of importing American stallions to France was started with the black stallion Silver Shadows Sheik. This stallion and others were used to create a more elegant, smaller and sleeker look in the French Percheron, while still retaining the traditional bone and foot structure. All the imported stallions were black, reviving the popularity of black Percherons in France. French breeders continue to import American-bred Percheron stallions in order to produce lighter foals, moving away from the heavier meat-type horses of the late 20th century. Also in 1993, the Société Hippique Percheronne anticipated the increasing tourist and exportation markets by prohibiting docking, which was not prohibited for other draft breeds until 1996. This was partly at the request of the Germans, and partly due to the influence of magazines such as Cheval.
In 1988, there were 1,088 Percherons in the United States, rising to 2,257 by 1998. As of 2009, the Percheron Horse Association of America had horses registered in all 50 states, and had nearly 3,000 members, with around 2,500 new horses being registered annually. The French Société Hippique Percheronne de France (Percheron Horse Society of France) registered between 750 and 885 horses in each year between 2007 and 2010. As of 2012, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy considers the Percheron to be "recovering", meaning that the breed has exceeded the numbers required to be in one of the "watch" categories, but still needs to be monitored.
### Augeron
The Augeron, also known as Caen or Virois, was developed from the Percheron during the 19th century and was merged back into the Percheron in the 1960s. Bred mainly in the Pays d'Auge region, it previously had its own studbook, registered by the Société hippique du trait augeron. The status of the subtype has been repeatedly debated because of its origin from Percherons bred in Pays d'Auge, a breeding group that was modified from the original breed standard due to the influence of soil and climate over the years, creating the Augeron type. Augerons are light gray in color, tall, strong, well-built, and energetic. They stand 158–170 cm (15.2–16.3 hands) in height, but those horses bred in Vire are known to be smaller than the standard.
In the 19th century, the existence of the Augeron population was, despite its popularity, generally ignored by authors. In Paris, they were named "Caen" and "Virois", after their region of origin, although specialists included the "Caen Virois" breed with the Augeron in a 1904 text. In the 19th century, these horses were sold at fairs in Argences and Bayeux in Lower Normandy. They were noticed several times for their homogeneity, beauty, and high value. In 1858, Augerons were sold for between 600 and 1200 francs.
The Société hippique du trait augeron, or Augeron Horse Society, was formed in 1913 by breeders in Auge to record these horses in a breed registry. One reason for this lay in the desire to protect the cradle of breeding Percheron horses: only animals born near the Perche were entitled to registration in the studbook, and hence to use the name of "Percheron". This limitation excluded several nearby populations of horses foaled outside of Perche, such as the Maine and the Augeron.
## Uses
The Percheron is the most famous and populous of all French draft breeds in the world today. They were used to improve both the Ardennes and Vladimir Heavy Draft horses, and to create the Spanish-Norman breed, a cross between the Andalusian and the Percheron. By the end of the 19th century, Percherons made up the majority of driving horses in Paris. The Percheron is still used extensively for draft work and, like other draft breeds, it is also used in France for meat production. Around the world, Percherons are used for parades, sleigh rides and hayrides, as well as being used to pull carriages in large cities. The largest team of working Percherons in Europe is found at Disneyland Paris, where the breed makes up 30 percent of the horses in the park and the horses work to pull trams on the main park street. One of the most famous horse teams in the United States is the Heinz hitch of Percherons, having appeared multiple times at the Tournament of Roses Parade.
In Great Britain, the Percheron is used for advertising and publicity, as well as forestry and farm work. They are crossbred with lighter horses by breeders of heavy hunters in order to increase size and improve disposition. Purebred Percherons are also ridden, and some have proven useful at show jumping. Crossbred Percherons have been used successfully in dressage. In both the Falkland Islands and northern Australia, Percherons have been crossed with local mares, primarily Criollos in the Falklands, to produce larger stock horses with greater stamina. These crossbred horses are used extensively in both the sub-Antarctic climate of the Falklands and the sub-tropical climate of Australia for working stock. In Australia they are also crossed with Thoroughbreds for use as mounted police horses.
In 1978, the first World Percheron Congress was held in Great Britain, and has been held annually ever since. Although the majority of the shows have been held in North America, four – in 1980, 1989, 2001 and 2011 – have been held in France. Each year, in July, the French national breed show is held in Haras du Pin.
## See also
- Haguard horse
|
1,747,565 |
MAX Red Line
| 1,170,856,448 |
Light rail line in Portland, Oregon
|
[
"2001 establishments in Oregon",
"Airport rail links in the United States",
"MAX Light Rail",
"MAX Red Line",
"Rail lines in Oregon",
"Railway lines in highway medians",
"Railway lines opened in 2001"
] |
The MAX Red Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. An airport rail link, it connects Beaverton, Portland City Center and Northeast Portland to Portland International Airport. The line serves 26 stations; it interlines with the Blue Line and partially with the Green Line from Beaverton Transit Center to Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center and then branches to the 5.5-mile (8.9 km) Airport MAX segment to Portland International Airport station. The Red Line carried an average 10,310 passengers per weekday in September 2021, the second-busiest MAX service after the Blue Line. Its trains run for 22 hours per day with headways of up to 15 minutes.
Plans for an airport light rail line surfaced in the 1980s, and efforts were accelerated during the expansion of Portland International Airport in the 1990s. The Airport MAX project was conceived from an unsolicited proposal in 1997, and it was designed and built under a public–private partnership between a consortium of Bechtel and Trammell Crow, the Port of Portland, and local governments. Construction, which began in 1999, was completed in under two years due to the use of local and private financing and existing public right-of-way.
The Red Line began operating between the airport and downtown Portland on September 10, 2001. It was extended west along existing tracks to Beaverton Transit Center in 2003 amid strong westside ridership on the Blue Line. Track improvements as part of the "A Better Red" project are scheduled for completion in 2024; this will include a service extension farther west to Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station in Hillsboro.
## History
### Background and partnership agreement
In 1975, as construction of the Interstate 205 (I-205) freeway progressed north to Multnomah County, local leaders negotiated reducing the number of car lanes along a nine-mile (14 km) section and including a separated transit bus right-of-way; partially realized as the I-205 busway, the transit right-of-way was built but was never utilized by buses. In 1985, the Portland metropolitan area's regional government, Metro, began a study for light rail along the I-205 corridor at the behest of the Port of Portland and Clackamas County, who had wanted a line running from Portland International Airport to Clackamas Town Center and connecting with the nearly completed Portland–Gresham Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) using the I-205 busway right-of-way. Despite initially recommending the I-205 light rail line's construction by 1995, in October 1987, Metro's Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation (JPACT) formally identified the Westside Corridor between downtown Portland and Washington County as the "next priority corridor for major investment". Leaders from Metro and Portland's regional transit agency, TriMet, then called on local governments and businesses in Clackamas County to pursue alternative sources of funding, and a dispute between Washington and Clackamas county officials followed after the latter persisted requesting a share of the regional funds. As a compromise, Metro published a transit plan in 1989 that reasserted the Westside Corridor's priority and commissioned preliminary work for the I-205 proposal.
In April 1991, the Port approved a master plan for Portland International Airport, a 20-year, \$300 million phased expansion of the passenger terminal, to serve predicted passenger traffic growth through 2010. The plan included a long-term goal for an extension of light rail to the airport and thus reserved space for a light rail station near the southern end of the terminal's arrivals hall and baggage claim area. By 1993, the airport had already served 8.5 million passengers, an annual growth rate of 18 percent, which far exceeded what the Port had projected for the year 1997. Meanwhile, environmental studies conducted in the early 1990s caused Metro planners to shift plans away from the I-205 corridor in favor of a north–south route farther west and closer to downtown Portland between Hazel Dell, Washington and Clackamas Town Center, which was ultimately adopted and called the "South/North Corridor". Voters rejected local funding proposals for the South/North project in 1995 and 1996. Seeking alternative sources, Metro, among other proposals, proposed combining the project with a locally and privately funded airport light rail extension; this would in turn allow Metro to ask for more federal funds to match the overall project. TriMet later opted to ask Portland-area voters to provide local funding instead, who declined through a 1998 ballot measure.
Meanwhile, engineering firm Bechtel, wanting to acquire property near the airport, had by then initiated discussions with the Port regarding the feasibility of an airport light rail line and assigned a former Federal Transit Administration (FTA) employee to help develop a plan. The Port expressed its support of Bechtel's unsolicited proposal in January 1997, and a preliminary engineering study commenced that December. After long deliberations, agreements were made between Bechtel, the Port, TriMet, and local governments and agencies in October 1998. A part of the agreements authorized Bechtel to design and build a 5.5-mile-long (8.9 km) light rail extension to the airport in exchange for development rights to the 120-acre (48.6 ha), commercially zoned Portland International Center situated east of the airport. Bechtel later developed this property and renamed it Cascade Station. The following month, the Associated Builders and Contractors filed a petition in Multnomah County Circuit Court claiming that the contract awarded to Bechtel may have violated Oregon procurement laws. The court ruled in favor of TriMet with the judge declaring that the contract was awarded fairly.
### Funding and construction
TriMet projected the Airport MAX extension to cost \$125 million. Additional costs to purchase train sets and build related infrastructure raised this total to \$182.7 million. The project was accelerated with the establishment of a public–private partnership, which excluded FTA funding and thus eliminated a requirement for FTA approval. Under U.S. federal regulations, the Port was able to fund only the 1.2-mile (1.9 km) portion of the project located within airport property with authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). To ensure funding for the entire project, the Port divided financing into three parts. The Port assumed responsibility for the segment within its property. The next 1.4 miles (2.3 km) of track, which ran through Cascade Station, went to private funding. The final 2.9 miles (4.7 km) along I-205 was covered by TriMet, Metro, and the City of Portland.
The Port contributed \$28.3 million for construction and \$20 million for terminal and road improvements; this was drawn from a \$3 ticket fee paid by travelers. Delta Airlines, Reno Air, and United Airlines argued that the extension would serve few airline passengers and opposed the use of ticket fees, but the FAA approved it in May 1999. Cascade Station Development, a private consortium of Bechtel and real estate developer Trammell Crow, provided \$28.2 million for the project and \$13.1 million for the construction of an interchange over I-205 and Airport Way. TriMet released \$27.5 million for construction, which was funded by \$30 million in bonds, and procured six new rail cars for \$6 million each. Metro allocated \$18 million from a regional transportation fund, while \$23 million came from tax increment bonds issued by the City of Portland.
David Evans and Associates served as the prime engineer and lead designer. Much of the Airport MAX used public right-of-way owned either by the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Port, or TriMet; this avoided displacing other property owners. The project limited its impact only to parking spaces at Gateway Transit Center and along Airport Way. Bechtel began construction in June 1999 on a segment next to I-205 near the Columbia Slough. Bridgework over the freeway commenced the following December. To minimize lane closures, workers used a cast-in-place concrete pouring method to extend the bridges' spans in 16-foot (4.9 m) increments. Work progressed quickly along the freeway segment due to the existing I-205 busway alignment, which included a tunnel from Gateway Transit Center to the freeway median. Bechtel contracted track installation to Stacy and Witbeck. To meet the project's deadline, workers placed 3,200 feet (975.4 m) of rail per day; tracks from Gateway Transit Center to the bridge over southbound I-205 were laid by July 2000. Hoffman Construction built the \$8.4 million Portland International Airport station, and local architecture firm Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF) designed the station's glass-roofed shelter to complement the airport terminal's drop-off canopy, which ZGF also designed. Bechtel began the end-to-end testing of the power, trains, and signals in March 2001. TriMet took over the project that July to continue system testing and verify scheduling.
### Opening and extension to Beaverton
In 2000, TriMet named the new MAX service to the airport the "Red Line" to differentiate it from the established service between Hillsboro and Gresham, which it renamed the "Blue Line". The Airport MAX extension opened on September 10, 2001. Celebrations scheduled for September 15–16 were canceled in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, with the airport itself closed for three days due to a nationwide ground stop. Upon opening, the Red Line operated from the airport to the Library and Galleria stations in downtown Portland, where its trains turned around at the 11th Avenue loop tracks. It replaced bus route 12–Sandy Boulevard as TriMet's only service to and from the airport. C-Tran moved its bus service from Vancouver, Washington from its connection at Gateway Transit Center to Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center. Although tested during trial runs, TriMet opted to omit luggage racks from Red Line trains to maximize rider capacity. By November 2001, ridership averaged 2,300 riders and peaked at 3,800 riders a day before Thanksgiving holiday weekend. At that point, service had been using single light rail cars, but the influx of riders prompted TriMet to temporarily deploy two-car consists, which it had not planned to do until 2006.
On September 1, 2003, TriMet extended Red Line service farther west using the existing Westside MAX tracks to Beaverton Transit Center. This was done in an effort to increase capacity between Gateway Transit Center and Beaverton, and to provide a one-seat ride to the airport for westside riders. Regular use of two-car trains on the line began in September 2005, when overcrowding prompted TriMet to change most Yellow Line service from two-car consists to single cars in order to convert the Red Line to two-car trains. On March 2, 2008, three trips in each direction during the morning and evening rush hours began operating between the Hatfield Government Center and Portland International Airport stations to provide further additional capacity on the Blue Line amid growing ridership.
### Track improvements and extension to Hillsboro
In October 2017, TriMet, citing system-wide delays caused by the single-track segments along the Airport MAX, announced the MAX Red Line Improvements Project, later renamed "A Better Red". The project proposed adding a second track to existing single-track segments between Gateway Transit Center and Portland International Airport station to allow trains to pass one another. To qualify for federal funding, TriMet included extending Red Line service farther west along existing Westside MAX tracks from Beaverton Transit Center to Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station in Hillsboro and creating a one-seat option from ten existing stations to Portland International Airport. Preliminary design work began in February 2018. TriMet adopted a locally preferred alternative in April 2019 and submitted the plan to the FTA to request funding. In May 2020, the FTA announced \$99.99 million for the project through the Capital Investment Grants program. Final design was completed by engineering firm Parametrix in early 2021. The design includes two new bridges north of Gateway Transit Center to accommodate the second track and a new MAX platform called "Gateway North". TriMet received the FTA grant and broke ground on September 29, 2021.
From April 2–9, 2022, Red Line service was suspended to make way for construction, and shuttle buses operated between Gateway Transit Center and Portland International Airport. The project is expected to be completed in 2024.
From June 18 to October 21, 2023, TriMet ceased operating MAX between Gateway Transit Center and the airport.
## Route
The Red Line serves the Airport MAX extension, which is 5.5 miles (8.9 km) long. The extension begins just south of Gateway Transit Center where it branches from the Eastside MAX segment, makes a 180-degree loop, and heads north along the east side of I-205. Near Rocky Butte, it enters a tunnel beneath the northbound lanes of the freeway and emerges along the median. Just south of the Columbia Slough, the route crosses over the southbound lanes as I-205 towards Cascade Station and proceeds northwest along the south side of Cascade Parkway. It follows this road then crosses it just before Mount Hood Avenue station. The line continues northwest along the south side of Airport Way until it reaches its terminus at Portland International Airport station. Beyond the Airport MAX, Red Line trains serve parts of the Westside and Eastside MAX segments; it interlines with the Blue Line from Beaverton Transit Center to Gateway Transit Center and the Green Line from Rose Quarter Transit Center to Gateway Transit Center.
Although much of the Red Line runs along a double-track railway, two segments of the Airport MAX extension are single-tracked. The first segment starts near Gateway Transit Center and ends just north of Northeast Halsey Street. The other segment runs from south of the Northeast Airport Way and Northeast Airport Way Frontage Road intersection to just before the airport terminus. TriMet is adding a second track to both segments by 2024 as part of the A Better Red project.
### Stations
The Airport MAX extension consists of four stations; from north to south they are: Portland International Airport, Mount Hood Avenue, Cascades, and Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center. Red Line service runs from Portland International Airport station to Beaverton Transit Center, a total of 26 stations. The Red Line interlines with the Blue and Green lines along the Eastside and Westside MAX segments; it shares 22 stations, from Beaverton Transit Center to Gateway Transit Center, with the Blue Line, of which eight stations, from Rose Quarter Transit Center to Gateway Transit Center, are additionally shared with the Green Line. Transfers to the Green (beyond the interline segment), Orange, and Yellow lines, via the Pioneer Courthouse and Pioneer Place stations along the Portland Transit Mall, can be made by detraining at the Pioneer Square stations. Another transfer to the Yellow Line, via Interstate/Rose Quarter station, can be made at Rose Quarter Transit Center. The Red Line also provides connections to local and intercity bus services at various stops across the line, the Portland Streetcar at four stops within Portland's Central City, and WES Commuter Rail at Beaverton Transit Center. A Better Red will extend Red Line service to Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport station in 2024 using the existing Westside MAX alignment, as well as construct an infill station north of Gateway Transit Center called "Gateway North".
## Service
TriMet designates the Red Line as a "Frequent Service" route; its trains operate for approximately 22 hours per day with headways ranging from 30 minutes during the early mornings and late evenings to as frequently as 15 minutes for most of the day. Each day, the first train begins service at approximately 3:30 am going eastbound from Beaverton Transit Center to Portland International Airport station. Travel between the termini takes approximately 65 minutes and the first westbound service departs Portland International Airport station at approximately 4:55 am. In the evenings, select westbound trains travel beyond the line's terminus at Beaverton Transit Center to Hatfield Government Center station in Hillsboro; these trains operate as through services of the Blue Line upon arriving at Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center. The Red Line's last three trips turn into eastbound Blue Line trains at Gateway Transit Center and terminate at Ruby Junction/East 197th Avenue station. The last westbound service departs from Portland International Airport station at approximately 12:30 am and the last Red Line service, which travels eastbound, departs from Portland International Airport station at approximately 1:40 am.
On September 2, 2018, TriMet reintroduced bus service to the airport, which had been replaced by the Red Line in 2001, with the 272–PDX Night Bus. The bus route ran in the late night and early morning hours when the Red Line was not operating. It was indefinitely suspended on April 5, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
### Ridership
The Red Line averaged 10,310 riders on weekdays in September 2021. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted public transit ridership globally, the Red Line was the second-busiest service on the MAX network, having averaged 22,530 weekday riders in September 2019. In September 2002, it averaged 2,800 daily riders at the airport, ahead of TriMet's first-year projections of 2,300. The line's extension to Beaverton Transit Center in 2003 increased weekday ridership by 49 percent along the westside corridor and six percent systemwide. IKEA's opening in July 2007 helped to attract more riders to Cascade Station, which had been considered a failed planned development amid the economic recession that followed the September 11 attacks. In 2008, Cascades station recorded an eight-fold increase in traffic, from 250 passengers per week to 2,000; this number increased to 6,000 by 2010. The Red Line's yearly ridership peaked at just over nine million passengers in 2009; it has continued to fall as part of a system-wide decline attributed to crime and rising housing costs in the Portland area. From 8.2 million boardings in 2012, 7.4 million boardings were recorded in 2015.
## Explanatory notes
|
8,185,810 |
SMS Rheinland
| 1,172,955,299 |
Nassau-class battleship of the German Imperial Navy
|
[
"1908 ships",
"Maritime incidents in 1918",
"Nassau-class battleships",
"Ships built in Stettin",
"World War I battleships of Germany"
] |
SMS Rheinland was one of four Nassau-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Rheinland mounted twelve 28 cm (11 in) main guns in six twin turrets in an unusual hexagonal arrangement. The navy built Rheinland and her sister ships in response to the revolutionary British HMS Dreadnought, which had been launched in 1906. Rheinland was laid down in June 1907, launched the following year in October, and commissioned in April 1910.
Rheinland's extensive service with the High Seas Fleet during World War I included several fleet advances into the North Sea, some in support of raids against the English coast conducted by the German battlecruisers of I Scouting Group. These sorties culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in which Rheinland was heavily engaged by British destroyers in close-range night fighting.
The ship also saw duty in the Baltic Sea, as part of the support force for the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915. She returned to the Baltic as the core of an expeditionary force to aid the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, but ran aground shortly after arriving in the area. Significant portions of her armor and all her main guns had to be removed before she could be refloated. The damage done by the grounding was deemed too severe to justify repairs and Rheinland was decommissioned to be used as a barracks ship for the remainder of the war. In 1919, following the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Rheinland was ceded to the Allies who, in turn, sold the vessel to ship-breakers in the Netherlands. The ship was eventually broken up for scrap metal starting in 1920. Her bell is on display at the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden.
## Description
Design work on the Nassau class began in late 1903 in the context of the Anglo-German naval arms race; at the time, battleships of foreign navies had begun to carry increasingly heavy secondary batteries, including Italian and American ships with 20.3 cm (8 in) guns and British ships with 23.4 cm (9.2 in) guns, outclassing the previous German battleships of the Deutschland class with their 17 cm (6.7 in) secondaries. German designers initially considered ships equipped with 21 cm (8.3 in) secondary guns, but erroneous reports in early 1904 that the British Lord Nelson-class battleships would be equipped with a secondary battery of 25.4 cm (10 in) guns prompted them to consider an even more powerful ship armed with an all-big-gun armament consisting of eight 28 cm (11 in) guns. Over the next two years, the design was refined into a larger vessel with twelve of the guns, by which time Britain had launched the all-big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought.
The ship was 146.1 m (479 ft 4 in) long, 26.9 m (88 ft 3 in) wide, and had a draft of 8.9 m (29 ft 2 in). She displaced 18,873 t (18,575 long tons) with a normal load, and 20,535 t (20,211 long tons) fully laden. She retained 3-shaft triple expansion engines instead of more advanced turbine engines. Steam for the engines was provided by twelve coal-fired water-tube boilers. This type of machinery was chosen at the request of both Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and the Navy's construction department; the latter stated in 1905 that the "use of turbines in heavy warships does not recommend itself." This decision was based solely on cost: at the time, Parsons held a monopoly on steam turbines and required a 1 million gold mark royalty fee for every turbine engine. German firms were not ready to begin production of turbines on a large scale until 1910.
Rheinland carried a main battery of twelve 28 cm (11 in) SK L/45 guns in an unusual hexagonal configuration. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns and sixteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns, all of which were mounted in casemates. The ship was also armed with six 45 cm (17.7 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One tube was mounted in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside, on both ends of the torpedo bulkheads. The ship's belt armor was 300 mm (11.8 in) thick in the central citadel, and the armored deck was 80 mm (3.1 in) thick. The main battery turrets had 280 mm (11 in) thick sides, and the conning tower was protected with 400 mm (15.7 in) of armor plating.
## Commanding officers
Rheinland was initially commanded by Kapitän zur See (KzS) Albert Hopman, from her commissioning until August 1910. He was temporarily replaced by Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Bunnemann when the ship's crew was reduced to commission the battlecruiser Von der Tann in September 1910. Hopman returned to the ship later that month, and held command through September 1911. KzS Richard Engel replaced Hopman in 1911 and commanded the ship until August 1915. That month, he left the ship and KzS Heinrich Rohardt was given command of Rheinland. He served for over a year, until December 1916, when he was replaced by Korvettenkapitän Theodor von Gorrissen. Gorrissen's command lasted until September 1918; he was replaced by KzS Ernst Toussaint, who held command of the ship for less than a month. Fregattenkapitän Friedrich Berger was the ship's last commander, serving from September 1918 until the ship's decommissioning on 4 October.
## Service history
Rheinland was ordered under the provisional name Ersatz Württemberg, as a replacement for the old Sachsen-class ironclad Württemberg. She was laid down on 1 June 1907 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin. Like her sister Nassau, construction proceeded under absolute secrecy; detachments of soldiers guarded the shipyard itself, as well as contractors such as Krupp that supplied building materials. The ship was launched on 26 September 1908; at the launching ceremony the ship was christened by Queen Elisabeth of Romania and Clemens Freiherr von Schorlemer-Lieser gave a speech. Fitting-out work was completed by the end of February 1910. A dockyard crew was used for limited sea trials, which lasted from 23 February to 4 March 1910 off Swinemünde. She was then taken to Kiel, where she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 30 April 1910. More sea trials followed in the Baltic Sea.
At the conclusion of trials on 30 August 1910, Rheinland was taken to Wilhelmshaven, where a significant portion of the crew was transferred to the new battlecruiser Von der Tann. Following the autumn fleet maneuvers in September, the crew was replenished with crewmembers from the old pre-dreadnought battleship Zähringen, which was decommissioned at the same time. Rheinland was then assigned to I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. In October, the fleet went on the annual winter cruise, followed by fleet exercises in November. The ship took part in the summer cruises to Norway each August in 1911, 1913, and 1914.
### World War I
Rheinland participated in nearly all of the fleet advances throughout the war. The first such operation was conducted primarily by the battlecruisers; the ships bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. During the operation, the German battle fleet of some 12 dreadnoughts and 8 pre-dreadnoughts, which was serving as distant support for the battlecruisers, came to within 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. However, skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens convinced the German commander, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, that he was confronted with the entire Grand Fleet. He broke off the engagement and turned for home. A fleet sortie to the Dogger Bank took place on 24 April 1915. During the operation, the high-pressure cylinder of Rheinland's starboard engine failed. Repair work lasted until 23 May.
#### Battle of the Gulf of Riga
In August 1915, the German fleet attempted to clear the Russian-held Gulf of Riga in order to facilitate the capture of Riga by the German army. To do so, the German planners intended to drive off or destroy the Russian naval forces in the Gulf, which included the pre-dreadnought battleship Slava and a number of gunboats and destroyers. The German naval force would also lay a series of minefields in the northern entrance to the Gulf to prevent Russian naval reinforcements from reentering the area. The assembled German fleet included Rheinland and her three sister ships, the four Helgoland-class battleships, and the battlecruisers Von der Tann, Moltke, and Seydlitz. The force operated under the command of Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper. The eight battleships were to provide cover for the forces engaging the Russian flotilla. The first attempt on 8 August was unsuccessful, as it had taken too long to clear the Russian minefields to allow the minelayer Deutschland to lay a minefield of her own.
On 16 August 1915, a second attempt was made to enter the Gulf: Nassau and Posen, four light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats managed to breach the Russian defenses. On the first day of the assault, the German minesweeper T46 was sunk, as was the destroyer V99. The following day, Nassau and Posen engaged in an artillery duel with Slava, resulting in three hits on the Russian ship that forced her to retreat. By 19 August, the Russian minefields had been cleared and the flotilla entered the Gulf. However, reports of Allied submarines in the area prompted the Germans to call off the operation the following day. Admiral Hipper later remarked that "To keep valuable ships for a considerable time in a limited area in which enemy submarines were increasingly active, with the corresponding risk of damage and loss, was to indulge in a gamble out of all proportion to the advantage to be derived from the occupation of the Gulf before the capture of Riga from the land side."
#### Return to the North Sea
By the end of August, Rheinland and the rest of the High Seas Fleet units were back in their bases on the North Sea. The next operation conducted was a sweep into the North Sea on 11–12 September, though it ended without any action. Another sortie followed on 23–24 October during which the German fleet did not encounter any British forces. On 12 February 1916, Rheinland was sent to the dockyard for an extensive overhaul, which lasted until 19 April. Rheinland was back with the fleet in time to participate in another advance into the North Sea on 21–22 April. Another bombardment mission followed two days later; Rheinland was part of the battleship support for the I Scouting Group battlecruisers that attacked Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April. During this operation, the battlecruiser Seydlitz was damaged by a British mine and had to return to port prematurely. Visibility was poor, so the operation was quickly called off before the British fleet could intervene.
#### Battle of Jutland
Admiral Reinhard Scheer immediately planned another attack on the British coast, but the damage to Seydlitz and condenser trouble on several of the III Battle Squadron dreadnoughts delayed the plan until the end of May. The German battlefleet departed the Jade at 03:30 on 31 May. Rheinland was assigned to II Division of I Battle Squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral W. Engelhardt. Rheinland was the second ship in the division, astern of Posen and ahead of Nassau and Westfalen. II Division was the last unit of dreadnoughts in the fleet; they were followed by the elderly pre-dreadnoughts of II Battle Squadron.
Between 17:48 and 17:52, 11 German dreadnoughts, including Rheinland, engaged and opened fire on the British 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, though the range and poor visibility prevented effective fire, which was soon checked. Some ten minutes later Rheinland again opened fire on the British cruisers, targeting what was most likely HMS Southampton, though without success. By 20:15, the German fleet had faced the deployed Grand Fleet for a second time and was forced to turn away; in doing so, the order of the German line was reversed, with Rheinland third from the front, behind Westfalen and Nassau. At 21:22, crewmen aboard Rheinland and Westfalen, the two leading ships in the German line, spotted two torpedo tracks that turned out to be imaginary. The ships were then forced to slow down in order to allow the battlecruisers of I Scouting Group to pass ahead. Around 22:00, Rheinland and Westfalen observed unidentified light forces in the gathering darkness. After flashing a challenge via searchlight that was ignored, the two ships turned away to starboard in order to evade any torpedoes that might have been fired. The rest of I Battle Squadron followed them.
At about 00:30, the leading units of the German line encountered British destroyers and cruisers. A violent firefight at close range ensued; Rheinland pounded the armored cruiser HMS Black Prince with her secondary guns at a range of 2,200 to 2,600 m (2,400 to 2,800 yd). After a few minutes, Rheinland and the rest of the German battleships turned away to avoid torpedoes. At 00:36, Rheinland was hit by a pair of 6 in (15 cm) shells from Black Prince. One of the shells cut the cables to the four forward searchlights and damaged the forward funnel. The second struck the side of the ship and exploded on the forward armored transverse bulkhead. Although the bulkhead was bent inward from the explosion, it was not penetrated. About 45 minutes later, Rheinland opened fire on another destroyer, possibly Ardent, but she had to cease when a German cruiser came too close to the line of fire. At the same time, Black Prince was obliterated by accurate fire from the battleship Ostfriesland.
Despite the ferocity of the night fighting, the High Seas Fleet punched through the British destroyer forces and reached Horns Reef by 04:00 on 1 June. The German fleet reached Wilhelmshaven a few hours later, where Rheinland refueled and re-armed. Meanwhile, her three sisters stood out in the roadstead in defensive positions. Over the course of the battle, the ship had fired thirty-five 28 cm (11 in) shells and twenty-six 15 cm (5.9 in) rounds. The two hits from Black Prince had killed 10 men and wounded 20. Repair work followed immediately in Wilhelmshaven and was completed by 10 June.
#### Later actions
Another fleet advance followed on 18–22 August; the I Scouting Group battlecruisers were to bombard the coastal town of Sunderland in an attempt to draw out and destroy Beatty's battlecruisers. As only two of the four German battlecruisers were still in fighting condition, three dreadnoughts were assigned to the Scouting Group for the operation: Markgraf, Grosser Kurfürst, and the newly commissioned Bayern. Rheinland and the rest of the High Seas Fleet were to trail behind and provide cover. The British were aware of the German plans and sortied the Grand Fleet to meet them. By 14:35, Admiral Scheer had been warned of the Grand Fleet's approach and, unwilling to engage the whole of the Grand Fleet just 11 weeks after the decidedly close call at Jutland, turned his forces around and retreated to German ports.
Rheinland covered a sweep by torpedo boats into the North Sea on 25–26 September. She then participated in a fleet advance on 18–20 October. In early 1917, the ship was stationed on sentry duty in the German Bight. The crew became unruly due to poor quality food in July and August of that year. The ship did not take part directly in Operation Albion against the Russians, but remained in the western Baltic to prevent a possible incursion by the British to support their Russian ally.
#### Expedition to Finland
On 22 February 1918, Rheinland and her sister Westfalen were tasked with a mission to Finland to support German army units to be deployed there. The ship arrived in Åland on 6 March, where her commander became the Senior Naval Commander, a position he held until 10 April. On 11 April, the ship departed the Ålands for Helsinki, with the intention of proceeding to Danzig to refuel. However, she encountered heavy fog while en route and ran aground on Lagskär Island at 07:30. Two men were killed in the incident and the ship was badly damaged. Three boiler rooms were flooded and the inner hull was pierced. Refloating efforts on 18–20 April proved unsuccessful. The crew was removed temporarily, to bring the pre-dreadnought Schlesien back into service. On 8 May, a floating crane was brought in from Danzig; the main guns, some of the turret armor, and the bow and citadel armor were all removed. The ship was lightened by 6,400 t (6,300 long tons; 7,100 short tons)—more than a third of her normal displacement—and with the aid of pontoons, eventually refloated by 9 July. The ship was towed to Mariehamn where some limited repairs were effected. On 24 July the ship departed for Kiel with the assistance of two tug boats; she arrived there three days later. It was determined that repair work was impractical and instead the ship was decommissioned on 4 October and placed into service as a barracks ship in Kiel.
### Fate
Following the German collapse in November 1918, a significant portion of the High Seas Fleet was interned in Scapa Flow according to the terms of the Armistice. Rheinland and her three sisters were not among the ships listed for internment, so they remained in German ports. However, a copy of The Times informed von Reuter that the Armistice was to expire at noon on 21 June 1919, the deadline by which Germany was to have signed the peace treaty. Rear Admiral von Reuter came to the conclusion that the British intended to seize the German ships after the Armistice expired. To prevent this, he decided to scuttle his ships at the first opportunity. On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers; at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships.
As a result of the scuttling at Scapa Flow, the Allies demanded replacements for the ships that had been sunk. This included Rheinland, which was struck from the German naval list on 5 November 1919 and subsequently handed over to the Allies. The ship was sold on 28 June 1920 to ship-breakers in Dordrecht in the Netherlands, under the contract name "F". She was towed there a month later on 29 July and broken up by the end of the following year. Rheinland's bell is preserved at the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden.
|
884,570 |
Final Fantasy XII
| 1,172,770,128 |
2006 video game
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is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix. The twelfth main installment of the Final Fantasy series, it was first released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006. It introduced several innovations to the series: an open world; a seamless battle system; a controllable camera; a customizable "gambit" system, which lets the player control the artificial intelligence (AI) of characters in battle; a "license" system, which determines what abilities and equipment can be used by characters; and hunting side quests, which allows the player to find and defeat increasingly difficult monsters in the game's open world. Final Fantasy XII also includes elements from previous games in the series, such as Chocobos and Moogles.
The game takes place in Ivalice, where the empires of Archadia and Rozarria are waging an endless war. Dalmasca, a small kingdom, is caught between the warring nations. When Dalmasca is annexed by Archadia, its princess, Ashe, creates a resistance movement. During the struggle, she meets Vaan, a young adventurer who dreams of becoming a sky pirate in command of an airship. They are quickly joined by a band of allies; together, they rally against the tyranny of the Archadian Empire.
Final Fantasy XII was both a critical and commercial success, earning several Game of the Year awards and selling over six million copies on the PlayStation 2 by November 2009. In 2007, a sequel titled Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings was released for the Nintendo DS and, in that same year, an expanded version of Final Fantasy XII, titled Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System, was released on the PlayStation 2 exclusively in Japan. A high-definition remaster of the International Zodiac Job System version, The Zodiac Age, was released worldwide for the PlayStation 4 in July 2017, for Windows in February 2018, and for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in April 2019.
## Gameplay
Throughout the game, the player directly controls the on-screen character from a third-person perspective to interact with people, objects, and enemies. Unlike previous games in the series, the player can also control the camera with the right analog stick, allowing for a 360° view of the surroundings. While in towns and cities, the player may only see from the perspective of Vaan, but any character may be controlled in the field. The world of Final Fantasy XII is rendered to scale relative to the characters in it; instead of a caricature of the character roaming around miniature terrain, as found in the earlier Final Fantasy games, every area is represented proportionally. The player navigates the overworld on foot, Chocobo, or by airship. Players may save their game to a memory card using save crystals or gate crystals, and may use the latter to teleport between gate crystals. An in-game bestiary provides incidental information about the world of Final Fantasy XII.
Final Fantasy XII restructures the system of earning gil, the currency of the Final Fantasy games; instead of gil, most enemies drop "loot" which can be sold at shops. This ties into a new battle mechanic which rewards the player with improved loot for slaying a particular type of enemy multiple times in a row. Selling different types of loot also unlocks a bazaar option in shops, which provides items at a lower cost, or items exclusive to the bazaar.
### Battle system
Excluding the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII is the first entry in the main Final Fantasy series not to include random encounters. Instead, enemies are visible in the overworld and the player may choose to fight or avoid them. Battles unfold in real time using the "Active Dimension Battle" (ADB) system. Battles begin when the party comes within range of an aggressive enemy, the party attacks an enemy, or a story event initiates a confrontation. When a character or enemy begins an action, target lines connect characters to other party members or enemies; different colors represent the different types of action. The player may swap to and issue commands to any of the three characters in the party, but guest characters are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). Battle commands are initiated through a series of menus, and include Attack, Magicks, Technicks, Mist, Gambits, and Items. The player may switch any active character with an inactive character at any time, unless the active character is targeted by an attack or ability. Characters who are knocked out may also be substituted.
A new feature in the game is the "gambit" system, which allows the player to program each character to perform certain commands in battle in response to specified conditions. Using gambits, the player may set reactions to different stimuli for each character. Each gambit consists of three parts: a target, an action, and a priority. The target specifies which ally or foe to act on and the condition for applying the action. For example, the target "Ally: HP \< 70%" causes the character to target any ally whose hit points have fallen below 70%. The action is the command to be performed on the target. The priority determines which gambit to perform when multiple gambits are triggered. These heuristics guide the characters when acting autonomously, though player-directed commands are always given top priority.
In Final Fantasy XII, a mysterious phenomenon known as "Mist" is the key energy which allows characters to cast summoning magic and perform "Quickenings". After defeating an Esper in combat, the player will be able to summon it to the battlefield. Similar to Final Fantasy X, the summoned creatures become active participants in battle, as opposed to the cinematic attacks seen in previous games in the series. Unlike X, however, Espers follow hidden gambits, rather than the player's direct command. The summoner remains an active member in the fight, able to attack and cast support magic, instead of leaving the party or standing idle while the summoned creature fights. An Esper will leave the battle if either the summoner or itself is knocked out, its time limit expires, or it executes its special attack. Some Espers have origins in Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Advance and others are derived from the final bosses of previous Final Fantasy games such as Chaos, the final boss of the first Final Fantasy, and Zeromus, the final boss of Final Fantasy IV.
Final Fantasy XII introduces "Quickenings", a new Limit Break system unique compared to those in previous games in the series. Characters learn Quickenings by progressing to specific panels on the License Board. Each character can learn three Quickenings, which are unique to that character. Characters may string together Quickenings into large combo attacks, called Mist Chains, via timed button presses. If a Mist Chain reaches a certain length, a final strike will be initiated at the end of the Quickening cycle, called a Concurrence.
### Growth system
As in many role-playing games (RPGs), characters "level up" each time they earn a set number of experience points from defeating enemies; each level gained increases the character's statistics and improves performance in battle. Statistics include hit points, the amount of damage a character can receive; strength, the power of the character's physical attacks; and magic, the potency of the character's magical spells.
In addition to leveling up, players may improve their characters via the License Board. The License Board is an array of panels that contain "licenses" which allow a character to perform certain actions. The board is split into two parts; the upper part comprises Magick, Technick, Accessory, and Augment (stat increases and other permanent buffs) licenses, and the bottom part comprises mostly Weapon and Armor licenses. To use a Magick, Technick, or piece of equipment, the character must obtain its corresponding license by spending the required amount of LP (License Points). LP are earned in battle along with the experience points. Like the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X, all characters may obtain all licenses on the board, but each Quickening and Esper license may only be activated by a single character.
## Plot
### Setting
Final Fantasy XII is set within the land of Ivalice during an age when "magic was commonplace" and "airships plied the skies, crowding out the heavens". At this time, magicite, a magic-rich mineral, is commonly used in magic spells and in powering airships—a popular form of transportation in Ivalice. Ivalice is divided into three continents: Ordalia, Valendia, and Kerwon. Ordalia is located in the western part of Ivalice. The Rozarrian Empire makes its home in the vast inland plains of this continent as the eastern portion of it is largely desert and "jagd"—lawless regions so rich in Mist, the ethereal manifestation of magicite, that airships cannot function. Valendia is the home of Imperial Archadia, where lush highlands dot the landscape. Central to the story is Dalmasca, a small kingdom between the two continents and empires. Located in the middle of the Galtean Peninsula of Ordalia, Dalmasca is surrounded by an expanse of desert. The temperate climate of Dalmasca differs from the cold environs of Kerwon to the south and the lush plains of Valendia and Ordalia. During this time, Ivalice is beset by the pending war between the forces of Rozarria and Archadia. Caught between the two powerful Empires, Dalmasca and a number of smaller nations have already been subjugated by Archadia two years before the game begins.
### Characters
The six main playable characters in Final Fantasy XII are Vaan (Bobby Edner/Kouhei Takeda), an energetic orphan of Rabanastre who dreams of becoming a sky pirate; Ashe (Kari Wahlgren/Mie Sonozaki), a determined princess of Dalmasca who lost her father and her husband in the Archadian invasion; Basch (Keith Ferguson/Rikiya Koyama), a disgraced knight of Dalmasca charged with treason for slaying the king; Balthier (Gideon Emery/Hiroaki Hirata), a gentlemanly sky pirate who pilots his airship, the Strahl; Fran (Nicole Fantl/Rika Fukami), Balthier's partner and a Viera exile whose knowledge extends to legends and myths; and Penelo (Catherine Taber/Marina Kozawa), Vaan's childhood friend who accompanies him on journeys to "keep an eye on him".
The Archadian Empire is ruled by House Solidor, headed by Emperor Gramis (Roger L. Jackson/Hidekatsu Shibata). The emperor's sons are Vayne (Elijah Alexander/Nobuo Tobita) and Larsa (Johnny McKeown/Yuka Imai), the former a military genius and the game's main antagonist, and the latter a charismatic seeker of peace. Judge Magisters, upholders of Archadian law, protect House Solidor and execute every command issued by the ruling family. The technological marvels of airships and synthetic nethicite—a form of magicite that absorbs Mist—are thanks to Doctor Cid (John Rafter Lee/Chikao Ōtsuka), a prominent researcher from Archadia. The Resistance against Archadia includes Dalmascan knight Vossler (Nolan North/Masaki Terasoma), an ally of Basch; Marquis Halim Ondore IV (Tom Kane/Akio Nojima), the game's narrator and ruler of the skycity Bhujerba; Reddas (Phil LaMarr/Takayuki Sugo), a sky pirate based in the port at Balfonheim; and the Rozarrian Empire, of which Al-Cid Margrace (David Rasner/Norio Wakamoto) is a prince of the ruling family. The mythos of Final Fantasy XII revolves around a character known as Dynast-King Raithwall, a man who once united Ivalice to create the Galtean Alliance in ages past.
### Story
In Dalmasca's capital city of Rabanastre, Princess Ashelia (Ashe) of Dalmasca and Prince Rasler of Nabradia have just wed, as the Archadian Empire invades the two countries. Rasler is killed in the war, the city of Nabudis is destroyed in a single explosion, and the Dalmascan King Raminas is assassinated moments after signing a treaty of surrender. Marquis Ondore announces that the assassin was Dalmascan captain Basch, who has been sentenced to death, and that Princess Ashe has committed suicide.
Two years later, Vaan, a Rabanastre street urchin, ignores his friend Penelo's objections and infiltrates the palace during a dinner celebrating the appointment of Archadian prince Vayne Solidor as consul. In the treasury he finds a piece of magicite, a powerful magical crystal. He is discovered by Balthier and Fran, a pair of sky pirates looking for the magicite. The three escape as Dalmascan Resistance forces assault the palace, and in the sewers they meet the Resistance leader, Amalia, before being captured by Archadian forces. In the dungeons they meet Basch, who was imprisoned but not killed, and who states his twin brother Gabranth was the one to kill the king. The four then escape together back to Rabanastre. There they discover Penelo has been kidnapped and taken to the floating city of Bhujerba.
In Bhujerba, they meet Lamont, a curious boy who is Vayne's younger brother, Larsa, in disguise. After they rescue Penelo, Basch confronts the Marquis over his lies, but the party is captured and detained aboard the Archadian airship Leviathan, headed by Judge Ghis. On the Leviathan, the party is reunited with Amalia, who is revealed to be Princess Ashe. Ghis takes the magicite, which is revealed to be a royal Dalmascan artifact, "deifacted nethicite". The party escapes, but as Ashe had planned to use the magicite as proof that she was the princess, the group journeys to collect another of the pieces of nethicite, the Dawn Shard. They are again captured by Ghis; when he tries to use the Dawn Shard in the Leviathan rather than the "manufacted" (artificially made) magicite it normally uses, his entire airship fleet is destroyed in a mirror of the destruction of Nabudis, and the party flees again.
They encounter Larsa, who seeks a peace treaty between Dalmasca and the empire. The group and Larsa go to Mt. Bur-Omisace to seek the Gran Kiltias Anastasis, Ivalice's religious leader, and beg his approval of Ashe as queen of Dalmasca. There they also meet Al-Cid Margrace, who is in talks with Larsa to avert a war between Rozarria and Archadia. Their plans are curtailed when Anastasis is killed by Archadia, and soon afterwards the Archadian emperor Gramis dies and Vayne ascends the throne.
The party journeys to Archadia, where they discover Doctor Cid, the creator of manufacted magicite, who directs them to go to Giruvegan to find the source of nethicite. In Giruvegan, Ashe encounters the makers of nethicite, the immortal Occuria, who "pull the strings of history"; they give her the Treaty Blade to cut new pieces from the Sun-cryst, the source of all nethicite and its power. She learns that Venat, one of the Occuria, has defected to put the "reins of History back in the hands of Man", manipulating Vayne in his quest to conquer Ivalice and leading Cid to create manufacted magicite to reduce the relative power of the Occuria.
Ashe and the party journey to the Sun-cryst, where she decides not to take her revenge by following the Occuria's wishes, but instead destroy the Sun-cryst. The party defeats Gabranth, who reveals that he killed King Raminas, and destroys the crystal. Al-Cid tells them that the Dalmascan Resistance, led by Ondore, is about to fight Archadia in Rabanastre, but the Archadian forces now include the Sky Fortress Bahamut. They infiltrate the Bahamut, and find Larsa failing to dissuade his brother Vayne from his plans for war. They defeat Vayne and Venat, and Ashe and Larsa announce the end of the conflict to the battlefield. Larsa becomes the Archadian emperor and Ashe the Queen of Dalmasca; Basch replaces his brother Gabranth as Larsa's protector; Vaan and Penelo fly an airship to meet Balthier and Fran for another adventure.
## Development
Development for Final Fantasy XII began in December 2000 and was headed by Final Fantasy Tactics director Yasumi Matsuno and Final Fantasy IX director Hiroyuki Ito. Matsuno provided the original concept and plot but was forced to bow out a year before release due to health concerns. The team was restructured as a consequence: the new directorial duo consisted of Ito and Hiroshi Minagawa, while Akitoshi Kawazu of SaGa series fame became the game's executive producer. Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was disappointed by Matsuno's departure and declined to play the game beyond its introduction.
The desire to move away from random encounters was present since the beginning of development. This desire fueled the development of the Active Dimension Battle system so players could seamlessly move from battle to exploration. The gambit system was conceived early on as a way to facilitate this change. Battle system designer Hiroshi Tomomatsu said that it gradually moved away from a complex and rigid formula to the more flexible form seen in the final version of the game. Ito drew inspiration for gambits from plays in American football where each team member has a specific job to do based on the conditions and desired outcome. As for the license system, he explained that needing "licenses" to perform certain actions was a natural extension of the rigid structured society of Archadia, as epitomized by its Judges.
At the early stages of development, Minagawa revealed that numerous ideas and features were planned for the game, but were dropped from the final stages due to certain constraints and hardware limitations. Some of these included the ability for a second player to join in the gameplay, enabling a two-player mode. Another idea that was given a considerable amount of thought was the ability to recruit non-player characters to join in the mob hunts. Due to the technical limitations of the console and multiple number of characters joining the fray, the development phase took longer than expected, causing delays.
Design inspiration came from a mix of medieval Mediterranean countries as demonstrated by the architectural styles found throughout Ivalice along with many of the races populating the region. The art team, led by art directors Hideo Minaba and Isamu Kamikokuryō, visited Turkey, which influenced the game's Mediterranean-style setting. The developers also used styles and deco from other sources including areas in India and New York City. Of note is the use of Sanskrit in the city of Bhujerba. Phrases such as "svagatam" (welcome) and titles like "parijanah" (guide) are lifted directly from Sanskrit. Minaba mentions that the team tried to bring out Arabic culture in the design of the game. War is a prominent theme of the game and the developers stated that the cutscene battles are influenced by Ancient Rome. When asked to comment on the fan observation of Star Wars similarities, Minaba replied that although he was a fan of the series, it was not necessarily an influence to the game's designs. It has also been noted that the similarities originate from The Hidden Fortress, the 1958 Akira Kurosawa film that inspired Star Wars.
The developers initially planned to return to the "big-headed" character designs of previous Final Fantasy games, but settled on similar proportions as characters in Vagrant Story, the team's previous game, as development progressed. Basch was the first character designed and the developers considered him the "hero" of the story at the time. Vaan and Penelo were added last and became the heroes in the final version of the plot. The developers were motivated by the commercial failure of Vagrant Story, which featured a "strong man in his prime" as the protagonist, and switched the focus to a younger protagonist as a result. Vaan's early designs were described as effeminate, but with the casting of Kouhei Takeda as his voice and motion capture actor, Vaan became less feminine and more "active, upbeat, bright and positive". Comments were made about the similarity between character designer Akihiko Yoshida's creations and those of Tetsuya Nomura, another Square Enix character designer. Yoshida felt this comparison was sparked by the choice of color used by both artists, which was based on maintaining consistent color between the characters and the environments. Non-human characters and races play a prominent role in the game, which was influenced by an interest in history among the developers.
Miwa Shoda wrote a storyline for the game premised on the basis of the cutscenes and world setting that had already been finished when she joined the team. Scenario writer Daisuke Watanabe in turn fleshed out Shoda's plot into a script. During the English localization process, Alexander O. Smith, who had previously worked on Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy X, acted as producer and translator. While still preserving the meaning behind the Japanese script, Smith made the decision to use different dialects of English to reproduce the regional differences in pronunciation found in the Japanese version. He also tried to distance the game from the "flat reads" found in other dubbed work by casting voice actors who had experience in theatre work. In terms of general changes, the localization team introduced widescreen 16:9 ratio support and reinserted scenes that were left out of the original Japanese version for political reasons and to preserve an "All Ages" CERO rating.
A playable demo of the game was shipped with the North American release of Dragon Quest VIII in November 2005. To commemorate the release of Final Fantasy XII, playable demos of the English version were available at DigitalLife's Gaming Pavilion in New York City on October 11, 2006, a day dubbed "Final Fantasy XII Gamer's Day". Additionally, Square Enix gave fans the chance to cosplay as characters from XII. Each person was asked to show Square Enix three photos of his or her costume for a chance to win a trip to New York and participate in the Final Fantasy XII Gamer's Day event.
Final Fantasy XII once held the Guinness World Record for longest development period in a video game production, with a total of five years, spanning from 2001 until its release in 2006. At a Final Fantasy XII "postmortem" at MIT in March 2009, Hiroshi Minagawa mentioned that several years of production were devoted to the creation of custom tools used for the development of the game. It was also listed as 8th on the Guinness top 50 games of all time in 2009.
### Music
Hitoshi Sakimoto composed and arranged most of the game's soundtrack, with Hayato Matsuo and Masaharu Iwata creating seven and two tracks respectively. Nobuo Uematsu, following his departure from Square Enix in 2004, only contributed the ending song, "Kiss Me Good-Bye". Sakimoto experienced difficulty following in Uematsu's footsteps, but he decided to create a unique soundtrack in his own way. "Kiss Me Good-Bye" was performed in both English and Japanese by Angela Aki. Aki's style of playing the keyboard while singing reminded Uematsu of his childhood idol, Elton John, which was one of the reasons he chose her. The English version of the song was featured in both the Japanese and North American versions of the game. In addition to the theme song, violinist Taro Hakase co-composed, arranged, and performed the game's ending credits theme, Symphonic Poem "Hope", along with Yuji Toriyama.
Two promotional soundtracks were released before the original soundtrack, Symphonic Poem "Hope" and The Best of the Final Fantasy XII Soundtrack, on March 1 and 15, 2006, respectively. The former contains all the music used in the game's trailer performed by Taro Hakase, including Symphonic Poem "Hope". The original soundtrack itself was released two months later in Japan on May 31. It consists of 4 CDs with 100 tracks, and includes promotional tracks not in the final version of the game. The CD single for "Kiss Me Good-Bye" was released on the March 15, 2006. A limited edition was also released, featuring a DVD containing the music video for "Kiss Me Good-Bye". Tofu Records has released an abridged version of the original soundtrack, which contains 31 songs, including "Kiss Me Good-Bye".
## Merchandise
On March 16, 2006, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan released a special Final Fantasy XII package, which contained a PlayStation 2 game system, the Final Fantasy XII game, a standard DualShock controller, and a vertical console stand. The Japanese third-party manufacturer Hori also released Final Fantasy XII memory cards on the day of the game's release; stickers of Final Fantasy XII characters are included. Game peripheral maker Logicool (Logitech's Japanese branch) released a special edition Final Fantasy XII controller on the same day. Suntory produced "Final Fantasy XII Potion"—a drink containing such ingredients as royal jelly, chamomile, sage, thyme, and marjoram. The drinks became commercially available in Japan on March 7. Suntory also released a Final Fantasy XII Premium Box, which came with a Final Fantasy XII collector's card. The Potion was a limited edition product and is no longer available. Final Fantasy XII was also adapted into a manga by Gin Amou. Square Enix published the series in a total of five tankōbon volumes from December 22, 2006, to August 22, 2009.
Studio BentStuff published three Ultimania books in 2006: Final Fantasy XII Battle Ultimania and the Final Fantasy XII Scenario Ultimania on June 16, and Final Fantasy XII Ultimania Ω on November 24. The Battle Ultimania provides a description and analysis of the new battle system and its components, and developer interviews. The Scenario Ultimania describes the main scenarios in the game, profiles on the characters and areas in Ivalice, developer interviews, and details on each location. The last guide, the Ultimania Ω, includes voice actor interviews, the complete story of Final Fantasy XII including additional character profiles, a collection of artworks and illustrations, the complete play guide, and a novella written by Benny Matsuyama, author of Hoshi wo Meguru Otome from the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Ω Guide. Another Ultimania edition, the Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System Ultimania, was released on September 6, 2007, as a guide book for the International Zodiac version of the game. The game was re-released as part of the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box Japanese package in December 2012.
For the North American release, a "Collector's Edition" was available through GameStop and EB Games. This edition includes the original game packaged in a metallic case along with a special bonus disc, which contains Final Fantasy XII developer interviews, an art gallery, U.S. and Japanese trailers, and a featurette, "History of Final Fantasy", which gives a brief overview of Final Fantasy games. On January 26, 2007, Square Enix Product Blog revealed full-color Gabranth, Ashe, Balthier, and Vaan figures.
In 2007, Balthier was featured in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions as a playable character.
## Reception
Final Fantasy XII received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was the sixth game to receive a perfect score from the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. It is also the second Yasumi Matsuno game to garner a perfect score, the first being Vagrant Story. The game was praised for its graphics, scenarios, game system, and the freshness it brought to the Final Fantasy series. It was praised for its seamless transitions between full motion video segments and the in-game engine, and was voted number one for Best Art Style on IGN's weekly Top Ten. Newtype USA named Final Fantasy XII its "Game of the Month" for November 2006, praised the gameplay, graphics, and story, and called it "the best RPG to have been released for any Sony platform".
Although GameSpot lauded the gambit and license systems as an innovative and in-depth way for the player to control the characters, it criticized them for being too complicated and difficult to adjust to, especially for newer players of the series. The reviewer also criticized the sometimes tedious back and forth travel. On the other hand, GameSpot took particular note of the "excellent" voice cast. IGN praised the game's rich storyline and artistic direction, shown through its "sheer depth of character". It also assuaged criticism that the gambit system would "let the game play itself", countering that gambits do not function without a player. However, IGN wrote that while "still extremely strong", Final Fantasy XII has one of the series' weaker soundtracks.
Executive producer Akitoshi Kawazu was pleased by Famitsu's rating but admitted that he thought the game was not perfect; he felt that the storyline did not meet some fans' expectations. Kawazu expressed his frustration and regrets regarding the storyline, citing creative differences between the PlayOnline and Final Fantasy Tactics members of the development team.
Final Fantasy XII was named best PlayStation 2 game and best RPG by numerous video game journals and websites, including GameSpot, GameSpy and IGN. Both Edge and Famitsu awarded it Game of the Year 2006. The Japan Game Awards 2006 honored Final Fantasy XII with their "Grand Award" and "Award for Excellence" and the PlayStation Awards 2006 bestowed the "Double Platinum Prize". It was selected for the list "Top 100 New Japanese Styles", a list of "products and services originating in Japan to serve as a mark of excellence". Final Fantasy XII also received nominations in such categories as best RPG, story, art direction, character design and original musical score at the Interactive Achievement Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, BAFTA Video Games Awards, Spike Video Game Awards, and the Satellite Awards.
### Sales
Final Fantasy XII sold more than 1,764,000 copies in its first week in Japan, almost equaling the sales of Final Fantasy X in its first week. A Square Enix conference report stated that Final Fantasy XII sold more than 2.38 million copies in Japan in the two weeks since its March 16, 2006, release. In North America, Final Fantasy XII shipped approximately 1.5 million copies in its first week. It was the fourth best-selling PlayStation 2 game of 2006 worldwide. As of March 2007, the game had shipped over 5.2 million copies worldwide. By November 2009, over 6 million copies of the game were sold worldwide on PlayStation 2. As of October 2017, the PlayStation 4 remaster shipped over one million copies worldwide.
## Sequels and re-releases
### International Zodiac Job System
An expanded version of the game, Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System, was released in Japan on August 10, 2007. It includes twelve license boards (instead of the original game's one), each corresponding to a different Zodiac sign and job. The player can control guest characters and summons, and hold L1 to double the game's running speed. There is also a "New Game+" option, a "New Game- (minus)" option (in which characters do not gain experience), and a "Trial Mode" in which the player hunts monsters in 100 different maps to gain items and money. The game also includes the western version's English voices and widescreen 16:9 support, and a bonus DVD.
### Revenant Wings
A sequel, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, was released for the Nintendo DS in 2007. It takes place one year after the events of Final Fantasy XII and follows the adventures of Vaan. The game is one of four in the Ivalice Alliance series, which also includes International Zodiac Job System.
### Fortress
Fortress, an action game developed by Grin, was to have been a spin-off game that took place following the events of Revenant Wings. Square Enix cancelled the project after six months of development.
### The Zodiac Age
In July 2017, Square Enix released Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, a high-definition remaster of the Japanese-only International Zodiac Job System for the PlayStation 4. It adds trophy support, a remastered soundtrack with a few new tracks, and improved technical performance. The Zodiac Age was nominated for "Best Remake/Remaster" at IGN'''s Best of 2017 Awards, and won "Best Remaster" at Game Informer's Best of 2017 Awards and 2017 RPG of the Year Awards. The remaster also received favorable reviews. The Zodiac Age was largely developed by Virtuos, who previously developed Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster for Square Enix.
A version for Windows was released via Steam on February 1, 2018. The port included support for higher display resolutions and 60 frames-per-second rendering, options to switch between three different versions of the soundtrack, and immediate access to the post-game modes. Versions for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One were released on April 30, 2019.
## Legacy
The gambit system inspired similar systems used in other games such as Dragon Age: Origins and Pillars of Eternity II. Final Fantasy XIV also used the gambit system as a base for its "Trust System", a mechanic that pairs online players with story characters controlled by artificial intelligence. The game also incorporated several regions and characters from Final Fantasy XII into its game world, alongside other games from the Ivalice universe with Yasumi Matsuno as a guest creator. Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, the translation director of Final Fantasy XIV indicated in an interview that the team have a lot of people who worked on Final Fantasy XII and "is one of the games they wanted to borrow heavily from because they thought it was really cool, and they really liked the imagery and lore that it had". Astria Ascending used its job system seen in later re-releases as a source of inspiration for its gameplay system. The Diofield Chronicle used the game as one source of inspiration for its controls and player movement. The localization of Final Fantasy XII was praised as a high point of the series and video games as a whole. Lead localizers Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder went on to collaborate again on Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune, the remake of a previous Yasumi Matsuno game, with its localization also receiving high praise. Producers of The Zodiac Age'' said that they were considering another game set in the Ivalice universe, adding that earlier projects faded away due to original development members working on other games.
|
11,172,696 |
Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment
| 1,173,131,994 |
American Revolutionary War military unit
|
[
"1776 establishments in Maryland",
"Military units and formations of the Continental Army"
] |
The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, most commonly known as Rawlings' Regiment in period documents, was organized in June 1776 as a specialized light infantry unit of riflemen in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The American rifle units complemented the predominant, musket-equipped, line infantry forces of the war with their long-range marksmanship capability and were typically deployed with the line infantry as forward skirmishers and flanking elements. Scouting, escort, and outpost duties were also routine. The rifle units' battle formation was not nearly as structured as that of the line infantry units, which employed short-range massed firing in ordered linear formations. The riflemen could therefore respond with more adaptability to changing battle conditions.
The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment consisted of nine companies—four from Maryland and five from Virginia. The two-state composition of the new unit precluded it from being managed through a single state government, and it was therefore directly responsible to national authority as an Extra Continental regiment.
Because most of the newly formed regiment surrendered to British and German forces at the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, the service history of the unit's surviving element is complex. Although modern and contemporaneous accounts of the battle convey the impression that it marked the end of the regiment as a combat entity, a significant portion of the unit continued to serve actively in the Continental Army throughout most of the remainder of the war. Elements of the regiment served with George Washington's Main Army and participated in the army's major engagements of late 1776 through 1778. Select members of the regiment were also attached to Col. Daniel Morgan's elite Provisional Rifle Corps at its inception in mid-1777. The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was reorganized in January 1779 and was stationed at Fort Pitt, headquarters of the Continental Army's Western Department, in present-day western Pennsylvania primarily to help in the defense of frontier settlements from raids by British-allied Indian tribes. The unit was disbanded with all other Additional and Extra Continental regiments during the reorganization of the Continental Army in January 1781. It was the longest serving Continental Army rifle unit of the war.
## Organization
During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress directed the organization of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment in resolves dated June 17 and 27, 1776. The unit comprised three of the four independent Continental rifle companies that had formed in Maryland and Virginia by decree of Congress in mid-1775, and six new companies—two from Maryland and four from Virginia. The three 1775 companies, among the first of the colonial units to join the newly constituted Continental Army, were raised and initially commanded by Capts. Michael Cresap, Thomas Price, and Hugh Stephenson. The nine-company force became a regiment on the same tables of organization as the 1st Continental Regiment, which was originally the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment. Unlike this Pennsylvania unit, however, the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was an Extra Continental regiment because of its two-state composition. It was not part of a state line organization but was instead directly accountable to national authority (Congress and the Continental Army). The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment's field officers were drawn from the original three 1775 companies based on their seniority. Hugh Stephenson from Virginia became the colonel, and Marylanders Moses Rawlings of Cresap's company and Otho Holland Williams of Price's company were designated the lieutenant colonel and major, respectively. All company officers were appointed in the summer of 1776, and subsequent recruiting for the unit in the two states extended to the end of the year. Recruiting occurred in Frederick and Harford Counties, Maryland, and Berkeley, Frederick, Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, and Culpeper Counties, Virginia. The enlisted men of the regiment served for three years or the duration of the war.
## Battle of Fort Washington and surviving elements
By early November 1776, the majority of the regiment's officers and enlisted men had joined Washington's Main Army while it was engaged in the battle for New York City during the New York and New Jersey campaign. They were initially stationed at Fort Washington on Manhattan Island and nearby Fort Lee on the opposite side of the Hudson River. On November 16, most of the regiment was captured or killed during the Battle of Fort Washington. The riflemen were defending the northern end of the American position from a much larger force of several thousand Hessian troops. After heavy fighting that lasted most of the day and during which the Hessians suffered many casualties, the riflemen were eventually driven from the outer works into the fort where they and the rest of the outnumbered American garrison surrendered to the combined British and German attack force. Lieutenant Colonel Rawlings was commanding the regiment during the battle because Colonel Stephenson had died of illness in August or September and had not been replaced. About 140 of the regiment's officers and enlisted men—one-third of the unit's total complement of about 420 men—were not present at the battle, however, because they were still completing organization and recruiting. A few enlisted men of the regiment who escaped from their captors within the short chaotic period following the battle augmented this remaining active force, which continued to serve with the Main Army. On December 1, the first day of the army's next regular reporting period following the fall of Fort Washington, Washington provisionally grouped these remnants of the diminished regiment into two composite rifle companies commanded by the unit's highest ranking officers still free—Capts. Alexander Lawson Smith and Gabriel Long. Smith's company comprised all the remaining Marylanders in the regiment, whereas the Virginians of the unit were placed under Long's command.
The regiment's two composite companies served with the Main Army during its retreat across New Jersey in late 1776, in the ensuing Battles of Trenton and Princeton in Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer's Brigade, and in the early 1777 skirmishing in northern New Jersey, a period termed the Forage War. While in winter quarters at Morristown during the winter and spring of 1777, the two-company force and other riflemen from Pennsylvania and Virginia Line regiments supported detached elements of line infantry units in front-line positions and conducted patrols in northern New Jersey, primarily to keep the enemy's aggressive foraging activities in check. Because the two units under Captains Smith and Long provided an experienced, if small, force, Washington also used them to bolster the new 11th Virginia Regiment commanded by Col. Daniel Morgan after its arrival at Morristown in early April by formally attaching them to this Virginia regiment. Washington's decision to join the two composite companies with the 11th Virginia Regiment was based on Morgan's earlier direct association with the original three independent Continental rifle companies of 1775 that formed the core element of Rawlings' regiment. Inasmuch as the attachment of one military unit to another was technically a temporary arrangement, however, the permanent unit of Smith's and Long's composite companies remained the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment. The first muster rolls of the two companies taken after the Battle of Fort Washington, both dated May 16, 1777, were compiled by the army staff as a result of the attachment process and show that the units comprised about 110 officers and enlisted men on active duty in the spring of 1777. The rolls also document that the units had lost a number of men over the winter months following the battle, primarily through desertion and a few deaths due to illness or wounds.
## Attachment to Morgan's Provisional Rifle Corps
The success of these rifle units during the skirmishing period, coupled with the arrival of large numbers of new army recruits, led Washington to create additional provisional rifle companies. He placed them under the command of Daniel Morgan in early June 1777, calling the unit the Provisional Rifle Corps, although it was most commonly known as Morgan's Rifle Corps in period documents. Morgan then simultaneously led the 11th Virginia Regiment, his permanent unit, and this provisional unit. Thirty-five officers and enlisted men in Smith's and Long's composite companies, as well as others selected from their regular musket regiments, were detached from their permanent units to form this elite regiment-sized force. The men from the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment all served in one of the Rifle Corps' eight companies, Capt. Gabriel Long's Provisional Rifle Company; with the exception of a single man, all other members of the company came from the 11th Virginia Regiment. Like Morgan, Long was now technically in command of two Continental Army units, one permanent and one provisional. Long served in the Rifle Corps until his resignation in May 1779, at which time command of his company passed to Marylander Lt. Elijah Evans, also one of the original officers of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment. Evans returned to Rawlings' regiment, his permanent unit, when his detached duty in the Rifle Corps ended with its formal disbanding in early November 1779. The Rifle Corps is most notable for the major role it played in the Battles of Saratoga.
Most members of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, however, were not chosen for the Rifle Corps and remained with the Main Army. The Marylanders in Smith's composite company served with the 11th Virginia Regiment in the 3rd Virginia Brigade at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, as well as at the Battle of Monmouth after they were administratively attached to the 4th Maryland Regiment of the 2nd Maryland Brigade at the end of the 1777 campaign season. The Virginians in Long's composite company remained attached to the 11th Virginia Regiment and fought at the same engagements in 1777 and 1778. Lt. (later Capt.) Philip Slaughter was the acting commander of the company during Long's nearly two-year attachment to the Rifle Corps and its permanent commander after Long's resignation.
## Fort Frederick and reorganization
Soon after Lt. Col. Moses Rawlings, a Marylander, was exchanged from British captivity in late December 1777 or January 1778, the Board of War, at the request of the Maryland state government, assigned him command of the prisoner-of-war camp at Fort Frederick, Maryland, and its state militia guard. The elements of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment in the field continued to be led by the company commanders until recruiting could bring the regiment up to greater strength. Maj. Otho Holland Williams, exchanged on January 16, 1778 (likely with Rawlings), had been promoted to colonel of the 6th Maryland Regiment in December 1776 while a prisoner of war; he took command of this unit upon his release. The position of major in the reduced Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was never refilled.
In the late spring of 1778, Rawlings began marshaling his regiment, including returning prisoners of war and new recruits, to reestablish its full complement. His efforts met with only limited success, however, despite Washington's request to Maryland governor Thomas Johnson in late December 1777 in anticipation of Rawlings' imminent exchange "that the most early and vigorous measures will be adopted, not only to make [Rawlings'] Regiment more respectable, but compleat [sic]." Moreover, in early October 1778 Congress permitted Rawlings and his officers to recruit outside Maryland, with each new enlistee being officially entitled to the enlistment bonus and clothing allowance of his own state's line organization. Implementation of this unusual ruling, however, added few men to the unit, reflecting the Continental Army's increasing difficulty in recruiting by this time of the war. The few existing recruiting records for the unit indicate that by the end of 1778, Rawlings' force of Continental regulars at Fort Frederick probably included no more than 30 to 40 new enlistees.
Washington initiated more definitive measures to strengthen the regiment in early 1779. At his request, Congress authorized on January 23 the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment to be reorganized into three companies, recruited to full strength, and reassigned from Fort Frederick to Fort Pitt, headquarters of the Continental Army's Western Department. The reorganization, which was implemented on March 21, served to supplement forces engaged in the defense of frontier settlements of present-day western Pennsylvania and vicinity from Indian raids that had started in early 1777. In mid-1778, after more than a year of these attacks, largely by warriors of British-allied Iroquois tribes and Loyalist forces, Washington commenced a concerted effort to neutralize the threat to the backcountry settlements of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—the war's western front. In support of the reorganization process, on February 16, 1779, Washington ordered that all the regiment's detached members in the Main Army be reincorporated into the unit. Pursuant to Washington's order, the enlisted men in Smith's composite company who were attached to the 4th Maryland Regiment rejoined Rawlings' command. In contrast, the Virginians of Long's composite company already had been all but formally incorporated into the 11th Virginia Regiment by order of the Virginia state government in February 1777. (Because Long's unit was a component of an Extra Continental regiment and therefore had no administrative connection to an individual state, the Virginia state government had exceeded its authority in this action, which was technically only within the purview of Congress. Washington tacitly accepted the arrangement, but the process was probably not formalized until the reorganization and redesignation of the 11th Virginia Regiment as the 7th Virginia Regiment on May 12, 1779.) Moreover, the enlisted men of Smith's and Long's companies who were still attached to the Provisional Rifle Corps, which was not part of the Main Army at this time, remained in that unit until mid-1779, at which time they left the service because their three-year enlistment periods had expired. Rawlings' force therefore now consisted of almost all Marylanders and was variously identified as the "Maryland Corps," "Maryland Rifle Corps," and "Maryland Independent Corps" during its service on the western frontier. The unit, however, remained outside the state line organization, a source of great frustration for its officers. Because no unit-redesignation orders accompanied the reorganization orders, the unit's formal name remained the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment despite significant variations from the unit's original 1776 configuration.
## Fort Pitt and the Western Department
After recruitment of the three companies had been no more than partially completed, Rawlings' regiment set off for Fort Pitt, arriving there in late May 1779. The three companies consisted of about 100 enlisted men, well below the prescribed total of about 60 enlisted men per company in a Continental Army line infantry regiment in 1779. Moreover, a month after its arrival, the unit lost almost half of its troop strength because the three-year enlistment periods of those men who had joined the regiment during its organization in mid-1776 had terminated. To further complicate matters, Rawlings resigned his command of the regiment on June 2, primarily because of his frustration over not being able to fully rebuild the unit, and did not accompany his men. He remained the commandant of Fort Frederick and subsequently served as Deputy Commissary of Prisoners for Maryland. Capt. Alexander Lawson Smith also did not proceed to Fort Pitt with the riflemen. He likely stayed with the 4th Maryland Regiment of the Main Army in a continued attached capacity until Congress approved his resignation from "the regiment formerly Rawlins [sic]" in September 1780. The regiment was now commanded by senior captain Thomas Beall and later Capt. Adamson Tannehill, both of whom had been with the unit since its inception.
The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment complemented the existing garrison at Fort Pitt: the 8th Pennsylvania and 9th (formerly 13th) Virginia Regiments. The men of these Pennsylvania and Virginia line infantry units had been recruited from the central and western frontier counties of the two states and were assigned to the army's Western Department while at Valley Forge, reflecting a clear logic on Washington's part. With the arrival of Rawlings' regiment, Western Department commander Col. Daniel Brodhead now led a force of largely frontier raised men experienced in Indian-style woodlands warfare. In his most notable tactical achievement, Brodhead headed a campaign of about 600 of his Continental regulars, which included the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, local militia, and volunteers to the upper waters of the Allegheny River in August and September 1779, where they destroyed the villages and crops of hostile Mingo and Munsee Indians. Brodhead's expedition was part of Washington's wide-ranging, coordinated offensive of the summer of 1779 that also included the larger, concurrent Sullivan Campaign led by Maj. Gen. John Sullivan and Brig. Gen. James Clinton against enemy Iroquois and Loyalist units in southern and western New York State. From mid-1779 until late 1780, however, the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was primarily deployed in detachments to support line infantry contingents at several of the frontier outposts in the general vicinity of Fort Pitt, including Fort Laurens, Fort McIntosh, and Fort Henry (Wheeling) in what is now eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northernmost West Virginia, respectively.
Change in command of the regiment occurred for the third time in late 1780. Under continual pressure to maintain sufficient troop strength in the unit, regimental commander Capt. Thomas Beall ran afoul of army regulations and Western Department commander Brodhead by approving the enlistment of a British prisoner of war in February 1780. Beall tried to rectify his lapse in judgment by discharging the recruit, although after he had already been given his recruitment bounty and service clothes. On August 14, 1780, at Fort Pitt, Captain Beall was tried by court-martial, found guilty of "discharging a Soldier after having been duly inlisted [sic] and receiving his regimental cloathing [sic] through private and interested views thereby defrauding the United States," and on October 13, was dismissed from the service. Capt. Adamson Tannehill succeeded Beall as commander of the regiment for the remaining few months of the unit's existence.
## Disbanding
On November 1, 1780, Washington issued orders approved by Congress that specified plans for the comprehensive reorganization of the Continental Army effective January 1, 1781. All Additional and Extra Continental regiments, such as the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, that had not been annexed to a state line organization were disbanded by that date. The much-diminished unit comprised only 2 officers and 50 enlisted men in late December 1780. The officers received discharges on January 1, 1781, and the enlisted men of the unit were transferred to the Maryland Line. Relocation of the men from their remote post at Fort Pitt to their new assignments, however, was not completed until November 1781, at least in part because their officers were not present to supervise the process.
The lineage of the regiment's Virginia elements is carried on by the 201st Field Artillery Regiment (United States).
|
2,284,877 |
Tumbler Ridge
| 1,170,025,074 | null |
[
"1981 establishments in British Columbia",
"Coal mining regions in Canada",
"District municipalities in British Columbia",
"Mining communities in British Columbia",
"Populated places established in 1981",
"Populated places in the Peace River Regional District"
] |
Tumbler Ridge is a district municipality in the foothills of the B.C. Rockies in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Peace River Regional District. With a population of 2,399 (2021) living in a townsite, the municipality encompasses an area of 1,558 km<sup>2</sup> (602 sq mi) of mostly Crown land. The townsite is located near the confluence of the Murray River and Flatbed Creek and the intersection of Highway 52 and Highway 29 and includes the site of the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and Tumbler Ridge Airport. It is part of the Peace River South provincial electoral district and the Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies federal riding.
Tumbler Ridge is a planned community with the housing and infrastructure construct built simultaneously in 1981 by the provincial government to service the coal industry as part of the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation's Northeast Coal Development. In 1981, a consortium of Japanese steel mills agreed to purchase 100 million tonnes of coal over 15 years for US\$7.5 billion from two mining companies, Denison Mines Inc. and the Teck Corporation, who were to operate the Quintette mine and the Bullmoose mine respectively. Declining global coal prices after 1981, and weakening Asian markets in the late 1990s, made the town's future uncertain and kept it from achieving its projected population of 10,000 people. The uncertainty dissuaded investment and kept the economy from diversifying. When price reductions were forced onto the mines, the Quintette mine was closed in 2000 production and the town lost about half its population. Coal prices began to rise after the turn of the century, leading to the opening of the Peace River Coal Trend mine by Northern Energy & Mining Inc. (now owned by Anglo American Met Coal) and the Wolverine Mine, originally owned by Western Canadian Coal, which was purchased by Walter Energy in 2010. Walter went bankrupt in 2015, and their Canadian assets—including the Wolverine Mine—were purchased by Conuma Coal in 2016.
After dinosaur footprints and fossils were discovered in the municipality, along with fossils of Triassic fishes and Cretaceous plants, the Peace Region Paleontology Research Center opened in 2003, followed by a dinosaur museum. The study of the area led to a recognition of its geological importance and listing in the UNESCO Global Geopark Network. Nearby recreational destinations include numerous trails, mountains, waterfalls, snowmobiling areas and provincial parks, such as Monkman Provincial Park, Bearhole Lake Provincial Park, and Gwillim Lake Provincial Park.
## History
Archaeological evidence show a human presence dating back 3,000 years. The nomadic Sekani, followed by the Dunneza and then the Cree, periodically lived in temporary settlements around the future municipality. Formal exploratory and surveying expeditions were conducted by S. Prescott Fay, with Robert Cross and Fred Brewster in 1914, J.C. Gwillim in 1919, Edmund Spieker in 1920, and John Holzworth in 1923. Spieker coined the name Tumbler Ridge, referring to the mountains northwest of the future town, by altering Gwillim's map that named them Tumbler Range. Permanent settlers were squatters, five families by 1920, who maintained trap lines. In the 1950s and 1960s, oil and natural gas exploration and logging was conducted through the area, and 15 significant coal deposits were discovered. Coal prices rose after the 1973 oil crisis leading to 40 government studies examining the viability of accessing the coal, given the 1,130 km (700 mi) to the nearest port and the mountainous barrier.
With these coal deposits in mind, a purchasing agreement was signed in 1981 by two Canadian mining companies, a consortium of Japanese steel mills, and the governments of British Columbia and Canada. As part of the deal, the provincial government committed, under the North East Coal Development plan, to build a new town near the deposits, two highways off Highway 97, a power line from the W. A. C. Bennett Dam at Hudson's Hope, and a branch rail line through the Rocky Mountains. An alternative of using work camps staffed by people from Dawson Creek and Chetwynd was also considered. Massive initial investments were required as planning for the new town began in 1976 with the objective of having a fully functioning town ready before residents arrived.
The community's 1977 conceptual plan estimated a population of 3,568 residents in 1981, 7,940 in 1985, and 10,584 in 1987, after which the level was expected to stabilize. The planners of the community advised the mining companies to hire workers who were married, believing they would live in Tumbler Ridge longer and reduce employment turnover. Coordinated through the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the community, regional infrastructure, and mining plants were all built simultaneously. When the municipality was incorporated in April 1981 the area was completely forested. During that year building sites and roadways were cleared and in the winter the water and sewer system was built. In 1982, houses and other buildings were constructed. Full production at the mines was reached the following year. The population rose to 3,833 people in 1984. The 1986 Canadian census, the first census to recognize Tumbler Ridge as a census subdivision, recorded 4,566 residents.
In 1984, world coal prices were dropping and the Japanese consortium requested a reduction in the price of coal from the Tumbler Ridge mines. As price reduction requests continued, the concern over the viability of the mines led the BC Assessment Authority to lower the 1987 property assessments for the Quintette mine from CAD\$156 million to \$89 million and the Bullmoose mine \$70 million to \$43 million. This lowered their taxes as they tried to enforce the purchasing agreement at the Supreme Court of Canada. Their 1990 ruling required the Quintette Operations Company to reduce coal prices and reimburse the Japanese consortium \$4.6 million. The company responded by reducing production, cutting employment, and applying for court protection from creditors. This allowed Teck to acquire 50% interest and take over management of the Quintette mine, but it was unable to stop further job losses. Tumbler Ridge’s population, which had peaked in 1991 at 4,794 people, began to decline.
As most residents left town, apartment blocks were closed and the mine companies bought back all but 11 houses in the town. After 30% of the workforce had been laid off, new contracts with the Japanese consortium were signed in 1997, allowing re-hirings to begin, but with lower export levels. The North East Coal Development was projected to create a net benefit of CAD\$0.9 billion (2000), but incurred a net loss of \$2.8 billion and half the expected regional employment.
The population declined as many residents were unable to find other work in the town, even as a sawmill for specialty woods opened in 1999. After Teck closed the Quintette mine in August 2000 and shifted production to the lower cost Bullmoose mine, the municipal council established the Tumbler Ridge Revitalization Task Force to investigate ways to boost and diversify the economy. The Task Force negotiated the return of the housing stock from the mines to the free market, grants from the province to become debt-free, and stabilized funds from the province for healthcare and education. The discovery of dinosaur tracks in 2000 by two local boys while playing near a creek, led to major fossil and bone discoveries from the Cretaceous Period. To survey and study the finds, government funding was secured to found both the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation and Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre. Tumbler Ridge' population was recorded as 1,932 people in 2001.
The community went through a second boom-and-bust cycle beginning in 2004 with the increase in world coal prices. Western Canadian Coal opened new open-pit mining operations creating the Brule (Dillon) mine using some of the Bullmoose mining infrastructure, between the townsite and Chetwynd, and the Wolverine mine. These mines were purchased by Walter Energy in 2010, but world coal prices began to drop again in 2011 and in April 2014, Walter put their Canadian operations into care and maintenance, laying off nearly 700 people. Similarly, Anglo American placed their Trend mine in care and maintenance in 2015. These second generation coal mines were not as dominant in town affairs as Quinette and Bullmoose were such that, while as of 2016 there were no operating coal mines, the town had achieved some success in other activities, such as wind power, forestry and tourism. Most significantly, the area around Tumbler Ridge was listed as North America's second UNESCO Global Geoparks promoting its geological significance.
On June 8, 2023, the community of Tumbler Ridge was evacuated due to the 2023 Canadian wildfires.
## Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Tumbler Ridge had a population of 2,399 living in 1,093 of its 1,551 total private dwellings, a change of 20.7% from its 2016 population of 1,987. With a land area of 1,557.41 km<sup>2</sup> (601.32 sq mi), it had a population density of in 2021.
The 2016 Canadian Census reported Tumbler Ridge's median age increased from 38.8 years in 2001 to 39.4 in 2016. In 2006, of those over 15 years of age, 62% were married, higher than the 54% provincial average. Reflecting the nature of the industrial jobs available in town, in 2001, only 12% of residents between 20 and 64 years of age completed university, half of the provincial average, and 26% did not complete high school, much higher than the 19% provincial average.
As of the 2021 Census, the municipality is 78% European, 14% Indigenous, 3% Filipino, 2% Black and 2% Chinese.
### Religion
According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Tumbler Ridge included:
- Irreligion (1,430 persons or 59.7%)
- Christianity (935 persons or 39.0%)
- Other (25 persons or 1.0%)
## Geography and climate
The townsite is located on a series of southern-facing gravel terraces on a ridge of Mount Bergeron, overlooking the confluence of the Murray and Wolverine Rivers. The site, above the floodplain of the Murray River, has well-drained soils with easy access to aquifers with potable water. The rocks, mostly shale and mudstone but lacking quartzite, make the mountains less rugged than their neighbouring ranges. The terraces grow Lodgepole Pine, White Spruce, Trembling Aspen trees. Moose and elk are common. Escarpments to the east and north could pose a snow avalanche threat but are kept forested for stability. In 2006, the town was evacuated for several days as four forest fires approached the town.
Major coal deposits indicate the site was a swampy forest during the Cretaceous. Paleontologists have discovered tracks or fossils from ankylosauria, ornithopods (including a Hadrosaurus), and theropods. Fossils of Cretaceous plants such as ferns, redwoods, cycads, and ginkgo, and Triassic fishes and reptiles such as coelacanths, Weigeltisaurus, and ichthyosaurs have been recovered.
The town experiences a continental climate. Arctic air masses move predominantly southwest from the Mackenzie Valley towards the Rocky Mountains and through the mountains north of town. The town is in a rain shadow behind Mount Bergeron, though much of the precipitation is lost in the mountains beforehand. Town planners laid out the roads so that they run along wind breaks, and buildings and parks are located in wind shadows.
After examining other resource towns in Canada, the planners followed socio-spatial guidelines and principles in physical planning. The coal mining facilities were well separated from the townsite to minimize the feeling of a company town. An attempt to mitigate potential lifestyle conflicts between families and childless households was made by separating the low-density, single-family dwellings from the low-rise apartments. The apartment blocks were planned for areas with clusters of trees and excellent viewscapes, but close to the town plaza. The low-density residences that were more likely to have children living in them were oriented around elementary schools and parks. Cul-de-sacs were avoided in favour of better linkages and pedestrian access.
## Infrastructure and services
Two highways diverge from Highway 97 and intersect in Tumbler Ridge: Highway 52 (Heritage Highway) which runs 98 km (61 mi) south at Arras, and Highway 29 which runs 90 km (56 mi) southeast from Chetwynd. At the intersection Highway 29 ends but Highway 52 continues south past Tumbler Ridge, then unpaved, it runs northeast to Highway 2 near the Alberta border. In town, the 28 km (17 mi) of paved roads are laid out in a curvilinear pattern that use two arterial roads, MacKenzie Way and Monkman Way, to connect each section of town. Service roads from the townsite to the mines and forestry areas are maintained by the industries but are unpaved.
The unmanned Tumbler Ridge Airport, with its 1,219 m (4,000 ft) asphalt runway, is used by chartered and local flights. The closest airports with regularly scheduled flights are in Dawson Creek, Fort St John and Grande Prairie. The rail line into town is a 132 km (82 mi) formerly electrified branch line through the Rocky Mountains constructed by BC Rail to transport coal to the Ridley Terminal at the Port of Prince Rupert. The branch line includes two major tunnels: the 9 km (6 mi) Table Tunnel and the 6 km (4 mi) Wolverine Tunnel.
Fire rescue services are provided by the town's own 16-member composite fire department. Police services are provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which maintains a five officer detachment within the municipality. BCEHS maintains an on-call ambulance service as well as a Community Paramedicine Program. Tumbler Ridge Search and Rescue provide backcountry emergency response to the surrounding areas around Tumbler Ridge. The town operates a water treatment system and sewage disposal system. Drinking water is drawn from two drilled wells south of the townsite where it is stored in a 7 million litre reservoir before being chlorinated and pumped into town. The storm sewers empty into the Murray River, but the sanitary sewage is processed through a lagoon system and released into the Murray River north of town. Both the town and the province, through the Northern Health Authority, operate the Tumbler Ridge Community Health Centre. The closest hospitals with over-night beds are in Chetwynd and Dawson Creek. The two public schools, Tumbler Ridge Elementary School and Tumbler Ridge Secondary School are run by the School District 59 Peace River South. Post-secondary courses, programs, and industry training are offered by Northern Lights College at the secondary school and community centre.
## Economy
Tumbler Ridge was built to provide a labour force for the coal mining industry, which has remained the dominant employer throughout the town's history. The mining companies had a contract to sell 100 million tons of coal to a consortium of Japanese steel mills over 15 years for US\$7.5 billion (1981). The Quintette Operating Corporation (QOC) was formed by partnership between Denison Mines (50%), Mitsui Mining (20%), Tokyo Boeki (20%), and other smaller firms, and began blasting at the Quintette mine in October 1982. The Bullmoose Operating Corporation was formed by the Teck Corporation (51%), Lornex (39%), and Nissho Iwai (10%) and worked the smaller Bullmoose mine. The economic viability of the mining companies were in question since the world coal prices began falling in the early 1980s and the Japanese consortium requested reduced prices. After the Supreme Court ruled that the coal prices must be reduced, the QOC filed for court protection from its creditors allowing the Teck Corporation to take over management in 1992. By 1996, even as lay-offs continued, over half the town's labour force were employed at one of the two mines. New contracts with the Japanese consortium, signed 1997, moved production to the lower cost Bullmoose mine but guaranteed production until 2003 when that mine was expected to be exhausted. The Quintette mine was closed altogether on August 31, 2000. Since then, three other coal mines opened but were unprofitable: Walter Energy's Willow Creek, Brule and Wolverine mines. HD Mining International pursued opening another coal mine, the Murray River project, but encountered labour challenges.
While there was an intent by the town's planners to move to a more diversified economy, the few initiatives in this direction were not supported by the industries or local decision-makers. Uncertainty about the town's future had been a serious concern to residents since the 1984 price reduction demands, but it was not until the closure of the Quintette mine that the town pursued diversification initiatives, such as tourism (attractions from dinosaur fossil discoveries, outdoor recreation, and nearby provincial parks), forestry, and oil and gas exploration.
## Culture, recreation and media
After dinosaur trackways were discovered in 2000, and bones in 2002, the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation began excavations and opened the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre. Fossils and bones are displayed at both locations. Tours and educational programs related to dinosaur, the trackways, and the wilderness are offered. In Fall 2014 Tumbler Ridge was designated a full member of UNESCO's Global Geopark Network. Comprising 7,822 km<sup>2</sup>, the geopark highlights the geological heritage of the area such as Cretaceous dinosaur tracks and bone bed and fossils of Triassic fishes and marine reptiles.
Tumbler Ridge's location among the Rocky Mountains has allowed for the development of numerous trail systems for motorized and non-motorized recreation. The trails and open areas span numerous mountains. Kinuseo Falls along the Murray River in the Monkman Provincial Park is the most popular destination for visitors to Tumbler Ridge. Two other provincial parks are just outside the municipal boundaries: Bearhole Lake Provincial Park and Gwillim Lake Provincial Park.
Annual events held in Tumbler Ridge include the Grizfest Music Festival and the Emperor's Challenge. The Emperor's Challenge is a 21 km (13 mi) half marathon up Roman Mountain that has been held in August since 1998. The Grizfest Music Festival (formerly Grizzly Valley Days) is a two-day event held on the August or September long weekend that includes a concert, parade, displays and other community-wide events.
Tumbler Ridge has one newspaper published in the community, the locally owned and operated Tumbler Ridgelines. It started after the publisher of the Tumbler Ridge News (formerly Community Connections) died in 2017. The Tumbler Ridge Observer formerly covered the town and was published by the Peace River Block Daily News in Dawson Creek. No radio station, or television station broadcasts from the town but there are local repeaters for stations from larger centres.
## Government and politics
The District of Tumbler Ridge's council-manager form of municipal government is headed by a mayor (who also represents Tumbler Ridge on the Peace River Regional District's governing board) and a six-member council; these positions are subject to at-large elections every four years. Keith Bertrand was elected mayor on October 21, 2018, succeeding one-term mayors Don McPherson (2014-2018), Darwin Wren (2011-2014) and Larry White (2008-2011), who had all succeeded long-time mayor Mike Caisley. Residents of the District also elect one school trustee to School District 59.
For representation in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Tumbler Ridge is part of the Peace River South electoral district which has been represented by Mike Bernier of the BC Liberal Party since 2013. Prior to Bernier, the riding was represented by Blair Lekstrom who was elected in the 2001 provincial election, with 72% support from the town's polls and re-elected in 2005 with 64% and in 2009 with 70% support. Before Lekstrom, Peace River South was represented by Jack Weisgerber as a member of the Social Credit Party of British Columbia (1986–1994) and Reform Party of British Columbia (1994–2001). In 1996, as leader of the Reform Party, Weisgerber won re-election despite the Tumbler Ridge polls placing him second to the New Democratic Party candidate.
Federally, Tumbler Ridge is in the Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies riding, represented in the House of Commons of Canada by Conservative Party Member of Parliament Bob Zimmer. Before Zimmer, who was elected in May 2011, the riding was represented by Jay Hill since 1993. The riding was represented by Frank Oberle of the Progressive Conservative Party from 1972 to 1993. Oberle served as Canada's Minister of Science and Technology in 1985 and Minister of Forestry in 1989.
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1,547,570 |
Kwinana Freeway
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Freeway in Perth, Western Australia
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[
"Articles containing video clips",
"Highway 1 (Australia)",
"Highways and freeways in Perth, Western Australia"
] |
The Kwinana Freeway is a 72-kilometre (45 mi) freeway in and beyond the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking central Perth with Mandurah to the south. It is the central section of State Route 2, which continues north as Mitchell Freeway to Clarkson, and south as Forrest Highway towards Bunbury. A 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) section between Canning and Leach highways is also part of National Route 1. Along its route are interchanges with several major roads, including Roe Highway and Mandjoogoordap Drive. The northern terminus of the Kwinana Freeway is at the Narrows Bridge, which crosses the Swan River, and the southern terminus is at Pinjarra Road, east of Mandurah.
Planning for the Kwinana Freeway began in the 1950s, and the first segment in South Perth was constructed between 1956 and 1959. The route has been progressively widened and extended south since then. During the 1980s, the freeway was extended to South Street in Murdoch, and in June 2001, it reached Safety Bay Road in Baldivis. The final extension began as the New Perth Bunbury Highway project, constructed between December 2006 and September 2009. In early 2009, the section north of Pinjarra Road was named as part of the Kwinana Freeway, with the remainder named Forrest Highway. The freeway has been adapted to cater for public transport, with the introduction of bus priority measures in 1987, and the 2007 opening of the Mandurah railway line, constructed in the freeway median strip.
## Route description
The Kwinana Freeway is the central section of State Route 2. It commences at the northern end of the Narrows Bridge, Perth, continuing south from the Mitchell Freeway, and terminates at the Pinjarra Road interchange at Barragup, where it then transitions to Forrest Highway. All intersections with the freeway are grade separated. Route access is controlled and the speed limit is 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph) north of South Terrace, increasing to 100 kilometres per hour (60 mph) north of Safety Bay Road, while south of the road route access is uncontrolled, though it remains a state route and the speed limit becomes 110 kilometres per hour (70 mph). From Perth to Mill Point Road, the freeway has five lanes northbound and six lanes southbound, including a bus lane in the southbound direction only. South of Mill Point Road to Roe Highway/Murdoch Drive the freeway is three lanes southbound and four lanes northbound with no hard shoulder north of Canning Highway reducing to three lanes south of Canning without any bus lanes except for bus-only ramps at the Canning Bridge interchange. At the Roe Highway interchange, an extra lane is added, providing four lanes in both directions until the following Berrigan Drive interchange. After passing under Berrigan Drive's underpass the main freeway becomes three lanes in both directions again with collector-distributor lanes forming. The lanes handle traffic using the southern ramps on Berrigan Drive, the northern ramps on Beeliar Drive and provide access to the Armadale Road/North Lake Road/ Cockburn Central railway station access interchange. Three lanes reduce to two lanes in each direction at Russell Road/Gibbs Road, which remains until the terminus at Pinjarra Road. The median strip of the freeway north of The Spectacles also houses the Mandurah railway line. A shared pedestrian and bicycle path is built alongside all of the freeway since the area around Cranford Avenue was upgraded in 2022. The northbound section of Kwinana Freeway north of Roe Highway, since 2020, is a smart freeway system, with ramp signalling north of Roe Highway, variable speed limits north of Cranford Avenue, and hard shoulder running north of Canning Highway.
Main Roads Western Australia monitors traffic volume across the state's road network, including many locations along the Kwinana Freeway. The busiest section is at the northern end, on the Narrows Bridge, which averaged over 93,000 vehicles per weekday in 1979. This increased to over 135,000 in 1988/89, 156,000 in 1998/99, and 160,000 in 2007/08. The volume generally declines as the freeway travels south, with the fewest vehicles recorded near the southern end. There were fewer than 46,000 vehicles per weekday near the Canning Highway terminus in 1978, while in 1998/89 there were under 45,000 north of South Street. For 1998/99 there were fewer than 27,000 vehicles per weekday north of Thomas Road, and during 2007/08 fewer than 38,000 were recorded between Mundijong Road and Safety Bay Road. As of 2013, the Kwinana Freeway is one of the most congested commuter routes in Perth, during peak traffic periods. The average speed when driving north from Cockburn Central was measured as less than 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph) during the morning peak. The slowest section was from South Street to Canning Highway, with an average travel speed of 24 kilometres per hour (15 mph). During the afternoon peak, the worst segment was southbound between Manning Road and Leach Highway, with a 31 kilometres per hour (19 mph) average speed.
### Swan and Canning Rivers
The Kwinana Freeway begins at the Narrows Bridge, and travels south from The Narrows alongside the Swan and Canning Rivers. South of the bridge is a northbound exit to Mill Point Road, whilst the southbound exit and both entrance ramps to the freeway are located a further 600 metres (2,000 ft) south. To the east of the freeway are residential homes in South Perth and Como, as well as the Royal Perth Golf Club. There is a southbound exit to South Terrace which provides access to the local area. Public access to the Swan River's foreshore is available via footbridges that cross the freeway.
The first major interchange is with Canning Highway. National Route 1 is allocated to Canning Highway to the east, and to the Kwinana Freeway to the south of the interchange. The design is a diamond interchange, with additional bus-only ramps connecting to the median lanes of the freeway. The Canning Bridge bus and railway transfer station is located at the interchange. A partial Y interchange with Manning Road, consisting of a northbound entrance ramp and southbound entrance and exit ramp, is located 400 metres (1,300 ft) south of Canning Highway. These ramps merge with the ramps on the south side of the Canning Highway interchange, allowing access between the highway and Manning Road. The Kwinana Freeway continues south, with the suburbs of Manning and Salter Point to the east, and Canning River to its west. The freeway passes by Aquinas College, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) south of Manning Road, and reaches the Mount Henry Peninsula after another 600 metres (2,000 ft).
The 660-metre-long (2,170 ft) Mount Henry Bridge carries the freeway across the Canning River, from Salter Point to Mount Pleasant. The freeway travels through the suburb for 450 metres (1,480 ft) to Cranford Avenue, a half-diamond interchange with northbound entrance and southbound exit ramps. The Kwinana Freeway continues south for another 600 metres (2,000 ft) through Brentwood to Leach Highway.
### Southern suburbs of Perth
Through the southern suburbs of Perth, the Kwinana Freeway travels south as the boundary between various suburbs. The Leach Highway interchange houses the Bull Creek train and bus interchange station, and the Murdoch Station is co-located with the South Street interchange, 2.2 kilometres (1.4 mi) further south. Halfway between these interchanges, Parry Avenue crosses the freeway via an overpass, connecting the suburbs of Bateman and Bull Creek. Beyond South Street, the land east of the Kwinana Freeway, in the suburb of Leeming, continues to be residential, whilst to the west the freeway passes by educational and health care facilities in Murdoch. Challenger TAFE, Murdoch University, St John of God Murdoch Hospital, and Fiona Stanley Hospital are adjacent to the freeway, though there is no direct access. The next interchange, after 1.4 kilometres (0.87 mi), is with Farrington Road, which marks the southern edge of Murdoch. This is a half-diamond interchange that only serves traffic travelling to or from areas further north.
A free-flowing combination interchange, 800 metres (2,600 ft) south of Farrington Road, connects the Kwinana Freeway to Roe Highway and Murdoch Drive. The interchange is situated between four suburbs: Leeming, (north-east), North Lake (north-west), Bibra Lake, (south-west), and Jandakot. Roe Highway is part of State Route 3, Perth's ring route, and is a major controlled-access link to Perth's north-east while Murdoch Drive provides an alternative southern access option to the aforementioned educational and health care facilities in Murdoch. Full movements are allowed for Roe Highway while Murdoch Drive only allows access for traffic travelling to and from areas further south (South Street and Farrington Road already cover the northern movements). There have been long-standing but controversial plans to extend Roe Highway west to Hamilton Hill, which would necessitate upgrading the interchange further. Following Roe Highway, the freeway continues its journey south, between the residential areas of South Lake and Jandakot. Houses east of the freeway surround the Glen Iris Public Golf Course.
`After 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) there is a diamond interchange with Berrigan Drive. Here collector-distributor lanes form on both sides of the freeway, which now passes lower density lots in Cockburn Central and the industrial section of Jandakot. The freeway reaches the next interchange after 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi), a north-facing half-diamond interchange connecting with Armadale Road to the east and North Lake Road to the west. After a further 600 metres (2,000 ft) the full-diamond interchange with Beeliar Drive is reached, whereupon the collector-distributor lanes merge back into the freeway. The Cockburn Central train station is located in the freeway median, 300 metres (980 ft) north of the interchange. The freeway continues travelling south through the developing outer metropolitan suburbs of Atwell and Aubin Grove, east of the freeway, and Success and Hammond Park, west of the freeway. Here it connects to Russell Road and Gibbs Road via a diamond interchange after 3.3 kilometres (2.1 mi) (with Aubin Grove train station located 250 metres (820 ft) north in the freeway median), and to Rowley Road after a further 2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi).`
### South of Rowley Road
South of the Rowley Road diamond interchange, development is sparse, except in Bertram, southwest of the Thomas Road interchange. The freeway progresses through swampy rural land for 3.4 kilometres (2.1 mi), passing by Lake Balmanup in Wandi on its way to the diamond interchange at Anketell Road. The Kwinana Freeway continues south along the edge of Jandakot Regional Park, near to The Spectacles Wetlands, reaching Thomas Road after another 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi). The Mandurah rail line deviates from the freeway median 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of the interchange, thereafter travelling south-west towards Rockingham. From Thomas Road to the next interchange at Mortimer Road, 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) further south, the land to the west of the freeway in Bertram has been developed into a residential area. After the latter interchange, development again becomes sparse, as the freeway travels south near swampland and bodies of water, including Folly Pool and Maramanup Pool. The next interchanges are with Mundijong Road after 4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi), Safety Bay Road after another 3.9 kilometres (2.4 mi), and Karnup Road following a further 5.2 kilometres (3.2 mi). There is a pocket of newly developed urban land near Safety Bay Road, south of the freeway.
South of Karnup Road, the following two interchanges are constructed as dogbone interchanges, which use roundabouts instead of traffic lights to control the intersections between ramps. The Kwinana Freeway follows the Serpentine River southwards, with no interchanges for 7.4 kilometres (4.6 mi). At this point, there is an interchange with Paganoni Road to the west and Vine Road to the east. After 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) the freeway leaves the Perth Metropolitan Region, and encounters the next interchange with Lymon Road and Mandjoogoordap Drive. Lymon Road provides access to Stake Hill, although Mandjoogoordap Drive is not a controlled access route into Mandurah. Following this interchange, the freeway turns south-east, where it encounters a diamond interchange with Lakes Road after 4.6 kilometres (2.9 mi). The freeway ends 7.6 kilometres (4.7 mi) further south, at the Pinjarra Road folded diamond interchange in Ravenswood. The road, and State Route 2, continue south as Forrest Highway towards Bunbury.
## History
The Kwinana Freeway began as a proposed controlled-access road to link the Narrows Bridge in Perth with the developing area of the City of Kwinana. Planning began in 1954, after the concept had been announced by Acting Premier John Tonkin on 24 July 1953. The original route travelled through South Perth to Canning Highway, and included a new bridge over the Canning River. The planned route was later adjusted so that it crossed the river further south, due to the expected traffic volume, and difficulties in construction and traffic management at the existing Canning River Bridge.
### Initial construction
In 1956, the Government of Western Australia decided to construct the first section of the freeway, between the Narrows Bridge and Canning Highway. An extension was planned to be constructed seven years later. This first stage was built alongside the Swan River, on the edge of South Perth. Undeveloped land was used where possible, and the edge of the river was filled in at various points. Access to the river was maintained via five pedestrian bridges over the freeway, leading to the existing Como Beach and Jetty, and new areas on the river foreshore created during the project. A significant change to the foreshore was the relocation of the South of Perth Yacht Club. In 1960, the club moved from the Canning River's eastern shore, at Olives Reserve in Como, to Coffee Point in , on the western shore. The termination of the Kwinana Freeway at Canning Highway meant that the highway would be part of the main link between Perth and Kwinana, along with the freeway and Stock Road. Therefore, Canning Highway was upgraded to a dual carriageway. The upgrade works included the construction of a new bridge across the Canning River, next to the existing bridge, built in 1938. This allowed for six lanes of traffic on Canning Highway. Construction of this stage was completed in 1959, before the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in 1971. In 1974, this first section was described by the EPA as "environmental desecration". This was primarily due to the public being denied access to the foreshore environment. Pedestrian overpasses were described as ineffective for "obvious physical [and] psychological reasons", and the impact on the riverfront was described as a "blight which has descended there".
### First extension
The first major work on the freeway after it opened was the construction of a new interchange in South Perth in the 1970s. The interchange included a complicated bridge design, which began at Judd Street, crossed over the freeway, and curved down to join the northbound carriageway. The \$2.7 million interchange was opened on 13 December 1976 by the minister for works, Ray O'Connor. This was followed by a southern extension, which would be constructed alongside the environmentally sensitive area surrounding Canning River. Preparation work included an extensive study on the effects on the environment and community, the most detailed to be undertaken in Western Australia thus far. The EPA recommended abandoning the concept of a freeway, for both the existing road and the first extension, to restore accessibility to the foreshore. The Main Roads Department disagreed that a lower standard at-grade road would be sufficient, as large volumes of traffic were forecast, and any pedestrian access would be "extremely dangerous". Main Roads contended that a grade separated road would be the safest and most efficient option for both pedestrian and vehicles. A botanical report on the extension found that no unique species or ecological unit would be under threat from the proposal, and the Swan River Conservation Board had no objections. The extension was then approved by the State Government in 1974, and by the Federal Government in 1975.
As part of the extension project, construction began in 1976 on the Canning Interchange at Canning Highway. This interchange included a flyover bridge from Manning Road, which utilised a curved design similar to the South Perth Interchange bridge. The Canning Interchange opened on 19 July 1979. Construction works south of the interchange began in 1979. The freeway was initially planned to terminate at Leach Highway, but was extended as far as South Street, at the request of the Melville City Council. The council wanted the extra length of freeway to alleviate congestion on its local roads, and contributed \$600,000 to expedite the construction. This stage included construction of the Mount Henry Bridge across the Canning River. As of 1997, it is Western Australia's longest bridge, at a length of 660 metres (720 yd). The 6.5-kilometre (4.0 mi), \$35.8 million extension was opened on 9 May 1982 by Ray O'Connor, then Premier of Western Australia. Additional works undertaken to prepare for the opening included widening the existing stretch of freeway to three lanes in each direction, and reconfiguring the Narrows Bridge to include an additional central lane, reversible during peak traffic flows.
### Further extensions
For the next stage of the freeway, an extension south to Thomas Road, multiple routes were investigated. The preferred route was selected based on the least impact from a combination of engineering, social, and environmental factors. The environmental factors considered were conservation areas associated with Thompsons Lake, west of the alignment, three "good quality" wetlands along the alignment, as well as patches of vegetation that were considered "nothing special". The conservation of these areas and associated vegetation was considered desirable. This extension was completed in two stages. The first was a 7.1-kilometre (4.4 mi) extension to Forrest Road, which opened on 12 December 1991, at a cost of \$36.7 million. Subsequently, the freeway was extended a further 11.7 kilometres (7.3 mi) to Thomas Road. Main Roads looked for opportunities to improve the environment during the planning of this segment. These included the establishment of a protected strip of vegetation alongside the freeway, and the preservation or enhancement of remnant wetlands under threat from urban expansion. The main negative impacts of construction would be controlled through vegetation reinstatement and drainage management plans, as well as the use of "standard techniques" for preventing pollution, which was recognised as a severe environmental impact. The proposed route had the least environmental consequences compared with viable alternatives, and was the Department of Environment and Conservation's preferred route. The impact on wetlands was further investigated by the EPA in 1992. The EPA estimated that 50 hectares (120 acres) of wetland habitat would be lost, including 20 hectares (49 acres) with conservation status. The EPA's report concluded that the alignment was not ideal from an environmental standpoint, but recognised the social importance of constructing the freeway, which would facilitate development of the area. The authority was satisfied that the project's environmental repercussions could be managed, with the key recommendation of replacing the function of impacted wetlands. This \$31 million section had three at-grade traffic light controlled intersections, which were designed to be replaced by grade separated interchanges. Intersections were used to avoid delaying the extension, as Main Roads Western Australia considered the \$30 million cost for interchanges to be prohibitively expensive. The extension opened on 11 September 1994; the Town of Kwinana contributed \$1 million, per an agreement on completing the freeway prior to 1995.
In 1988, the State Planning Commission proposed defining a reservation for the extension of the Kwinana Freeway to the southern edge of Perth Metropolitan Region, north-east of Mandurah. The northern and southern sections of the route were predetermined by factors including existing and proposed developments, power transmission lines, the location of wetlands and the Serpentine River, and required setbacks from an explosives depot at Baldivis. A number of routes were investigated for the central section, between Mortimer Road and Stakehill Road. The EPA found all proposed routes acceptable, and that the preferred route minimised environmental impact. A report for a later stage regarded the approval for this section as lacking strict stipulations for the management of environmental impact, which was attributed to the assessment of the era not being subject to recent environmental regulations and scrutiny. A 12-kilometre-long (7.5 mi) extension along this alignment, to Safety Bay Road in Baldivis, was opened on 23 June 2001 by Premier Geoff Gallop. This project also included grade separation of the existing at-grade intersections. The Kwinana Freeway Bus Transitway was completed soon afterwards, in February 2002.
### New Perth Bunbury Highway
Construction of an extension to the freeway, initially known as the "New Perth Bunbury Highway", began in December 2006. The project consisted of a 32-kilometre (20 mi) freeway-standard extension to Pinjarra Road and the Murray River at South Yunderup, and a 38-kilometre (24 mi) highway-standard dual carriageway to Old Coast Road at Lake Clifton. It had undergone an environmental assessment by the EPA in 2000. Main Roads proposed management plans for each environmental factor identified by the EPA. Only clearing of vegetation critical for road construction would be undertaken, and more vegetation would be replaced than the amount impacted, using local native species. A flora survey found no rare species, and only one priority species, Lasiopetalum membranaceum, near the southern end of the project. Road construction would impact one conservation class wetland, but no protected wetlands. To minimise impact, road drainage would be designed to contain spills, and prevent direct discharges into the surrounding environment. Noise levels would be contained to an acceptable limit in the road design, in accordance with the Main Roads traffic noise policy. The EPA concluded that the road could be designed and managed to an acceptable standard. Main Roads' 2006 plan for environmental management of the project included numerous aspects, described as best management practices, which for the northern segment of the project were beyond the environmental approval requirements. Specific plans were developed regarding fauna, vegetation, dieback and weeds, and revegetation and rehabilitation. Other areas with specific plans included topsoil management, drainage, construction (covering dust, noise, and vibrations), foreshores, and both Aboriginal and European heritage. The actual road names were not known until early 2009, when Transport Minister Simon O'Brien revealed that the section south of Pinjarra Road would be known as Forrest Highway, with the section to the north to become part of the Kwinana Freeway. The route bypasses Mandurah by taking traffic around the eastern side of the Peel-Harvey Estuary prior to joining the existing dual carriageway on Old Coast Road, reducing the journey time from Perth to Bunbury. The Kwinana Freeway extension and Forrest Highway were opened on 20 September 2009, with a ceremony held at the interchange between the freeway, highway, and Pinjarra Road. The roads were officially opened by Premier Colin Barnett, Senator Chris Evans, Transport Minister Simon O'Brien, Member for Canning Don Randall, and previous Transport Minister Alannah MacTiernan.
### Bus transitway
Dedicated bus lanes have existed on the Kwinana Freeway since the late 1980s, when a project was set up to decrease bus commuters' travel times into Perth from suburbs south of the Swan River. In 1987, Main Roads Western Australia and Transperth trialled a contraflow bus lane along the Kwinana Freeway, from the Canning Interchange to the Narrows Interchange. The lane operated between 7:00 am and 9:30 am, the period with the most traffic congestion on the freeway. After two months, the results were examined, and the agencies decided to build an additional bus lane on the northbound carriageway. The construction included bus-only ramps at the beginning and end of the lane. The works were mainly funded by Transperth, which contributed \$8.22 million out of the \$10.23 million total cost. The remaining \$2.01 million was provided by Main Roads Western Australia. The bus lane opened on 20 November 1989, and received an Institute of Engineers award for engineering excellence.
In 1999, the state government announced that a two way bus transitway would be built in the Kwinana Freeway median, to link Perth's Esplanade Busport with the Murdoch station at South Street. Construction of the first stage, between the Narrows Interchange and Canning Interchange, began in September 2000, and was completed in February 2002. The bus transitway was replaced by the Mandurah railway line, constructed in the freeway median between May 2004 and December 2007. After rail services commenced, most freeway bus services ceased; however, dedicated ramps and short priority lanes remain for bus services between Canning Highway and Perth.
### 2005 flooding
During the afternoon on 13 May 2005, a water pipe burst near the southbound Mill Point Road entrance ramp in South Perth, releasing 7 megalitres (1.8 million US gallons) of water and 60 tonnes (130 thousand pounds) of sand. This caused widespread flooding in the area, submerged the southbound lanes of the freeway, and collapsed the ramp. There was traffic gridlock in the city and much of the metropolitan area, lasting throughout the afternoon and into the night. Repairs to the entrance ramp took more than a week to be completed.
### Widening
In March 2011, it was announced that the Kwinana Freeway between Leach Highway and Roe Highway would be widened from two to three lanes in each direction. The \$58 million project was brought forward to ease increased congestion on this part of the freeway. Construction began in July 2011, with completion scheduled for May 2012. The new southbound lane opened on 1 June 2012. On 20 December 2012, state Transport Minister Troy Buswell, with Federal MP Gary Gray and State MLA for Riverton Mike Nahan, officially opened the northbound lane. By May 2013, all major construction works had been completed, including a pedestrian underpass at South Street, a new carpark and access road for Murdoch railway station, and noise walls. Remaining landscaping works were expected to be finalised in September 2013, and the whole projected had been completed by mid-October.
Widening of the Kwinana Freeway with an extra southbound lane between Roe Highway and Armadale Road began in mid-2014. The project aims to increase the freeway's reliability, efficiency, and safety, as the current two-lane configuration is subject to a large proportion of heavy vehicles and severe peak hour congestion. The project also involves the realignment of ramps at Berrigan Drive and Armadale Road, construction of noise barriers and noise walls where required, and installation of components for intelligent transport systems – optic fibre communications, vehicle detection devices, and closed circuit cameras. Additional funding was provided just prior to commencing the project to allow for a fourth southbound lane to be added at the same time. During 2015-16, the third lane was extended south to the interchange with Russell Road and Gibbs Road in Aubin Grove at the cost of \$14.9 million. The Russell/Gibbs Road interchange itself was also upgraded during 2016-17 in preparation for the opening of Aubin Grove railway station on the Mandurah Line itself, with the bridge widened to carry eight lanes of traffic (two through-lanes and two right-turning lanes in both directions.
Widening of the corresponding northbound section from Russell/Gibbs Road to Farrington Road commenced in late 2018 in conjunction with the extension of Roe Highway to link with Murdoch Drive. The project consists of the following:
- A third lane added from the Russell Road/Gibbs Road interchange to the Armadale Road/Beeliar Drive interchange.
- A collector-distributor lane system in addition to a third lane up to Berrigan Drive (allowing for the construction of a half-diamond interchange with North Lake Road).
- The above lanes merge to form four lanes of traffic up to Farrington Road aside from small section of three lanes under the westbound Roe Highway overpass.
- A reconstruction of the Principal Shared Path (PSP) or cycle path along the freeway with additional lighting.
In addition the interchange with Roe Highway was modified to become a partial combination interchange due to the direct link between Roe Highway and Murdoch Drive, with no ramps between Kwinana southbound and Murdoch westbound nor Murdoch eastbound to Kwinana northbound due to the nearby Farrington Road interchange providing these movements. The project was completed on 20 April 2020.
A proposal was drawn in the 1980s to construct a southbound on-ramp at the partial interchange with Manning Road. The land requirements were included on the Perth Metropolitan Region Scheme. The City of South Perth considers the ramp a "major priority" that would increase its road network connectivity, reduce traffic congestion, and improve commuter safety. In 2001, the City estimated the construction cost to be \$1.77 million. Construction of the ramp commenced in October 2019 at a cost of \$35 million, and was opened on the morning of 13 July 2020.
The northbound section between Mount Henry Bridge and the Narrows Bridge was converted to a smart freeway system during 2019-20. The main features of the project include:
- Conversion of the emergency lane north of Canning Highway to a fourth lane (all lane running).
- Installation of variable message and speed limit signs, allowing for opening and closing lanes.
- Ramp signalling on the northbound entries to the freeway from Farrington Road to Cranford Avenue.
A half-diamond interchange with North Lake Road was also constructed. This project involved the construction of a bridge over Kwinana Freeway with north-facing on and off ramps, reconnecting Armadale Road to North Lake Road after the original connection (then known as Forrest Road) was severed during the 1990s as part of the freeway extension. Grade separated roundabouts will also be constructed at Tapper Road / Verde Drive and at a new Beeliar Drive / Solomon Road intersection along with improved access to Cockburn Central railway station. Construction began in late 2019, with the bridge and associated interchanges opened on the morning of 16 December 2021.
## Interchanges
## See also
- Freeways in Australia
- Freeways in Western Australia
- List of major roads in Perth, Western Australia
|
32,436,778 |
Dishonored
| 1,173,636,269 |
2012 video game
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Dishonored is a 2012 action-adventure game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored follows the story of Corvo Attano, bodyguard to the Empress of the Isles. He is framed for her murder and forced to become an assassin, seeking revenge on those who conspired against him. Corvo is aided in his quest by the Loyalists—a resistance group fighting to reclaim Dunwall, and the Outsider—a powerful being who imbues Corvo with magical abilities. Several noted actors, including Susan Sarandon, Brad Dourif, Carrie Fisher, Michael Madsen, John Slattery, Lena Headey and Chloë Grace Moretz, provided voice work for the game.
The game is played from a first-person perspective and allows the player to undertake a series of missions in a variety of ways, with an emphasis on player choice. Missions can be completed through stealth, combat, or a combination of both. Exploring each level opens new paths and alternatives for accomplishing mission goals, and it is possible to complete all missions, eliminating all of Corvo's targets, in a non-lethal manner. The story and missions are changed in response to the player's violent actions or lack thereof. Magical abilities and equipment are designed to be combined to create new and varied effects.
During its two and a half years in production, several versions of Dishonored were developed. Before the creation of Dunwall—inspired by late nineteenth-century London and Edinburgh—the game was set to take place in medieval Japan and seventeenth-century London. During development, test players discovered methods of exploiting the available powers and abilities to achieve unexpected outcomes; instead of restricting these techniques, the designers attempted to redesign levels to accommodate them. Dishonored's music score was produced by composer Daniel Licht to represent London in the nineteenth century.
Dishonored received positive reviews, focusing on the missions' individual narratives and the freedom available in completing them. The game won several awards, including the 2012 Spike Video Game award for Best Action-Adventure Game and the 2013 BAFTA award for Best Game, and was repeatedly recognized as the best action-adventure game of 2012 and one of that year's best games. It has also been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. Dishonored was initially released in October 2012, for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360, and was later supplemented with additional content focusing on the assassin Daud and his quest for redemption. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game were released in August 2015. Two narrative sequels, Dishonored 2 and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, were released in 2016 and 2017 respectively, and the 2021 game, Deathloop, takes place within the far future of the Dishonored universe.
## Gameplay
Dishonored is an action-adventure game played from a first-person perspective with an emphasis on stealth action and the use of gadgets and the environment to eliminate opposing forces. The game world is a series of self-contained, mission-focused areas designed for multiple avenues of exploration in terms of in-game movement and powers. Between missions, the player is taken to a central hub called the Hound Pits pub where the player character Corvo can meet with his allies, receive mission briefings and alternate objectives, and convert recovered loot into new equipment and upgrades. In-game areas include loading docks, royal estates, poverty-stricken streets, and a bathhouse. The player can save their progress anywhere, and the game includes a checkpoint save system. Saving is disabled during combat. The game has four difficulty levels which modify the effectiveness of health and mana (magic) potions, and enemies' awareness, damage delivered, and responsiveness. In the easy setting, health regeneration is possible.
Dishonored features role-playing game elements, such as the ability to upgrade powers and to make moral choices with a focus on non-linear consequences. The game is designed to allow the player to complete it without killing any non-player characters (NPC), including boss characters and mission targets. An example of a non-lethal situation given by co-creative designer Harvey Smith involved the player completing a side mission for a character, and in return that character had two of Corvo's targets kidnapped and enslaved. Each mission contains multiple ways to explore and reach targets. Movement through and exploration of levels is designed to support the player character's abilities, rather than specific paths that are aimed at a particular gameplay style, such as hacking or sneaking. Specific elements of missions, such as changes to the color of a target's clothing and mask in one mission are randomized, requiring the player to explore the game area to find the target each time the mission is played.
The player's actions are not judged to be good or evil, but instead are tracked by a "chaos" system that records the amounts of friendly fire, violence, and deaths the player causes. This modifies the game world, affecting the story without directly punishing the player or forcing them to choose one style of play over another. For example, an NPC who disapproves of violence may refuse to support the player, or may even betray them. The game reacts to the chaos caused in scripted ways, such as changing dialogue, and dynamic ways, such as increasing the presence of rats and plagued citizens and adding new scenes. This can affect the active mission and future missions. The system also influences which of the game's two endings is reached, with variations based on which characters live or die. Using violence allows missions to be completed in less time than using a stealth approach, but violence consumes more in-game resources such as health and mana potions, which are required more often in direct combat.
### Abilities and powers
Dishonored features six active powers, four passive powers or enhancements, and forty bone charms which grant the player supernatural perks, such as the ability to increase the duration of rat possession. Initially, only three bone charms can be active at any time; up to six can be active through optional upgrades. Smith and designer Raphaël Colantonio stated that it is impossible for a player to accrue all of the powers and abilities in a single playthrough. The player requires mana to use these abilities; mana partially regenerates after use to allow "Blink" and "Dark Vision" powers to be used, but mana potions are required to regenerate more mana, restricting the use of higher cost abilities like "Possession" and "Bend Time." Magic and ranged weapons are assigned to the player character's left hand control and a sword is assigned to the right hand control.
The main supernatural powers are unlocked and purchased using runes—artifacts carved from whale bone—and each can be upgraded. Powers include "Dark Vision", which allows the player to see enemies through walls, their field of view and highlights interactive objects; "Blink", a short-distance teleportation ability; "Possession", that allows the player to temporarily inhabit and possess other characters; "Devouring Swarm", which summons a swarm of deadly rats; "Bend Time", that slows or freezes time; "Wind Blast", a gust of wind that can knock down enemies; and "Shadow Kill" that turns dead enemies to ash, preventing their discovery by opposing forces. The player can use weapons including a sword, grenades, a crossbow, and pistols. Coins must be collected to upgrade weapons and gadgets.
Stealth is based on limiting the player character's visibility; hiding behind objects and buildings, avoiding the enemies' cone of vision, and avoiding lighted areas aid in reducing detection. When hiding behind an object, the player can lean around the sides to see the immediate area and eavesdrop, and as long as Corvo remains hidden, his enemies will not see him. The player can also look through keyholes to gain insight into closed rooms. Sneaking up behind enemies allows the player to silently subdue them, and unconscious or dead bodies can be moved and hidden.
Guards have several states of alertness, ranging from normal to suspicious; they can become aware of the player's presence or can actively search for them. Enemy artificial intelligence (AI) will respond to sound and can be distracted using sound to lure guards away from their positions. If the player remains concealed from guards, their alertness will drop to "aware", but it will not return to normal in that mission. Enemies communicate their states of alertness to their allies, increasing the alertness level throughout the mission.
## Synopsis
### Setting
Dishonored takes place in the industrial city of Dunwall, where technology and otherworldly forces coexist. The city's design is modeled on London and Edinburgh between the late 1800s and the early 1900s. The capital of the Empire of the Isles, Dunwall is ruled by an oppressive regime that came to power following the assassination of the Empress and the kidnapping of her daughter. The city is a center for fishing and whaling; whale oil is a valuable resource which is needed to power the city. After a natural philosopher discovered that whale oil can be used as a fuel, the government used it to develop powerful weaponry, which in turn bred government corruption. The city is stricken with a plague spread by rats, which is killing the poor and isolating the rich. The infected, known as "weepers", cry blood and can become violent. The government uses the plague as an excuse to take or purge citizens as they wish. Order is maintained by the Tallboys, heavily armored officers on tall, mechanical legs, and districts are separated by barriers known as "Walls of Light", which are made of energy and disintegrate unauthorized people who try to cross them. A covert group of activists, the Loyalists, plots to overthrow the government and install the Empress's daughter as the new Empress.
### Characters
The main character of Dishonored, whom the player controls, is Corvo Attano, the former bodyguard to Dunwall's Empress Jessamine Kaldwin (April Stewart). Corvo becomes an infamous assassin after he is framed for the empress's murder. He is skilled in stealth and combat, is armed with unusual gadgets, and possesses great supernatural powers. The game designers chose Corvo to remain silent so that players could project themselves onto the character. Corvo is aided by the Loyalists, led by Admiral Farley Havelock (John Slattery), and members: Piero Joplin (Brad Dourif)—an inventor who builds Corvo's mask and supplies him with gadgets; Treavor Pendleton (Derek Phillips)—a member of parliament; Samuel (Ryan Cutrona)—a commoner who ferries Corvo to and from his missions; Overseer Teague Martin (Joel Johnstone); and Callista Curnow (Lena Headey)—the caretaker for the Empress's daughter Young Lady Emily (Chloë Grace Moretz). Other characters include Granny Rags (Susan Sarandon)—a former aristocrat now blind and deranged after years of living on the streets; Daud (Michael Madsen)—leader of a group of assassins known as "the Whalers"; and Slackjaw (Al Rodrigo)—a gang leader. Carrie Fisher and Gregg Berger provide the voices of the loudspeakers found throughout the city relaying government propaganda.
The Outsider (Billy Lush) offers to help Corvo in his quest. Described as a mixture of God and the Devil, The Outsider imprints his mark on Corvo, imbuing him with magical abilities, and provides him with a mechanically altered human heart (April Stewart) that tells Corvo secrets. The Outsider also grants his mark, and special abilities, to other characters. Smith described the character as an amoral figure who grants abilities, but leaves the choice of how to use them up to the recipient.
Corvo's targets include the Lord Regent Hiram Burrows (Kristoffer Tabori)—the Empress's former spymaster who masterminded her death and framed Corvo, and now controls Dunwall; Burrows's lover Lady Boyle (Anna Graves)—an aristocrat funding the military; Lords Custis and Morgan known as the Pendleton Twins (Zach Hanks)—members of parliament; High Overseer Thaddeus Campbell (Daniel Hagen)—leader of the city's religious order; and Anton Sokolov (Roger Jackson)—a genius inventor responsible for the creation of many advanced technologies including the Wall of Light.
### Plot
After returning from a foreign voyage to seek aid with the deadly plague ravaging the city, Corvo Attano travels to the tower of Dunwall and meets with the Empress. After delivering a message, they are attacked by teleporting assassins led by Daud; they magically restrain Corvo, kill the Empress, and kidnap her daughter Emily. The Empress's Spymaster arrives and has Corvo imprisoned for her murder and Emily's abduction. Six months later, the Spymaster has seized control of Dunwall as Lord Regent. Interrogating Corvo, the Lord Regent confesses that he masterminded the assassination and framed Corvo. The following day, Corvo is due to be executed. A letter from Empire Loyalists is smuggled to Corvo and he is given the means to escape. Samuel ferries Corvo to the Hound Pits Pub to meet the Loyalists, led by Admiral Havelock.
While resting, Corvo is taken to a dream world where he meets the Outsider, who brands Corvo with his mark. Corvo is sent by the Loyalists to eliminate the conspirators behind the Lord Regent's plot, and the player is given the option to kill or otherwise neutralize the targets, the first of which is High Overseer Campbell. Corvo removes the High Overseer and discovers that Emily is being held in a brothel called the Golden Cat under the supervision of twins Custis and Morgan Pendleton. Corvo rescues Emily and eliminates the brothers. After returning to the pub, Emily is taken into the care of Callista to prepare her for becoming Empress, while Corvo is sent to abduct the genius scientist Sokolov, who is responsible for the Lord Regent's powerful technologies. Sokolov is taken to the pub for interrogation, under which he divulges the identity of the Lord Regent's financier, Lady Boyle. Corvo infiltrates Boyle's masquerade ball and disposes of her.
After returning to the pub, Havelock confirms they have done enough damage to move against the Lord Regent. Corvo infiltrates the tower of Dunwall and removes the Lord Regent from power. He learns that the Lord Regent intentionally imported the plague to decimate the lower classes of society, but it escalated out of his control. Corvo returns to the Hound Pits Pub, where the Loyalists celebrate their success. After sharing a drink, Corvo goes to his room and collapses. Upon waking, he learns that Samuel poisoned his drink at the behest of Havelock and his Loyalist allies Treavor Pendleton and Teague Martin, to prevent him from interfering in their plan to install Emily as Empress and rule through her. However, Samuel actually remained loyal to Corvo and -without the knowledge of the Loyalist conspirators- had given him a non-lethal dose of poison. Samuel sets Corvo adrift on the river and flees. When Corvo wakes, he is taken prisoner by Daud and his men, who intend to claim the bounty placed on Corvo's head by taking him back to the now Lord Regent Havelock.
Nonetheless, Corvo overcomes his new captors and defeats Daud and his assassins before going into the sewers. Corvo returns to the pub to find it overrun with guards and that Havelock has killed many of the Loyalists. He discovers where Havelock has taken Emily and can save Piero, Sokolov, and Callista. Corvo signals to Samuel, who ferries him to the former Lord Regent's lighthouse. He infiltrates the lighthouse and either subdues Pendleton and Martin or finds that Havelock has already killed them, ensuring the Loyalists' actions remain secret. Once finished with Havelock, Corvo may or may not rescue Emily. Havelock's journal reveals that he suspected that Emily is Corvo's daughter.
The ending varies depending upon the level of chaos the player has caused throughout the game. If Corvo saves Emily, she ascends the throne as Empress with Corvo at her side, and, if minimal chaos has been caused, a golden age dawns and the plague is overcome. After many decades, Corvo dies of natural causes, and Empress Emily Kaldwin I the Wise buries him beside Empress Jessamine. If much chaos is caused, the city remains in turmoil and is overrun with the plague. If Corvo fails to save Emily, Dunwall crumbles, and Corvo flees the city by ship.
## Development
Bethesda Softworks first announced Dishonored as a first-person, stealth, action-adventure game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms on 7 July 2011. Dishonored is the first Arkane Studios game Bethesda published after Bethesda parent ZeniMax Media bought Arkane in August 2010. Arkane Studios founder Raphaël Colantonio and Deus Ex developer Harvey Smith were the game's creative directors, and Deus Ex designer Ricardo Bare was its lead technical designer. Visual design director Viktor Antonov, who designed Half-Life 2's City 17, and art director Sebastien Mitton led the art team. Smith, Colantonio, Antonov, and Mitton spent three years in pre-production. Bethesda approached Arkane and asked them to develop a new game and a new intellectual property. The team already had ideas for developing a similar game, but until Bethesda approached them, Arkane had no specific ideas. Mitton contacted Antonov in May 2009 to ask for his help to establish an artistic identity for a new intellectual property. The full Arkane team—including their offices in Lyon, France, and Austin, Texas—worked on the game.
The game supports a different interface for Microsoft Windows users to that for the console versions, and also supports the use of Xbox 360 controllers on Windows PCs. Smith described the team's philosophy of allowing its developers who are passionate about a particular release platform to develop software for it; those passionate about PC will work on developing that interface, while Xbox 360 aficionados were allowed to develop the Achievements for that platform. Dishonored was officially released to manufacturing on 28 September 2012.
### Gameplay
The development team researched unexpected ways the player could combine Corvo's special powers, such as combining a high jump with the ability to teleport in order to travel greater distances than either ability allowed independently. Instead of restricting these exploits, the team tried to design levels to accommodate them. The designers did not consider all of the powers they conceived during development, such as a power to become a shadow that could move along walls, to be suitable for the game. Some existing powers went through several revisions: a version of "Bend Time" caused the player to unfreeze enemies when touched; "Possession" allowed the player to control a victim remotely without inhabiting their body, but this offered less challenge. Balancing the effectiveness of the player's powers was considered difficult. Colantonio said: "We wanted to give [the player] very strong powers, to make [the player] really a badass, but at the same time we didn't want the game to be too easy". Each power has a duration, mana cost, and other variable properties that allowed the team to effectively scale even the most destructive of abilities by making them costly to use frequently or limiting the time they remain active.
Dishonored's stealth system was originally based on that of the Thief series, which uses level lighting and shadows to determine whether an enemy can detect the player character's presence. However, it was decided that it was unrealistic that an enemy could stand directly in front of a player hiding in shadows and not detect them. It was also considered that making certain areas dark hid the designers' work and contrasted poorly with well-lit areas. Much of the ambient dialogue was written to be lengthy and add background detail to the game world and to entertain stealth players who may be in a single area for a long time. Conversely, main story dialogue was written to be short to compensate for the player being able to interrupt or kill the character who is speaking.
To design the missions, the designers began with a cohesive area, which they filled with activities for the player. They defined paths to the target areas, and developed and expanded them. They then populated the areas with NPCs, which they assigned to patrol routes and functions. The designers would then observe how players interacted with the level, using their abilities and powers to test whether the area provided a suitable challenge for the available powers, and then redesigned the level as needed. At first, the levels featured little directional information to emphasize the player's ability to traverse them as they choose, but in testing, players became lost or obeyed NPC commands to not enter an area, leaving them unable to proceed. In response, the developers introduced more visual cues and verbal hints to direct players. Some features and ideas were removed during the design process, including a mental institution where Corvo would have faced sound-sensitive patients. Discussing the use of violence and the consequences of in-game freedom, developer Joe Houston recounted his experience while watching a tester play a mission to infiltrate a masquerade ball; Houston determined that not killing the NPCs opened up more objectives and interactions, but the tester systematically killed every NPC in the level, which Houston found disconcerting. The team came under pressure to excise a scene from the end of the game where Samuel, in response to a player killing indiscriminately throughout the game, can betray Corvo by alerting enemies to his presence. Smith explained: "Everybody just wants to be told in a video game that you’re great, no matter what you do. If you slaughter everybody – you killed the maids, you killed the old people, you killed the beggars – you’re great, here’s a medal, you’re a hero... We decided that sounds psychotic. It doesn’t match our values... What we wanted was to let you express yourself in the game, but to have the world react to that, at least in some way. [Samuel], betraying you and firing off that flare, was something we had to fight for".
### Design
Dishonored was originally set in medieval Japan, but the idea was dropped early in the game's development because of the difficulties presented in marketing the setting, and because no member of the design team knew much about the culture. Arkane moved the setting to London in 1666, considering that the city was recognizable to Europeans and Americans. Later designs inspired by added gameplay mechanics such as floodlights, electrified barriers and 20th-century technologies that it no longer resembled London, and Arkane opted to develop a fictional city. The city of Dunwall, designed to be a "contemporary and cool" "period piece", was inspired by late-19th and early-20th-century London and Edinburgh. Describing why London had been an initial setting and remained a significant inspiration, Smith said:
> Because it was the last year of the plague, and the year of the great fire of London, which of course ended the plague by burning the slums down ... In this kind of game you’re always looking for a way to up the tension and frankly make the world a little more perilous, and justify why there aren’t giant crowds of people at the market. Then people had the idea for swarms of rats, and we were talking independently about possession, and we wondered if you should be able to possess rats and if they could clean up corpses so you don’t have to hide them. All these pieces just worked together.
Antonov described his inspiration from London as "a big metropolis, it's messy, it's chaotic and intense ... and it's both exotic and familiar to Americans and to Europeans". He highlighted the importance of that familiarity to different cultures because "you want to communicate to a lot of people when you make a new piece of fiction". He said that Edinburgh provided a sense of containment and a variety of architectural designs, which were combined with a futuristic vision which Antonov said was not comparable to the brass, rivets, and steam of steampunk design. Antonov and Mitton traveled to London and Edinburgh for research, taking photographs of people, places, and objects. The pair avoided the busier streets and focused on side streets and alleyways that would better suit the game's world. Mitton stated: "We were trying to design the game from a rat's viewpoint ... if we have a small city, from a constrained viewpoint, what are all the different angles that we can explore?" Inspiration also came from the artwork of John Atkinson Grimshaw, Canaletto, and Gustave Doré. The world map was designed as a single piece of art and was sectioned so the designers were clear on where each mission takes place.
In-game characters were inspired by illustrations from adventure and pirate stories such as Captain Blood (1922), the work of Charles Dana Gibson, and mugshots from Edwardian London and Australia. An anatomy expert helped ensure the morphology of character faces represented Great Britain, while Arkane maintained a sense of realism and political incorrectness. Mitton established defining groups for characters such as rich, poor, and hostile with specific anatomy and posture designs, and animators created stylized movements for each social class and specific characters to help convey emotions. The city guards, for example, have small heads, low shoulders, and big hands, with animations that blend human and monkey movements. Antonov and Mitton employed a textile carpet designer in Russia to design and paint some of the in-game art.
The designers conceived the Tallboys as town criers. Stilts were later added after Mitton noticed someone cleaning their office façade while wearing stilts; the town crier role was replaced with loudspeakers throughout Dunwall. The Tallboy design evolved into a lamplighter that would light street lamps with whale oil tanks, but after further development, the designers considered that their tall, mechanical legs allowed them to burn the dead and deal with plague-infected citizens while remaining above them and avoiding infection, leading to their final design as a guard armed with a bow. Mitton suggested adding a phosphorus canister to the Tallboys' backs for aesthetic reasons, but Smith suggested whale oil, which in turn led Mitton to design the whaling ships to give the whales a visible presence in the city. For other technologies, designers conceptualized using 18th-century technology to build modern items and vehicles, and creating 18th-century items using modern tools.
The Heart is a human heart modified with technology and the supernatural, that helps the player to find collectible items in the levels, and "plays a part related to informing [the player's] decisions about when to apply violence or not, making it a really interesting, more subtle part of the power fantasy". The Heart provides contextual verbal feedback to the player, offering insight into a particular location, the secrets or history of a character, and its own origins. The Heart was originally designed as a method of identifying assassination targets using vibration and sound mechanics. The design then developed into the concept of the Heart speaking and feeling alive and having its own agenda. As a result of player-conducted testing of the game, the designers decided that a more direct navigation system was required. The Heart's gameplay role continued to change, and it continued to provide narration on its perceptions of different characters, which helped to reinforce the narrative themes and to differentiate the city's social classes in a more subtle alternative to having the characters provide expository dialogue. Colantonio and Smith were concerned that optional use of the Heart would result in some players missing the information it provides, but they considered that it was a part of giving the player the freedom to choose how to play.
The Hound Pits pub, which acts as a base for the player, was initially a larger structure. Filling out the interior of the pub required too many stairs and rooms, and the large amount of climbing made navigation confusing. The team found retaining the large exterior they wanted while creating and disguising a smaller interior that was easier to traverse challenging. The pub's exterior was shrunk to resemble an Edwardian building, but the interior remained labyrinthine so Colantonio required that a chain be placed outside Corvo's bedroom, allowing him to reach the roof quickly. In frustration, the designers decided to simply close off the third floor entirely. The art team continued to receive requests throughout development, requiring them to extend pre-production until the end of the development cycle. Each design was hand drawn.
### Music
Daniel Licht composed the game's score—an ambient, violin-heavy presentation designed to represent 19th-century London. Licht's score is designed to make the player feel unsettled, and not provide comfort. He described the music as an "evil fog" that fades in and out of the game without being initiated by any scripted moments or to warn of impending danger, instead creating the impression of ever-present danger. As Dishonored features few cinematic scenes that allowed for long interactions with any particular character, Licht found himself limited in developing specific character themes, and instead focused largely on composing ambient music. Samples of Licht's ambient themes were used in the game's few cinematic scenes, although Licht was not involved in scoring them. Licht conceived the score as a mixture of older music befitting the period setting, and 20th-century techniques such as reversed sounds. Dishonored's credit song, "Honor for All", was written by Licht and his nephew Jon, who also provided the track's vocals. It was written as a reward for players who had finished the game.
## Release
Dishonored was released on PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 platforms in North America and France on 9 October 2012, on 11 October in Australia, and on 12 October in the rest of Europe. Celebrating the North American launch, Smith, Colantonio, and other Arkane Studios staff members from the company's office in Austin, Texas, signed copies of the game at a local GameStop store. A Game of the Year edition, containing all released downloadable content (DLC), was released in October 2013. The Definitive Edition, a remastered version of the game featuring improved graphics, and all released DLC was released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2015.
### Marketing
Bethesda Softworks developed a spin-off iOS game, Dishonored: Rat Assassin, released free of charge on 30 August 2012. The game requires players to use a knife and crossbow to kill rats while avoiding bombs. Rat Assassin was well received for the variety and quantity of content provided, but received some criticism for dark visuals, that made it difficult to see the rats. The game drew frequent comparisons to another mobile game, Fruit Ninja.
As part of the game's promotion, Bethesda employed COPILOT Music and Sound to develop the ominous "The Drunken Whaler", a modified version of the sea shanty "Drunken Sailor". Copilot decided to use ordinary children to sing the lyrics instead of a professional youth choir, aiming to achieve a dark, haunting quality to the music. However, they found it difficult to recruit children from local schools to sing about slit throats and hungry rats, and instead used child actors, adult singers who could imitate children, and the children of their friends. Instruments included violins, detuned and distorted guitars, and a "whaler stomp" created by the team, who stamped on wooden boards to create a pulsating sound. "The Drunken Whaler" appeared in the game's trailer and attracted a positive reception during its presentation at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Following its debut, the trailer was watched over 850,000 times on YouTube, and it was awarded the Machinima Best Trailer award.
A set of three animated videos, titled Tales from Dunwall, serving as a prequel to Dishonored, were released in September 2012. The videos show the discovery of whale-oil fuel, the Outsider granting his mark to a small boy in search of revenge, and Piero creating Corvo's mask. All three videos were created by animation studio Psyop and marketing firm Rokkan, narrated by Chloë Grace Moretz, and scored by Daniel Licht. Each Tales from Dunwall episode received a gold Clio Award for achievement in advertising. In the same month, the game was used as inspiration for prosthetic makeup effects on the television reality show Face Off.
## Reception
### Pre-release
Dishonored was displayed for the public at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and received four nominations from the Game Critics Awards for Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Console Game, Best Original Game, and the overall Best of Show award. The game was also recognized at the event for: "Game of Show" by GameSpy, and Joystiq Editor-in-Chief Ludwig Keitzmann, and was nominated by Destructoid and EGM; "Best Action Game" by GameSpy, and EGM, and nominated by Destructoid; "Best of E3 2012 Editors' Choice Award" by GameSpot; and "Most Original Game" by G4TV. Other recognition included: "Best of Show" by Digital Trends; "Best of E3 Selection" by Yahoo Games and Game Revolution; "The Best Game at E3" by CinemaBlend; and "Top 10 Game of E3" by Paste magazine and Stuff; Kotaku listed the "Blink" ability as one of the "Top 27 Game Ideas" at the event. Jurors from the Entertainment Software Association and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences selected "Regent", a piece of artwork for the game by artist Sergey Kolesov, to be one of 16 works for the 2012 Into the Pixel art exhibition. At the 2012 Gamescom trade fair in August 2012, the game won the award for "Best of Gamescom" and "Best Console Game" for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. For the same event, Eurogamer named Dishonored as its "Game of the Show." Attendees of the 2012 Eurogamer Expo named it the number-one game of the show.
### Critical reception
Dishonored received positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review website Metacritic provides a score of 91 out of 100 from 29 critics for the Microsoft Windows version, 89 out of 100 from 35 critics for the PlayStation 3 version, and 88 out of 100 from 56 critics for the Xbox 360 version. Reviewers likened Dishonored to well-received games from the early 2000s such as Deus Ex and the Thief video game series. The Telegraph's Tom Hoggins said it is like the "thinking man's games [from] the turn of the century which cherished player choice and control", comparing it against contemporary "noisy, brash thrill-rides obsessed with military ooh-rah and barely interactive set pieces". Dale called Dishonored "one of the greatest games of this generation", and wrote that it excelled by drawing inspiration from older games and allowing players to figure out solutions without advice. Dale also called it the first true stealth game for a long time, and the closest comparison to Thief in the current generation of games. Schreier stated that the game blends "the do-what-you-want structure of Deus Ex with the masterful world design of BioShock".
Dishonored's plot received a polarized response, with many reviewers praising the standalone stories driving each mission, but criticizing the game's overarching narrative. IGN's Cam Shea said it is "a shame that Dishonored'''s story isn't greater than the sum of its decidedly memorable parts", but added, "Dishonored is a game you'll talk with your friends about". Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead, The Verge's Arthur Gies, and Giant Bomb's Patrick Klepek criticized the end of the game for its generic missions, "late narrative missteps", and abrupt ending. Klepek also criticized the repetitive ambient dialogue in the missions. Whitehead also stated that the unique, inventive, and distinctive missions allowed for memorable gameplay that subverted the overarching story. Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski was disappointed by the abrupt ending, and that the story did not explore much of the developed world of Dunwall, but said that the overall experience left him wanting more. In contrast, The Escapist's Susan Arendt wrote that the story was well paced, and Shacknews's John Keefer stated that it was emotionally immersing and is "role-playing at its story-driven finest", but added that some plot points were not properly explained or developed.
The gameplay was generally praised for giving players freedom to use differing methods to complete objectives and to explore the levels. Keefer wrote that in-game mechanics like the powers and equipment are not essential and did not detract from the story, but served as optional bonuses in levels that can be completed with creativity and cleverness. He also said that some missions offered too much freedom without guidance, leaving the player lost on how to proceed. According to Gies, the game can initially seem unstructured from a level-design perspective, but after exploring them it becomes clear about how much thought went into different actions a player can take, allowing them to experiment instead of focusing on rigid objective-driven design. GameSpot's Chris Watters enjoyed the various pathways and methods of traversing each level with "compelling abilities", particularly the "Blink" power, and the freedom of choice which he said made Dishonored "one of the truly remarkable games of" 2012. Arendt said that the game's flexibility was also a shortcoming, with certain playing styles favoring certain abilities that when fully upgraded, preclude the desire to explore levels for further enhancements and resources. Game Informer's Joe Juba also wrote that the game punishes players for taking certain paths, particularly one of violence, which results in more difficult gameplay and a perceived less satisfying ending, encouraging stealth over alternatives. Kotaku's Jason Schreier contrasted Dishonored with other contemporary video games, and said that where other games may require a player to find a specific solution to defeat an enemy or solve a puzzle, Dishonored "feels like entering a designer's playpen", providing the player with an array of tools and then allowing them to experiment with how they interact with, or break, the world.
Reviewers also said that the game's variety encourages replaying. Computer and Video Games' Alex Dale praised the variety and replayability of the game, and said, "Dishonored doesn't demand you see everything it has to offer, although it is compulsive enough to ensure you will". News.com.au's William Colvin wrote that the game's only shortcoming could be that it offered too many options, and Watters stated the game achieves a rare feat of being "compulsively replayable". Problems in the player's control of Corvo were raised; Whitehead noted the controls were unresponsive when used in contextual situations. Sliwinski said that the controls worked well.
Reviewers criticized the AI, which some found inconsistent. Whitehead criticized his experience of enemies that can see Corvo from a great distance yet sometimes remain unaware of him while in his enemies' peripheral vision. Juba criticized the inconsistent detection by enemies that lead to unpredictable and unreliable stealth mechanics that could force stealth-focused players into a combat situation, for which their character is not built. According to G4's Jake Gaskill, the AI worked well in combat, with enemies employing different tactics and effectively countering attacks, but when not alerted, enemies would ignore actions directly in front of them. Watters also mentioned lulls in enemy intelligence, but he said that it remained tenacious enough to keep the enemies formidable.
The game's visuals and design were generally praised; Gaskill said that the art style is unique and the game world is both vivid and fully realized, and Gies stated that the game has a "unifying vision and design that stands apart from its contemporaries as something different". Colvin described Dishonored as "a triumph for the medium ... that sets the benchmark for visuals, story, and character performance", and that it is "easily the best looking game you'll play this year". Juba found the "steampunk-inspired" technology designs fascinating, and stated that the visual style and art direction offer a distinct aesthetic that accompanies the "dark and disturbing" lore found in the city.
### Sales
In the week before its release (30 September – 6 October), the game was the third best-selling game on Steam, based on pre-orders. During the first week of sales in the United Kingdom, Dishonored became the second best-selling game on all available formats behind FIFA 13 (in its third week), the number-one selling PC game, and the biggest launch of an original game in 2012, exceeding Sleeping Dogs. It was the UK's 24th best-selling game and the second best-selling original game of 2012. Based on physical copies sold, it was the ninth best-selling original game of the 2010s.
In North America, Dishonored was the fourth best-selling game of October 2012, selling 460,200 physical units, exceeded only by Pokémon Black Version 2, Resident Evil 6 and NBA 2K13. During the 2012 Thanksgiving holiday weekend (23 – 25 November), it was the number-one game on Steam.
### Accolades
Dishonored was named Best Action Adventure Game at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards and was nominated for Best Graphics, Best PS3 Game, Best Studio (Arkane Studios), Best Xbox 360 Game, and Game of the Year. It won the Inside Gaming Award for Best Environmental Design. For the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Dishonored for "Adventure Game of the Year" and the outstanding achievement awards in "Art Direction", "Game Direction", "Gameplay Engineering", and "Story". The Visual Effects Society nominated Viktor Antonov, Sebastien Mitton, Jean-Luc Monnet, and Julien Roby for Outstanding Real-Time Visuals in a Video Game. Dishonored also won the Audience Choice award at the 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards, and received four nominations for Best Game Design, Best Narrative, Best Visual Arts, and Game of the Year.
Dishonored won Best Overall Action Game and Best PC Action Game in IGN's Best of 2012 awards, and was nominated for Best Overall Game and Best Action Game on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. Game Informer named it the Best Action game and one of the 50 best games of 2012. Additionally, PlayStation Official Magazine named it their Game of the Year, Official Xbox Magazine named it the Best Original Game, 1UP.com named it one of their favorite games of 2012, Jeux Video listed as the number 2 PC game of 2011, and ActionTrip named it Best Action Game. The game was named the Best Action/Adventure Game as part of the 2012 Yahoo! Games Game of the Year awards, and GameSpot's Best of 2012 series listed Dishonored as the Best Action/Adventure Game, Best PS3 Game, and Best Xbox 360 Game. The 2013 British Academy of Film and Television awards saw the game win the Best Game award and receive nominations for Game Design and Story. At the 2013 Golden Joystick Awards, Dishonored received six nominations for Game of the Year, Best Newcomer, Best Storytelling, Studio of the Year (Arkane Studios), Best Visual Design, and Best Gaming Moment for "Lady Boyle's Last Party". Edge also named Arkane Studios as the Studio of the Year. In 2014, IGN listed it as the sixty-seventh best game of the contemporary console generation, and it was 32nd on PC Gamer's list of the Top 100 PC Games.
Dishonored appeared on several lists of the best games of 2012, and was placed at number one by Ars Technica, CBS News, CNET, CNN, Edge, the Daily Mirror, Forbes, and The Guardian (jointly with XCOM: Enemy Unknown); number three by GameFront, Metro, and Paste magazine; number five by USA Today; number six by GameSpy, and Joystiq; and number ten by Slant Magazine. Gamasutra also listed it as one of the ten best games of 2012, while Eurogamer readers voted it as the top game of 2012. In 2013, GamingBolt ranked Dishonored as the 95th Greatest Video Game Ever Made, and in 2015, Rock, Paper, Shotgun listed it as the 23rd best PC First-Person Shooter ever made, while PC Gamer named it the 6th greatest PC Game. In 2019, IGN listed it as the 97th-best video game of all time. Eurogamer and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it as one of the best games of the decade.
## Downloadable content
A variety of pre-order incentives were announced for the game, including a Dishonored-themed, 72-card deck of Tarot cards, a USB whale-oil lamp, and a smartphone decal. DLC incentives offered in-game packs for the player character, including the "Arcane Assassin", "Shadow Rat", "Backstreet Butcher", and "Acrobatic Killer" packs that offer enhancements for the player character's abilities, money, and a statue of one of the game's creatures that increases bone charm carrying capacity.
"Dunwall City Trials", the game's first post-release DLC, was released on 11 December 2012, and contains 10 challenge maps. The player must defeat waves of enemies, complete time-trial challenges, and perform a series of drop assassinations in which the player kills a target by dropping from a location above the target.
Two story-based campaign DLC packs were announced in October 2012 for release in 2013, and follow the assassin Daud as he seeks redemption for murdering Empress Jessamine in Dishonored's main story. The first expansion, The Knife of Dunwall was released on 16 April, on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It features Daud (again voiced by Michael Madsen) as a playable character, with his own abilities including: "Void Gaze", which combines the functions of Corvo's "Dark Vision" with those of The Heart, guiding Daud to runes and bone charms; his own version of "Blink", which allows him to pause time; and an ability which allows Daud to summon his assassin followers. Additionally, Daud also has his own gadgets, such as stun mines, a concealed wrist-mounted bow, "Chokedust" grenade, which dazes enemies; and arc mines that disintegrate enemies. The Knife of Dunwall's plot runs parallel to that of Dishonored's, providing Daud's perspective on events, and introduces new locations, such as a whale slaughterhouse and Dunwall's affluent legal district. The Knife of Dunwall also features an additional difficulty level, "Master Assassin", which is made available after completing the content. Dishonored designer Ricardo Bare served as the content's creative director. The second and final expansion is titled The Brigmore Witches and was released on 13 August. The Brigmore Witches follows Daud's quest to stop the eponymous witches from enacting a powerful ritual that will doom Emily Kaldwin, and concludes with Daud's ultimate fate at the hands of Corvo in the core game. The ending, like the main game, is determined by the player's actions and choices, called "chaos level". The DLC carries over player choices and upgrades from a The Knife of Dunwall saved game.
### Critical reception
The first installment of the story-based DLC The Knife of Dunwall was praised for its level design, which encouraged exploration to find hidden content and alternative routes through areas. The modifications to certain abilities, particularly Blink were similarly well received for the changes they brought to the gameplay from the main game. The story, however, was generally criticized. Polygon noted that the deadly assassin Daud had no motive for seeking redemption, and allowing him to be played as a non-lethal character created a disconnect with the narrative. IGN considered that it felt like only half of a complete game, lacking any urgency in its story and featuring a disappointing conclusion. The story of The Brigmore Witches received a mixed response, with Destructoid saying that it offered a more gripping narrative, while Polygon stated that it lacked the same tension as The Knife of Dunwall, and the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying. However, the gameplay was generally considered an improvement, providing more intricate level design and nuanced world building that produced gameplay requiring a more thoughtful approach. PC Gamer appreciated that the levels each had a distinct theme, and adequately provided for both stealth and violent gameplay, while Polygon said that only the last level improved over the preceding DLC, introducing new mechanics that forced changes in stealth players.
## Sequels and adaptations
Bethesda indicated that sales of Dishonored were exceeding their expectations and that as a result, they intended to develop Dishonored into a franchise. Dishonored 2 was released on 11 November 2016. The sequel's story is set 15 years after the events of Dishonored. Emily is deposed as Empress during a coup by the witch Delilah and the Duke of Serkonos, a foreign land. Playing as either Corvo or Emily, the player must neutralize members of the coup and retake Dunwall. A standalone adventure, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, was released on 15 September 2017. Taking place after Dishonored 2, it follows Daud's former second-in-command, Billie Lurk, on her quest to defeat the Outsider. The 2021 first-person shooter, Deathloop, is set in the far future of Dishonored's narrative universe.
A Dishonored tabletop role-playing game was released on September 29, 2020. Developed by Modiphius Entertainment and adapted by Nathan Dowdell, the game features input from Harvey Smith and writers from the Dishonored video games. Known as Dishonored Roleplaying Game'', it includes a 300-page corebook and allows players to take on the roles of criminals, assassins, explorers, and loyalists in various story campaigns.
|
7,576,955 |
George Formby Sr
| 1,168,660,418 |
English comedian and singer (1875-1921)
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"20th-century English comedians",
"20th-century deaths from tuberculosis",
"Converts to Roman Catholicism",
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"English male comedians",
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"Singers from Manchester",
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George Formby (born James Lawler Booth; 4 October 1875 – 8 February 1921) was an English comedian and singer in musical theatre, known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the early 20th century. His comedy played upon Lancashire stereotypes, and he was popular around Britain. His nickname, "The Wigan Nightingale", was coined because of the way he would use his bronchial cough as a comedic device in his act.
Formby was born into poverty in the industrial North West England; his mother was an alcoholic and part-time prostitute, and during much of his youth he was maltreated. To earn money he would sing for pennies on street corners, before he joined a singing duo in his teens. He began to develop his own act during the 1890s and built up a following in Lancashire. He also developed a series of stage characters, including that of "John Willie", which is described by the cultural historian Jeffrey Richards as "the archetypal gormless Lancashire lad ... hen-pecked, accident-prone, but muddling through." Formby also had a successful recording career and made the transition from music hall to revue in 1916.
His health had always been poor, but a stage accident in 1916 weakened Formby's lungs, and he suffered increasingly for the next few years, reducing his ability to perform. Tuberculosis and influenza—the latter contracted in the pandemic of 1918—weakened his constitution further, and he died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1921 at the age of 45. Formby's act, and one of his costumes and canes, inspired Charlie Chaplin in the formation of his character the Tramp. Formby's son also used parts of his father's act when starting his stage career and, once established, also changed his name to George Formby; Formby Jr went on to become the top British male star in box office takings between 1937 and 1943.
## Biography
### Early years: 1875–90
George Formby was born James Lawler Booth in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, on 4 October 1875. He was the illegitimate and only child of Sarah Jane Booth (c. 1856–1912), a poor, illiterate cotton weaver. His father, Francis Lawler, a coal miner, was not named on the birth certificate; six months after the birth of their son, the couple married, both aged about 19. Sarah worked as a prostitute; she was small, around 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, and sang in pubs in exchange for alcoholic drinks. She was convicted 140 times for offences that included theft, prostitution, drunkenness and brawling. The marriage was turbulent, and Formby was often neglected, mistreated and suffered malnourishment. Because Sarah was frequently absent from home, and often detained overnight at the local police station, Formby was regularly forced to sleep outside. As a result he developed asthma and became susceptible to bronchitis. In his later years he recalled that his "childhood was the most miserable as ever fell to the lot of a human creature".
Formby left formal education at the age of eight or nine, and did not learn to read until well into his teenage years. To earn money for the household, he sang on street corners for coppers; the family's poverty worsened when, in October 1890, Lawler died from pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 33. Formby secured a job at a cotton mill and spent two years as a loom builder. He supplemented his wages by singing in pubs, alehouses and free-and-easies, the last being places where informal arrangements were made for patrons to provide their own entertainment. Around this time he joined up with another boy to form an act, "the Glenray Brothers" (also "the Glen Ray Brothers"), which was profitable enough to have a manager; the act continued until Formby's boy soprano voice broke, after which the pair separated.
### Burgeoning stage career: 1890–1902
Formby began to develop his own stage act during the 1890s, and built a large fan base in Lancashire. He devised several characters with their own costumes, and composed a series of comic songs. By 1896 his assignment book records that he was buying and collecting comic songs and securing the singing rights. He was billed as J.H. Booth until 1897, when he changed his stage name to George Formby. Although rumoured to have picked his new surname after seeing it as a destination on a railway carriage, the main sources agree this story is likely to be apocryphal. The origin of the Formby name is more likely to have been a suggestion from Dennis Clarke, the manager of the Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead, while George was chosen in honour of the music hall star George Robey. Formby first used his new stage name in Birkenhead in 1897.
One of the earliest characters Formby developed was "John Willie". Baz Kershaw, the professor of theatre, described the character as Formby's "onstage alter ego", while the cultural historian Jeffrey Richards describes Willie as "the archetypal gormless Lancashire lad in baggy trousers, tight jacket, and bowler hat, slow-talking, hen-pecked, accident-prone, but muddling through." His costume included ill-fitting clothes, large boots worn on the wrong feet, and a variety of hats; he would often carry a cane. In 1908 he lent one of his costumes to a young Charlie Chaplin when the latter was touring with Fred Karno's troupe; Chaplin also incorporated Formby's cane twirl and duck-like walk into his act.
In 1897 Formby met Martha Maria Salter, a 20-year-old music hall performer, and they married in her home town of Halifax in August. Little is known about Salter, although the 1901 census shows that she was still living with her parents. The marriage does not appear to have been successful, but according to Formby's biographers, Sue Smart and Richard Bothway Howard, there is no evidence of a divorce between the couple and no information relating to when the couple separated.
In 1897 or 1898 Formby was signed to appear at the Lyceum Theatre, Blackburn, supporting the magician Walford Bodie; a 40-week tour followed, with Formby earning 30 shillings a week. In 1898, while performing at the Wigan Empire as part of the tour, Formby met Eliza Hoy, the daughter of the Empire's cashier. The couple married in August the following year at Wigan Registry Office, although this marriage was bigamous because of his union two years previously with Salter. In the months after their marriage, Eliza persuaded Formby to join the Roman Catholic Church, which helped her parents overcome their initial distrust of him. Formby and Eliza had thirteen children, of whom seven survived: four daughters and three sons. The cultural historian David Bret states that Formby was "possessed of staggering consumptive virility", as the comedian also had several children with other partners. Eliza became an important figure in Formby's professional life, making his costumes and standing in the wings during his performances to help him. Eliza also continued working as a seamstress and would sell chips during lunchtimes to supplement the family's income.
### London, and a growing reputation: 1902–16
In 1902 Formby performed for the first time in London, when he was booked by Ted Granville, the proprietor of the Royal Albert Music Hall in Canning Town, to appear for £3 a week; Granville subsequently became Formby's London agent. Eliza Formby later recounted that Belle Elmore, the wife (and later victim) of the murderer Dr Crippen, saw Formby perform, and was so impressed that she contacted Granville and told him to travel to Leeds to see the act. Formby soon transferred to the London Pavilion music hall, where he was immediately successful, and became "an idol of the town", according to The Times. His popularity increased when Marie Lloyd, the influential music hall singer and actress, said that she would only watch two acts: his and Dan Leno's. Lloyd recommended Formby to the proprietor of the Tivoli Music Hall, who gave the comedian a ten-week run. Robey was also impressed, and in 1905 he recommended Formby as the lead in a pantomime in Newcastle at a salary of £35 a week. He was able to command £325 a week by 1920.
After the Formbys had lost three daughters to early deaths, their first son, George Hoy Booth, was born in 1904. Although the boy was born unable to see owing to an obstructive caul, he gained his sight during a violent coughing fit or sneeze when he was a few months old. Over the course of 1904 Formby purchased the singing rights to 57 songs, more than his normal annual number of between 10 and 20; the average cost of his songs was around a guinea. Two years later he made his first recordings, on phonograph cylinders, for the Louis Sterling Cylinder Company, and in 1907 he signed a recording contract with Zonophone. He was one of the few performers who had no difficulties recording clearly with the primitive equipment, and he performed in a relaxed fashion for an invisible audience. He would sing his song and then talk to the listener using a variant of his normal stage patter. Some of those songs, such as "Playing the Game out West" and "Since I Parted my Hair in the Middle" have been identified by Dave Russell, the social historian, as "clever depictions of a provincial innocent let lose [sic] in the capital".
For much of January and February 1908 Formby appeared in various London music halls for which he received £20 a week. The following year, and staying in the capital, he played three halls a night in exchange for £45 a week. One such venue was the Tivoli with Lloyd and Little Tich as the headline acts. When not performing in London, Formby continued to tour the provincial music halls. In 1910 he again appeared at the Tivoli, and was reviewed in The Times, in which the reporter opined that Formby "becomes more of an artist the longer he sings". Later that year Formby recorded what would become his most famous song, "Standing at the Corner of the Street", which he also co-wrote. By 1913 his record sales were strong enough for him to negotiate a new recording contract worth £300 a year.
Formby's career received a further boost in July 1913 when he was one of seven acts to appear before George V and Queen Mary in a Royal Command Performance at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool. The Times reported that Formby's "broad humour succeeded with unexpected ease, and their Majesties praised him very highly after the performance." Formby was embarrassed by his performance. His usual act partly consisted of a running patter with the orchestra conductor, which he again did on this occasion; behind the conductor sat the royal party, and it looked to some that Formby was speaking disrespectfully to them. The king understood to whom Formby was talking, however, and afterwards presented him with a tiepin. In October Formby appeared in his second Royal Command Performance of the year, in a charity show organised by the French actress Sarah Bernhardt. He took part in two acts: a performance of "Ten Little Nigger Boys All in a Row", alongside other music hall entertainers including Robey, Mark Sheridan, Cicely Courtneidge and George Graves, followed by a short solo piece.
In March 1914 Formby appeared in No Fool Like an Old Fool, a 20-minute-long silent comedy film, which is thought to be lost; it was his only film appearance, and little is known about the plot or his character. When the First World War broke out in August that year, he tried to enlist, but was turned down on medical grounds; instead he, like many music hall stars, was active in the recruiting campaign for the army and spoke at rallies, particularly on behalf of the Derby Scheme.
Formby was always worried that his son George would watch him on stage, as he did not wish the boy to become a comic, saying "one fool in the family is enough". Nevertheless, although he had sent George away to train as a jockey, in 1915 he allowed his son to appear on screen, taking the lead part of a stable boy in By the Shortest of Heads, a thriller directed by Bert Haldane. After the filming, Formby sent his son to Ireland, to continue his jockey training, and also sent the five horses Formby had purchased that year, which joined others he had previously bought.
### Worsening health, and death: 1916–21
Formby was injured in June 1916 during rehearsals for the revue Razzle-Dazzle, after a stage collapsed onto him at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He suffered lung damage and was treated for a pulmonary haemorrhage at Guy's Hospital before recovering. Although he was the lead in the show, the premiere took place without him; it was criticised by reviewers, and The Observer thought that "some of it seemed to have strayed in by mistake out of a second-rate provincial pantomime". Formby returned within a week and the reviews were more positive, with The Observer stating that it was "one of the successes of the season ... Razzle-Dazzle is now one of the liveliest revues in London, and the most spectacular". By August the production had transferred to the Empire Theatre, Leicester Square.
The damage to Formby's lungs from the accident was exacerbated by tuberculosis, and he began to miss an increasing number of his appearances. In 1917 the Southport Palladium took court action against him for failing to fulfil a theatrical engagement as contracted, whereupon his lawyer said that Formby was dying of the lung disease and was working for the short time he had left for the benefit of his large family. Formby lost the case: his plea of ill-health was compromised by his accepting an engagement elsewhere at the same time.
Formby's health was further damaged in the influenza pandemic of 1918, during which he contracted the disease while appearing at the Manchester Hippodrome and was unable to work for a month. He was taken ill during the runs of pantomimes in both 1918 and 1919, was forced to rest for three months in 1919, and collapsed on stage during a performance in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1920–21 pantomime season. Formby was advised by doctors to emigrate to South Africa for the benefit of his health, but he preferred to stay in Britain, with his wife and children, and continued to work. During his performances his wife would wait in the wings with ice for him to suck to stop internal bleeding, and an oxygen tent was present in the stage wings ready for emergencies.
In early 1921 Formby was appearing at the Newcastle Empire in Jack and Jill when he collapsed after a show. He returned to his home near Warrington, where he died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 8 February, at the age of 45. He was buried in a family plot in the Catholic section of Warrington Cemetery. He left over £25,000 in his will, listing Eliza as executrix. As their marriage had been bigamous, he described her as "my reputed wife Eliza Ann Booth, otherwise Eliza Ann Hoy".
The obituarist for The Manchester Guardian wrote that Formby was one of the "great drolls" of the music hall whose humour "always seemed to take its rise in a sympathetic perception of human vanities and weaknesses". The Dundee Courier considered him a great comedian, made all the greater by his continuing to perform through his illness, while the drama critic J. T. Grein, writing in The Illustrated London News, thought that Formby, "along with [Harry] Lauder, Robey and [Albert] Chevalier, formed the leading quartette [sic] of the profession".
## Stage persona and technique
Formby was the first comic to use a delayed entrance as a joke to make the audience laugh before he arrived: his orchestra played his entrance music, and then he failed to appear on stage. His act included songs, described by Smart and Bothway Howard as "characteristically simple, some with tunes derived from Methodist hymns, and with catchy choruses", and he would chat to the orchestra conductor and front rows, punctuating his stage patter—delivered in a deadpan style—with his cough. He used his health—particularly the coughing—as part of his act, and would say that he was "Coughin' well tonight!" He also created the phrase "It's not the cough that carries you off – it's the coffin they carries you off in!" One of Formby's nicknames, "The Wigan Nightingale" was coined because of the way he used his bronchial cough in his act.
The "John Willie" character, like much of Formby's act, used pathos as one of the comedic drivers, "but it was not contrived and was never mawkish", according to Alan Randall and Ray Seaton, two of Formby Jr's biographers. In his examination of British screen stars, Geoffrey Macnab agrees, and identifies that although Formby's jokes were about himself, "there was grit in the routines, a resolute denial of self-pity". The Times examined the performer's style of humour, and considered it "often crude, and always simple, but it was always true humour, and, what is more, it was invariably clean."
Much of Formby's humour was based in his north western roots, particularly Wigan, which he told people was where he was born, rather than Ashton. He would refer to taking his holidays at Wigan Pier, which was a small wooden platform on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal for loading coal, rather than a pleasure pier. The Manchester Guardian called him "Lancashire's accredited representative on the London variety stage ... clown-satirist of genius".
When he performed in London, Formby would change his act, introducing himself as "Good evening, I'm Formby fra' Wigan ... I've not been in England long"; he slightly modified his stage persona, and he played "the naïve boy trying to fit in with the sophisticated south". Smart and Boothroyd consider that "the contrast between his northern accent and metropolitan bravado was humorous, and the more urbane and sophisticated his audience the more George exaggerated his provincial gormlessness".
## Legacy
Six weeks after Formby's death, his son George first appeared on stage in a copy of his father's act; he initially appeared under the name George Hoy—using his mother's maiden name—but soon took his father's stage name. Formby Jr later went on to become the top British male star in box office takings between 1937 and 1943, and the highest-paid entertainer in Britain.
Chaplin, who derived some of his stage persona from Formby's, sailed in 1908 with Karno's troupe to the United States, where he developed the character of the Tramp, the image of which became universally familiar by 1915. George Orwell later used Formby's humorous concept of "Wigan Pier" in the title of his 1937 study of depression and unemployment in the area, The Road to Wigan Pier.
Formby left over 190 recordings, and after his death The Times commented, "There cannot be many people who have not heard at some time in their lives either the words or the refrain of 'John Willie – Come On', 'One of the Boys', 'I was Standing on the Corner of the Street', or 'Playing the Game in the West'", songs described by Fisher as "afizz with gaiety and champagne".
In October 1922 a large marble memorial was unveiled at the site of Formby's grave, in the presence of Formby Jr, Eliza and a large crowd. The memorial later became the resting place for both the younger Formby and Eliza. In June 2012 a blue plaque was unveiled at Hodgson Street, Ashton, Formby's birthplace.
|
8,363,238 |
Bob Marshall (wilderness activist)
| 1,169,842,827 |
20th-century American wilderness activist
|
[
"1901 births",
"1939 deaths",
"20th-century American Jews",
"20th-century American non-fiction writers",
"Adirondacks",
"American conservationists",
"American foresters",
"American non-fiction environmental writers",
"American socialists",
"Burials at Salem Fields Cemetery",
"Columbia University alumni",
"Ethical Culture Fieldston School alumni",
"Harvard University alumni",
"Johns Hopkins University alumni",
"New York (state) socialists",
"New York State College of Forestry",
"People of the Alaska Territory",
"Scientists from New York (state)",
"State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry alumni"
] |
Robert Marshall (January 2, 1901 – November 11, 1939) was an American forester, writer and wilderness activist who is best remembered as the person who spearheaded the 1935 founding of the Wilderness Society in the United States. Marshall developed a love for the outdoors as a young child. He was an avid hiker and climber who visited the Adirondack Mountains frequently during his youth, ultimately becoming one of the first Adirondack Forty-Sixers. He also traveled to the Brooks Range of the far northern Alaskan wilderness. He wrote numerous articles and books about his travels, including the bestselling 1933 book Arctic Village.
A scientist with a PhD in plant physiology, Marshall became independently wealthy after the death of his father in 1929. He had started his outdoor career in 1925 as forester with the U.S. Forest Service. He used his financial independence for expeditions to Alaska and other wilderness areas. Later he held two significant public appointed posts: chief of forestry in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from 1933 to 1937, and head of recreation management in the Forest Service, from 1937 to 1939, both during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During this period, he directed the promulgation of regulations to preserve large areas of roadless land that were under federal management. Many years after his death, some of those areas were permanently protected from development, exploitation, and mechanization with the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964.
Defining wilderness as a social as well as an environmental ideal, Marshall promoted organization of a national group dedicated to the preservation of primeval land. In 1935, he was one of the principal founders of The Wilderness Society and personally provided most of the Society's funding in its first years. He also supported socialism and civil liberties throughout his life.
Marshall died of heart failure at the age of 38 in 1939. Twenty-five years later, partly as a result of his efforts, The Wilderness Society helped gain passage of the Wilderness Act. The Act was passed by Congress in 1964 and legally defined wilderness areas of the United States and protected some nine million acres (36,000 km<sup>2</sup>) of federal land from development, road building and motorized transportation. Today, Marshall is considered largely responsible for the wilderness preservation movement. Several areas and landmarks, including The Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana and Mount Marshall in the Adirondacks, have been named in his honor.
## Early life and education
Born in New York City, Bob Marshall was the third of four children of Louis Marshall (1856–1929) and Florence (née Lowenstein) Marshall (1873–1916).
His father, the son of Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, was a noted wealthy constitutional lawyer, conservationist, and a champion of minority rights. The family moved to Syracuse, New York, where Louis Marshall was active in the Jewish community and a co-founder of the American Jewish Committee. In 1891, he was part of a national delegation that sought federal intervention on behalf of persecuted Russian Jews. An amateur naturalist and active conservationist, Louis Marshall was instrumental in securing "forever wild" protection for the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserves in New York State. He helped found the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, now State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Florence Marshall, meanwhile, devoted herself to her family, the education of young Jewish women, and the work of several Jewish welfare organizations.
Bob Marshall attended Felix Adler's private Ethical Culture School in New York City until 1919. The school nurtured independent thinking and commitment to social justice. Marshall became involved in nature from a young age; two of his childhood heroes were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who explored the Louisiana Purchase in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His family took him to the Adirondack Mountains when he was six months old; they returned every summer for the next 25 years. After that, Marshall returned often on his own. His younger brother George (1904–2000) later described the family's visits to Knollwood, their summer camp on Lower Saranac Lake in the Adirondack State Park, as a time when they "entered a world of freedom and informality, of living plants and spaces, of fresh greens and exhilarating blues, of giant, slender pines and delicate pink twinflowers, of deer and mosquitoes, of fishing and guide boats and tramps through the woods".
## Schooling and early exploring
Marshall was drawn to the outdoors. He discovered his passion for exploring, charting, and a love of climbing mountains, in part through the writings of Verplanck Colvin, who during the post-Civil War decade surveyed the woods of northern New York. Throughout his life, Marshall kept a series of hiking notebooks, which he illustrated with photographs and filled with statistics. In 1915, Marshall climbed his first Adirondack peak, the 3,352-foot (1,022 m) Ampersand Mountain, alongside his brother George and family friend Herb Clark, a Saranac Lake guide. The two brothers learned the arts of woodcraft and boating through Clark, who accompanied them on most of their longer trips during adolescence and early adulthood. By 1921, they became the first climbers to scale all 42 Adirondack Mountains believed to exceed 4,000 feet (1,200 m), some of which had never been climbed. In 1924, the three became the first Adirondack Forty-Sixers, hikers who have climbed to the summits of all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks.
After graduating from the Ethical Culture School, Marshall spent a year at Columbia University. In 1920, he transferred to the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. Marshall had decided in his teens that he wanted to be a forester, writing then about his love of "the woods and solitude;" he wrote that he "should hate to spend the greater part of my lifetime in a stuffy office or in a crowded city". For a while he was unhappy and withdrawn at Syracuse. But, he succeeded academically and was known for his individuality. As one classmate put it, Marshall was "always doing something no one else would ever think of doing. He was constantly rating things—the Adirondack peaks, his best days with George, and dozens of others." Marshall became a member of Alpha Xi Sigma, the forestry college's honor society. He ran on the Syracuse University freshman track team and participated in both junior varsity lacrosse and cross country running.
During the early 1920s, Marshall grew interested in promoting Adirondack recreation. In 1922, he became one of the charter members of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), an organization devoted to the building and maintenance of trails and the teaching of hiking in the park. In 1922, he prepared a 38-page guidebook, entitled The High Peaks of the Adirondacks. Based on his pioneering experiences on the peaks, the guide recommends that "it's a great thing these days to leave civilization for a while and return to nature." Marshall provided a brief description of each peak and arranged them in order of "niceness of view and all around pleasure in view and climb."
In 1924, Marshall graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse with a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry, finishing 4th of 59 at the College of Forestry. The senior yearbook described him as "the Champion Pond Hound of all time, a lad with a mania for statistics and shinnying mountain peaks, the boy who will go five miles [8 km] around to find something to wade thru. And the man who is rear chainman for Bob will have to hump or get wet, and probably both." By 1925, he earned a Master's degree in forestry from Harvard University.
## Forest Service and Alaska
Marshall started work in 1925 with the Forest Service, where he worked until 1928. Although he had hoped to go to Alaska, he was assigned that year to the Northern Rocky Mountain Experiment Station at Missoula, Montana. Marshall's research at the experimental station focused on the dynamics of forest regeneration after fires. He had to fight a widespread fire after a July storm started more than 150 fires in Idaho's Kaniksu National Forest. He was put in charge of supporting and provisioning one of the crews led by the Forest Service. As he later recalled, Marshall worked "18 to 20 hours a day as time-keeper, Chief of Commissary, Camp Boss, and Inspector of the fire line". Spending time with loggers and fire fighters, and seeing the conditions under which they worked, Marshall learned vital lessons about labor issues and natural resource use. At the experimental station, Marshall became interested in the unsafe conditions for many working Americans. He began to develop liberal and socialist philosophies.
After leaving the Forest Service in 1928, Marshall worked to complete his studies for a PhD in plant physiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The following year he made his first trip to Alaska, visiting the upper Koyukuk River and the central Brooks Range, and preparing for an extended stay for study. The scientific objective of the trip was to study tree growth at the northern timberline near the Arctic Divide. For his 15-month sojourn in the small town of Wiseman, Alaska, Marshall rented a one-room cabin next to the only roadhouse in the village. He furnished it with books, records, a phonograph player, and a writing desk. He placed the desk so that he could sit by the cabin's single window and admire the view of the Koyukuk River and the range of steep, snow-covered mountains in the background. His travels engendered in him a great love for the central Brooks Range in the Alaskan wilderness. Marshall was one of the first to explore much of the range, especially the headwaters of the North fork of the Koyukuk River, where he bestowed the name "Gates of the Arctic" on a pair of mountains, Boreal Mountain (6,375 ft) and Frigid Crags (5,501 ft).
Bob Marshall's mother died of cancer in 1916. In 1929, his father Louis died in Zürich, Switzerland at the age of 72. The four children inherited most of their father's estate, which was worth several million dollars. Although Marshall became financially independent, he continued to work throughout his life. He used his wealth to pursue his interests, such as The Wilderness Society, which he essentially supported in its early years.
In 1930, Marshall received his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Burton E. Livingston at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory of Plant Physiology. Marshall's doctoral dissertation was titled An Experimental Study of the Water Relations of Seedling Conifers with Special Reference to Wilting.
In February 1930, Marshall published an essay, "The Problem of the Wilderness," after it was rejected by four magazines. This is now celebrated as a defense of wilderness preservation, and the essay expanded themes developed in his earlier article, "The Wilderness as a Minority Right." Published in The Scientific Monthly, the essay is considered one of Marshall's most important works. He argued that wilderness was worth saving not only because of its unique aesthetic qualities, but because it could provide visitors with a chance for adventure. Marshall stated: "There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness." The article became a much-quoted call to action and by the late 20th century was considered seminal by wilderness historians.
In July 1930, Marshall and his brother George climbed nine Adirondack High Peaks in one day, setting a new record.
In August of that year, Marshall returned to Alaska. He planned to explore the Brooks Range to pursue more tree research, and he also wanted to study the Arctic frontier society of Wiseman. He described the village, which was 200 miles north of Fairbanks, as "the happiest civilization of which I have knowledge." Befriending a number of the area's inhabitants, he meticulously recorded thousands of hours of conversation with them. Marshall persuaded a number of villagers, most of whom were single males, to take intelligence tests. He also recorded statistics on all aspects of the villagers' lives, from their financial resources to their diets to their sexual habits. He spent 12-1/2 months—from late August 1930 to early September 1931—exploring and collecting data. From this work (and his previous trip to Alaska), he wrote Arctic Village, a sociological study of life in the wilderness. Published in 1933 the book was selected by the Literary Guild and became a bestseller. Marshall shared the royalties from the book with the residents of Wiseman.
## Writing, conservation, and Federal government
Marshall returned to the East Coast in late September 1931. Although he was writing Arctic Village, he also wrote prolifically on other topics and published several articles about American forestry. In particular, he was concerned that few articles of this time addressed the issue of deforestation, and he wrote a letter to the president of the American Forestry Association, George D. Pratt, on the matter. He also pursued a variety of other activities: he accepted an invitation to serve on a committee to dedicate a memorial (Louis Marshall Memorial Hall) to his father at the forestry college in Syracuse. He lectured in various cities, delivering speeches about his travels and wilderness preservation.
Shortly after his return, Marshall was asked by Earle Clapp, head of the Forest Service's Branch of Research, to help initiate badly needed reforms in the forest-products industry and to create a broader vision of national forest management. Marshall moved to Washington, D.C. in September 1932 to assume the appointed position, which entailed writing initiatives for forest recreation. He immediately began compiling a list of the remaining roadless areas in the United States. He sent this data to regional foresters, urging them to set aside areas for wilderness; all of them responded negatively. Marshall's contributions to what became known as the Copeland Report amounted to three extensive chapters of a two-volume, 1,677-page work. He considered it "the best piece of forestry work I have yet done."
During the depths of the Great Depression in 1932–1933, Marshall had defined himself as a socialist. He told a correspondent: "I wish very sincerely that Socialism would be put into effect right away and the profit system eliminated." He became active in the Tenants Unemployed League of the District of Columbia, a group that helped unemployed people with housing problems; later he joined the fight against federal aid cuts to scientific research. Having learned of the American Civil Liberties Union from his father, he served as chairman of the Washington, DC chapter. Marshall was arrested and briefly held for participating in a March 1933 United Front demonstration.
Marshall did not forget his conservation causes, and soon was pondering the question of wilderness and national parks. In the early 1930s, he joined the National Parks Association, eventually becoming a member of its board.
In 1933, Marshall published The People's Forests [On Forestry in America], in which he "made a forceful case for socializing the nation's industrial timberlands." He believed that public ownership was the "best way to ensure both the sustainability of the forest industry and the preservation of wilderness."
In August 1933, Marshall was appointed as director of the Forestry Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a position he held for four years. The BIA managed the resources of many Indian reservation lands, deciding on logging and other leases for resource extraction. This was before many tribes asserted their sovereignty and took over their own management of their lands. Marshall besieged government personnel with letters, telephone calls, and personal visits in the cause of wilderness, rapidly gaining recognition in Washington as a champion of preservation. One of his last initiatives as chief forester of the BIA was to recommend designation of 4,800,000 acres (19,425 km<sup>2</sup>) of Indian reservation lands for federal management as either "roadless" or "wild" areas. The administrative order, which created 16 wilderness areas, received approval shortly after Marshall left the BIA to join the Forest Service again. He was appointed to a political position there as well.
Marshall became increasingly concerned with civilization's encroachment upon the wild lands, writing:
> The sounds of the forest are entirely obliterated by the roar of the motor. The smell of pine needles and flowers and herbs and freshly turned dirt and all the other delicate odors of the forest are drowned in the stench of gasoline. The feeling of wind blowing in the face and of soft ground under foot are all lost.
## The Wilderness Society
In 1934, Marshall visited Knoxville, Tennessee and met with Benton MacKaye, a regional planner who gained support to designate and lay out the Appalachian Trail. Together with Harvey Broome, a Knoxville lawyer, they discussed Marshall's 1930 proposal for an organization dedicated to wilderness preservation. Bernard Frank, a fellow forester, joined them later in the year; the men mailed an "Invitation to Help Organize a Group to Preserve the American Wilderness" to like-minded individuals. The invitation expressed their desire "to integrate the growing sentiment which we believe exists in this country for holding wild areas sound-proof as well as sight-proof from our increasingly mechanized life," and their conviction that such wildernesses were "a serious human need rather than a luxury and plaything".
On January 21, 1935, the organizing committee published a folder stating that "for the purpose of fighting off invasion of the wilderness and of stimulating ... an appreciation of its multiform emotional, intellectual, and scientific values, we are forming an organization to be known as the WILDERNESS SOCIETY". They invited Aldo Leopold to act as the society's first president, but the position ultimately went to Robert Sterling Yard. Marshall provided the bulk of the society's funding in its early years, beginning with an anonymous donation of \$1,000.
T. H. Watkins, who later edited the society's magazine, Wilderness, contended that before Marshall and the Society there was "no true movement" for the preservation of the nation's roadless and primitive areas. "One could comfortably argue," Watkins wrote in 1985 on the occasion of the society's 50th anniversary, "that Robert Marshall was personally responsible for the preservation of more wilderness than any individual in history".
## Later efforts and sudden death
Marshall's last years were productive. By May 1937, he was appointed as director of the Forest Service's Division of Recreation and Lands. Over the next two years, Marshall worked on two major initiatives: an effort to extend national forest recreational opportunities to people with lower incomes (as well as dismantling discriminatory barriers against ethnic minorities), and a program to preserve more wilderness within the national forests. His biographer James Glover asserts that Marshall was probably the first high-level official to seriously fight ethnic discrimination in Forest Service recreational policies, at a time when racial segregation of public facilities was law throughout the Southern states and in some other states. During this time, Marshall continued to financially support The Wilderness Society, as well as various civil rights, labor, and socialist organizations.
In August 1938, Marshall began his last trip to Alaska, which included further exploration of the Brooks Range. He became a subject of interest of the House Un-American Activities Committee, a House of Representatives committee investigating "un-American" activities. Known as the Dies Committee for its chairman, Martin Dies, the committee announced in The New York Times that eight federal officials (including Marshall) were contributing to communism because of their connections to such organizations as the Workers Alliance and the American League for Peace and Democracy. Marshall was too busy traveling to respond to the allegations: after leaving Alaska he spent time in Washington state, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and California. He visited Alaska for one last time the following year and made a tour of western national forests, addressing aspects of forest recreation.
While Marshall was in Washington State that September, two regulations (U-1 and U2) developed by his Forest Service committee were signed by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace; these "U-Regulations" protected wilderness and wild areas from road building, logging, hotels, and similarly destructive activities. It made their protected status more secure.
While on a midnight train from Washington, D.C. to New York City on November 11, 1939, Marshall died of apparent heart failure at the age of 38. His sudden death came as a shock because of his relatively young age and high level of physical activity. He was greatly mourned by friends and relatives. His brother George (who lived to be 96) said: "Bob's death shattered me and was the most traumatic event in my life." Marshall was interred at Salem Fields Cemetery, a Jewish burial ground in Brooklyn, New York City, beside his parents and sister Ruth (Putey) Marshall, who had died of congestive heart failure at age 38 in 1936.
## Legacy
A bachelor, Marshall left virtually all of his \$1.5 million estate (equivalent to \$ million today) to three causes dear to him: wilderness preservation, socialism, civil liberties. Three trusts were established in his will. The first, focused on education related to "the theory of production for use and not for profit", received half of his estate; the second, aimed at "safeguarding and advancement of the cause of civil liberties", received one-quarter of his estate; and the third supported "preservation of the wilderness conditions in outdoor America," establishing what became the Robert Marshall Wilderness Fund. Trustees of the latter trust included Robert Sterling Yard, Bob Marshall's brother George, Irving Clark, Olaus Murie and Bill Zimmerman, early leaders of The Wilderness Society. Marshall left money to only one individual: \$10,000 (equivalent to \$ today) to his old friend and guide, Herb Clark.
Marshall's posthumously published book Alaska Wilderness, Exploring the Central Brooks Range (1956), edited by his brother George, became a seminal work. It inspired the establishment of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. His Adirondack writings were published by Lost Pond Press in 2006, as an anthology titled Bob Marshall in the Adirondacks: Writings of a Pioneering Peak-Bagger, Pond-Hopper and Wilderness Preservationist. It was edited by Phil Brown, editor of the Adirondack Explorer news magazine. According to the publisher, the book includes "numerous accounts of his hikes in the High Peaks and the vast wild region south of Cranberry Lake, spirited defenses of the state's forever-wild Forest Preserve, a charming portrait of Herb Clark, and excerpts from an unpublished novel set partly in the Adirondacks".
Since its founding, The Wilderness Society has helped pass many bills for preservation and conservation of public lands. It has also purchased lands for preservation, contributing a total of 109 million acres (421,000 km<sup>2</sup>) to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Marshall's dream of permanent wilderness protection became a reality 25 years after his death when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law on September 3, 1964, in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Written by Howard Zahniser—who died of a heart attack at age 58 four months before the bill was signed into law— the legislation authorized the United States Congress to set aside a total of 9 million acres in selected areas in the national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, and other federal lands as units to be kept permanently unchanged by humans. It also provided for more acreage to be designated as wilderness for preservation. In defining wilderness, Zahniser invoked Marshall and his contemporaries, stating that "in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, [wilderness] is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." The act's signing was the most important event in the history of The Wilderness Society; members Mardy Murie and Alice Zahniser stood beside Johnson as he signed the legislation. With the Wilderness Act, the United States guaranteed permanent protection of wild and scenic natural areas for future generations.
### Places and dedications
The Bob Marshall Wilderness, an area located in Flathead and Lewis and Clark national forests in Montana, was created in the same year (1964) that the Wilderness Act became law. It had previously been set aside in 1941 as the South Fork, Pentagon, and Sun River Primitive Areas. The area encompasses a million acres (4,000 km<sup>2</sup>) and is one of the best-preserved ecosystems in the world. Known as "The Bob," it is the fifth-largest wilderness in the contiguous 48 states (Death Valley is the largest). In compliance with the 1964 Wilderness Act, no motorized or mechanical equipment (including bicycles or hang gliders) is permitted. Although camping and fishing are allowed with proper permit, the area is roadless, and logging and mining are prohibited. There are numerous U.S. Forest Service cabins in The Bob for use by Forest Service personnel. The Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (which encompasses Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Great Bear Wildernesses) is a habitat for the grizzly bear, lynx, cougar, wolf, black bear, moose, elk and a variety of other birds, mammals, and plants.
Mount Marshall (previously called Mount Herbert), which stands 4,360 feet (1,330 m) high in the Adirondack Mountains, Camp Bob Marshall in the Black Hills, and Marshall Lake in the Brooks Range of Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, are also named for him. In 2008, the Adirondack Council was encouraging the state of New York to create the Bob Marshall Great Wilderness near Cranberry Lake in the western Adirondacks; if successful, it would be the largest wilderness area in the Adirondack Park at 409,000 acres (639 sq mi; 1,655 km<sup>2</sup>).
At the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF), Bob Marshall Fellowships in wilderness management and policy studies are offered to graduate students and faculty engaged in research in recreation resource management; the fellowships are supported by the college's Bob Marshall Endowed Fund. Also at ESF, a student "outing club" named after Marshall honors his love of the outdoors and the Adirondack mountains. A bronze plaque commemorating Bob Marshall's contributions to wilderness conservation was installed in the entrance of Marshall Hall, a hub of campus events and activities named after his father.
## Selected list of works
### Articles
- "The Wilderness as a Minority Right", U.S. Forest Service Bulletin (August 27, 1928), pp. 5–6.
- "Forest devastation must stop", The Nation (August 28, 1929)
- "The Problem of the Wilderness", The Scientific Monthly (February 1930), pp. 141–148
- "A Proposed Remedy for Our Forest Illness", Journal of Forestry 28 (March 1930)
- "The Social Management of American Forests", League for Industrial Democracy (1930)
### Books
- Arctic Village. New York: The Literary Guild (1933)
(reprinted by the University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, 1991. )
- The People's Forests. [On Forestry in America.]. New York: H. Smith and R. Haas (1933)
(reprinted by the University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 2002. )
- Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press (1970)
(first published as Arctic Wilderness, in 1956)
|
288,140 |
Maya Angelou
| 1,173,792,560 |
American poet, author, and civil rights activist (1928–2014)
|
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Maya Angelou (/ˈændʒəloʊ/ AN-jə-loh; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou's series of seven autobiographies focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. Angelou was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Angelou was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.
With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of Black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U.S. libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes including racism, identity, family and travel.
## Early life
Marguerite Annie Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928, the second child of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and navy dietitian, and Vivian (Baxter) Johnson, a nurse and card dealer. Angelou's older brother, Bailey Jr., nicknamed Marguerite "Maya", derived from "My" or "Mya Sister". When Angelou was three and her brother four, their parents' "calamitous marriage" ended, and their father sent them to Stamps, Arkansas, alone by train, to live with their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson. In "an astonishing exception" to the harsh economics of African Americans of the time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression and World War II, because the general store she owned sold basic and needed commodities and because "she made wise and honest investments".
Four years later, when Angelou was seven and her brother eight, the children's father "came to Stamps without warning" and returned them to their mother's care in St. Louis. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named Freeman. She told her brother, who told the rest of their family. Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for only one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles. Angelou became mute for almost five years, believing, as she stated, "I thought, my voice killed him; I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone." According to Marcia Ann Gillespie and her colleagues, who wrote a biography about Angelou, it was during this period of silence when Angelou developed her extraordinary memory, her love for books and literature, and her ability to listen and observe the world around her.
Shortly after Freeman's murder, when Angelou was eight and her brother nine, Angelou and her brother were sent back to their grandmother. She attended the Lafayette County Training School, in Stamps, a Rosenwald School. Angelou credits a teacher and friend of her family, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, with helping her speak again, challenging her by saying, "You do not love poetry, not until you speak it". Flowers introduced her to authors such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgia Douglas Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson, authors who would affect her life and career, as well as Black female artists like Frances Harper, Anne Spencer, and Jessie Fauset.
When Angelou was fourteen and her brother fifteen, she and her brother moved in once again with their mother, who had since moved to Oakland, California. During World War II, Angelou attended the California Labor School. At the age of 16, she became the first Black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco. She wanted the job badly, admiring the uniforms of the operators—so much so that her mother referred to it as her "dream job". Her mother encouraged her to pursue the position, but warned her that she would need to arrive early and work harder than others. In 2014, Angelou received a lifetime achievement award from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials as part of a session billed "Women Who Move the Nation".
Three weeks after completing school, at the age of seventeen, she gave birth to her son, Clyde (who later changed his name to Guy Johnson).
## Career
### Adulthood and early career: 1951–1961
In 1951, Angelou married Tosh Angelos, a Greek electrician, former sailor, and aspiring musician, despite the condemnation of interracial relationships at the time and the disapproval of her mother. She took modern dance classes during this time, and met dancers and choreographers Alvin Ailey and Ruth Beckford. Ailey and Angelou formed a dance team, calling themselves "Al and Rita", and performed modern dance at fraternal Black organizations throughout San Francisco but never became successful. Angelou, her new husband, and her son moved to New York City so she could study African dance with Trinidadian dancer Pearl Primus, but they returned to San Francisco a year later.
After Angelou's marriage ended in 1954, she danced professionally in clubs around San Francisco, including the nightclub The Purple Onion, where she sang and danced to calypso music. Up to that point, she went by the name of "Marguerite Johnson", or "Rita", but at the strong suggestion of her managers and supporters at The Purple Onion, she changed her professional name to "Maya Angelou" (her nickname and former married surname). It was a "distinctive name" that set her apart and captured the feel of her calypso dance performances. During 1954 and 1955, Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She began her practice of learning the language of every country she visited, and in a few years she gained proficiency in several languages. In 1957, riding on the popularity of calypso, Angelou recorded her first album, Miss Calypso, which was reissued as a CD in 1996. She appeared in an off-Broadway review that inspired the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave, in which Angelou sang and performed her own compositions.
Angelou met novelist John Oliver Killens in 1959 and, at his urging, moved to New York to concentrate on her writing career. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild, where she met several major African-American authors, including John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy, Paule Marshall, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the first time. In 1960, after meeting civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and hearing him speak, she and Killens organized "the legendary" Cabaret for Freedom to benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and she was named SCLC's Northern Coordinator. According to scholar Lyman B. Hagen, her contributions to civil rights as a fundraiser and SCLC organizer were successful and "eminently effective". Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during this time. She had joined the crowd cheering for Fidel Castro when he first entered the Hotel Theresa in Harlem New York during United Nations 15th General Assembly on September 19, 1960.
### Africa to Caged Bird: 1961–1969
In 1961, Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks (playing the part of the Queen), along with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Lee Brown, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson. Also in 1961, she met South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make; they never officially married. She and her son Guy moved with Make to Cairo, where Angelou worked as an associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer. In 1962, her relationship with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could attend college, but he was seriously injured in an automobile accident. Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and ended up staying there until 1965. She became an administrator at the University of Ghana, and was active in the African-American expatriate community. She was a feature editor for The African Review, a freelance writer for the Ghanaian Times, wrote and broadcast for Radio Ghana, and worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. She performed in a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.In Accra, she became close friends with Malcolm X during his visit in the early 1960s. Angelou returned to the U.S. in 1965 to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity; he was assassinated shortly afterward. Devastated and adrift, she joined her brother in Hawaii, where she resumed her singing career. She moved back to Los Angeles to focus on her writing career. Working as a market researcher in Watts, Angelou witnessed the riots in the summer of 1965. She acted in and wrote plays, and returned to New York in 1967. She met her lifelong friend Rosa Guy and renewed her friendship with James Baldwin, whom she had met in Paris in the 1950s and called "my brother", during this time. Her friend Jerry Purcell provided Angelou with a stipend to support her writing.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. asked Angelou to organize a march. She agreed, but postponed again, and in what Gillespie calls "a macabre twist of fate", he was assassinated on her 40th birthday (April 4). Devastated again, she was encouraged out of her depression by her friend James Baldwin. As Gillespie states, "If 1968 was a year of great pain, loss, and sadness, it was also the year when America first witnessed the breadth and depth of Maya Angelou's spirit and creative genius". Despite having almost no experience, she wrote, produced, and narrated Blacks, Blues, Black!, a ten-part series of documentaries about the connection between blues music and Black Americans' African heritage, and what Angelou called the "Africanisms still current in the U.S." for National Educational Television, the precursor of PBS. Also in 1968, inspired at a dinner party she attended with Baldwin, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and his wife Judy, and challenged by Random House editor Robert Loomis, she wrote her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969. This brought her international recognition and acclaim.
### Later career
Released in 1972, Angelou's Georgia, Georgia, produced by a Swedish film company and filmed in Sweden, was the first produced screenplay by a Black woman. She also wrote the film's soundtrack, despite having very little additional input in the filming of the movie. Angelou married Paul du Feu, a Welsh carpenter and ex-husband of writer Germaine Greer, in San Francisco in 1973. Over the next ten years, as Gillespie has stated, "She [Angelou] had accomplished more than many artists hope to achieve in a lifetime." Angelou worked as a composer, writing for singer Roberta Flack, and composing movie scores. She wrote articles, short stories, TV scripts, documentaries, autobiographies, and poetry. She produced plays and was named visiting professor at several colleges and universities. She was "a reluctant actor", and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for her role in Look Away. As a theater director, in 1988 she undertook a revival of Errol John's play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl at the Almeida Theatre in London.
In 1977, Angelou appeared in a supporting role in the television mini-series Roots. She was given a multitude of awards during this period, including more than thirty honorary degrees from colleges and universities from all over the world. In the late 1970s, Angelou met Oprah Winfrey when Winfrey was a TV anchor in Baltimore, Maryland; Angelou would later become Winfrey's close friend and mentor. In 1981, Angelou and du Feu divorced.
She returned to the southern United States in 1981 because she felt she had to come to terms with her past there and, despite having no bachelor's degree, accepted the lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was one of a few full-time African-American professors. From that point on, she considered herself "a teacher who writes". Angelou taught a variety of subjects that reflected her interests, including philosophy, ethics, theology, science, theater, and writing. The Winston-Salem Journal reported that even though she made many friends on campus, "she never quite lived down all of the criticism from people who thought she was more of a celebrity than an intellect ... [and] an overpaid figurehead". The last course she taught at Wake Forest was in 2011, but she was planning to teach another course in late 2014. Her final speaking engagement at the university was in late 2013. Beginning in the 1990s, Angelou actively participated in the lecture circuit in a customized tour bus, something she continued into her eighties.
In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. Her recitation resulted in more fame and recognition for her previous works, and broadened her appeal "across racial, economic, and educational boundaries". The recording of the poem won a Grammy Award. In June 1995, she delivered what Richard Long called her "second 'public' poem", entitled "A Brave and Startling Truth", which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
Angelou achieved her goal of directing a feature film in 1996, Down in the Delta, which featured actors such as Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes. Also in 1996, she collaborated with R&B artists Ashford & Simpson on seven of the eleven tracks of their album Been Found. The album was responsible for three of Angelou's only Billboard chart appearances. In 2000, she created a successful collection of products for Hallmark, including greeting cards and decorative household items. She responded to critics who charged her with being too commercial by stating that "the enterprise was perfectly in keeping with her role as 'the people's poet'". More than thirty years after Angelou began writing her life story, she completed her sixth autobiography A Song Flung Up to Heaven, in 2002.
Angelou campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential primaries, giving her public support to Hillary Clinton. In the run-up to the January Democratic primary in South Carolina, the Clinton campaign ran ads featuring Angelou's endorsement. The ads were part of the campaign's efforts to rally support in the Black community; but Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary, finishing 29 points ahead of Clinton and taking 80% of the Black vote. When Clinton's campaign ended, Angelou put her support behind Obama, who went on to win the presidential election and become the first African-American president of the United States. After Obama's inauguration, she stated, "We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism."
In late 2010, Angelou donated her personal papers and career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. They consisted of more than 340 boxes of documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a 1982 telegram from Coretta Scott King, fan mail, and personal and professional correspondence from colleagues such as her editor Robert Loomis. In 2011, Angelou served as a consultant for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. She spoke out in opposition to a paraphrase of a quotation by King that appeared on the memorial, saying, "The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit", and demanded that it be changed. Eventually, the paraphrase was removed.
In 2013, at the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume of autobiography in her series, entitled Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her relationship with her mother.
## Personal life
Evidence suggests that Angelou was partially descended from the Mende people of West Africa. In 2008, a DNA test revealed that among all of her African ancestors, 45 percent were from the Congo-Angola region and 55 percent were from West Africa. A 2008 PBS documentary found that Angelou's maternal great-grandmother, Mary Lee, who had been emancipated after the Civil War, became pregnant by her white former owner, John Savin. Savin forced Lee to sign a false statement accusing another man of being the father of her child. After Savin was indicted for forcing Lee to commit perjury, and despite the discovery that Savin was the father, a jury found him not guilty. Lee was sent to the Clinton County poorhouse in Missouri with her daughter, Marguerite Baxter, who became Angelou's grandmother. Angelou described Lee as "that poor little black girl, physically and mentally bruised."
The details of Angelou's life described in her seven autobiographies and in numerous interviews, speeches, and articles tended to be inconsistent. Critic Mary Jane Lupton has explained that when Angelou spoke about her life, she did so eloquently, but informally, and "with no time chart in front of her." For example, she was married at least twice, but never clarified the number of times she had been married, "for fear of sounding frivolous." According to her autobiographies and to Gillespie, she married Tosh Angelos in 1951, and Paul du Feu in 1974, and began her relationship with Vusumzi Make in 1961, but never formally married him. Angelou held many jobs, including some in the sex trade working as a prostitute and madam for lesbians, and describes so in her second autobiography, Gather Together in My Name. In a 1995 interview, Angelou said,
> I wrote about my experiences because I thought too many people tell young folks, "I never did anything wrong. Who, Moi? – never I. I have no skeletons in my closet. In fact, I have no closet." They lie like that and then young people find themselves in situations and they think, "Damn I must be a pretty bad guy. My mom or dad never did anything wrong." They can't forgive themselves and go on with their lives.
Angelou had one son, Guy, whose birth she described in her first autobiography; one grandson, two great-grandchildren, and, according to Gillespie, a large group of friends and extended family. Angelou's mother Vivian Baxter died in 1991 and her brother Bailey Johnson Jr., died in 2000 after a series of strokes; both were important figures in her life and her books. In 1981, the mother of her grandson disappeared with him; finding him took four years.
Angelou did not earn a university degree, but according to Gillespie it was Angelou's preference to be called "Dr. Angelou" by people outside of her family and close friends. She owned two homes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a "lordly brownstone" in Harlem, which was purchased in 2004 and was full of her "growing library" of books she collected throughout her life, artwork collected over the span of many decades, and well-stocked kitchens. The Guardian writer Gary Younge reported that in Angelou's Harlem home were several African wall hangings and her collection of paintings, including ones of several jazz trumpeters, a watercolor of Rosa Parks, and a Faith Ringgold work entitled "Maya's Quilt Of Life".
According to Gillespie, she hosted several celebrations per year at her main residence in Winston-Salem; "her skill in the kitchen is the stuff of legend—from haute cuisine to down-home comfort food". The Winston-Salem Journal stated: "Securing an invitation to one of Angelou's Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas tree decorating parties or birthday parties was among the most coveted invitations in town." The New York Times, describing Angelou's residence history in New York City, stated that she regularly hosted elaborate New Year's Day parties. She combined her cooking and writing skills in her 2004 book Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, which featured 73 recipes, many of which she learned from her grandmother and mother, accompanied by 28 vignettes. She followed up in 2010 with her second cookbook, Great Food, All Day Long: Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart, which focused on weight loss and portion control.
Beginning with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou used the same "writing ritual" for many years. She would wake early in the morning and check into a hotel room, where the staff was instructed to remove any pictures from the walls. She would write on legal pads while lying on the bed, with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards to play solitaire, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Bible, and would leave by the early afternoon. She would average 10–12 pages of written material a day, which she edited down to three or four pages in the evening. She went through this process to "enchant" herself, and as she said in a 1989 interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation, "relive the agony, the anguish, the Sturm und Drang". She placed herself back in the time she wrote about, even traumatic experiences such as her rape in Caged Bird, to "tell the human truth" about her life. Angelou stated that she played cards to get to that place of enchantment and to access her memories more effectively. She said, "It may take an hour to get into it, but once I'm in it—ha! It's so delicious!" She did not find the process cathartic; rather, she found relief in "telling the truth".
In 2009, the gossip website TMZ erroneously reported that Angelou had been hospitalized in Los Angeles when she was alive and well in St. Louis, which resulted in rumors of her death and, according to Angelou, concern among her friends and family worldwide.
## Death
Angelou died on the morning of May 28, 2014, at age 86. Although Angelou had reportedly been in poor health and had canceled recent scheduled appearances, she was working on another book, an autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders. During her memorial service at Wake Forest University, her son Guy Johnson stated that despite being in constant pain due to her dancing career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during the last ten years of her life. He said, "She left this mortal plane with no loss of acuity and no loss in comprehension."
Tributes to Angelou and condolences were paid by artists, entertainers, and world leaders, including President Obama, whose sister was named after Angelou, and Bill Clinton. Harold Augenbraum, from the National Book Foundation, said that Angelou's "legacy is one that all writers and readers across the world can admire and aspire to." The week after Angelou's death, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings rose to number 1 on Amazon.com's bestseller list.
On May 29, 2014, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, of which Angelou was a member for 30 years, held a public memorial service to honor her. On June 7, a private memorial service was held at Wait Chapel on the campus of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The memorial was shown live on local stations in the Winston-Salem/Triad area and streamed live on the university web site with speeches from her son, Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Bill Clinton. On June 15, a memorial was held at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, where Angelou was a member for many years. Rev. Cecil Williams, Mayor Ed Lee, and former mayor Willie Brown spoke.
## Works
Angelou wrote a total of seven autobiographies. According to scholar Mary Jane Lupton, Angelou's third autobiography Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas marked the first time a well-known African-American autobiographer had written a third volume about her life. Her books "stretch over time and place", from Arkansas to Africa and back to the U.S., and take place from the beginnings of World War II to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In her fifth autobiography, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), Angelou tells about her return to Ghana searching for the past of her tribe. She published her seventh autobiography Mom & Me & Mom in 2013, at the age of 85. Critics have tended to judge Angelou's subsequent autobiographies "in light of the first", with Caged Bird receiving the highest praise. Angelou wrote five collections of essays, which writer Hilton Als called her "wisdom books" and "homilies strung together with autobiographical texts". Angelou used the same editor throughout her writing career, Robert Loomis, an executive editor at Random House; he retired in 2011 and has been called "one of publishing's hall of fame editors." Angelou said regarding Loomis: "We have a relationship that's kind of famous among publishers."
Angelou's long and extensive career also included poetry, plays, screenplays for television and film, directing, acting, and public speaking. She was a prolific writer of poetry; her volume Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and she was chosen by U.S. president Bill Clinton to recite her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" during his inauguration in 1993.
Angelou's successful acting career included roles in numerous plays, films, and television programs, including her appearance in the television mini-series Roots in 1977. Her screenplay, Georgia, Georgia (1972), was the first original script by a Black woman to be produced, and she was the first African-American woman to direct a major motion picture, Down in the Delta, in 1998.
### Chronology of autobiographies
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969): Up to 1944 (age 17)
- Gather Together in My Name (1974): 1944–48
- Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976): 1949–55
- The Heart of a Woman (1981): 1957–62
- All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986): 1962–65
- A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002): 1965–68
- Mom & Me & Mom (2013): overview
## Reception and legacy
### Influence
When I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published in 1969, Angelou was hailed as a new kind of memoirist, one of the first African-American women who were able to publicly discuss their personal lives. According to scholar Hilton Als, up to that point, Black female writers were marginalized to the point that they were unable to present themselves as central characters in the literature they wrote. Linguist John McWhorter agreed, seeing Angelou's works, which he called "tracts", as "apologetic writing". He placed Angelou in the tradition of African-American literature as a defense of Black culture, which he called "a literary manifestation of the imperative that reigned in the black scholarship of the period". Writer Julian Mayfield, who called Caged Bird "a work of art that eludes description", argued that Angelou's autobiographies set a precedent for not only other Black women writers, but also African-American autobiography as a whole. Als said that Caged Bird marked one of the first times that a Black autobiographer could, as he put it, "write about blackness from the inside, without apology or defense". Through the writing of her autobiography, Angelou became recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. It made her "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer", and "a major autobiographical voice of the time". As writer Gary Younge said, "Probably more than almost any other writer alive, Angelou's life literally is her work."
Als said that Caged Bird helped increase Black feminist writings in the 1970s, less through its originality than "its resonance in the prevailing Zeitgeist", or the time in which it was written, at the end of the American Civil Rights Movement. Als also claimed that Angelou's writings, more interested in self-revelation than in politics or feminism, have freed other female writers to "open themselves up without shame to the eyes of the world". Angelou critic Joanne M. Braxton stated that Caged Bird was "perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing" autobiography written by an African-American woman in its era. Angelou's poetry has influenced the modern hip-hop music community, including artists such as Kanye West, Common, Tupac Shakur, and Nicki Minaj.
### Critical reception
Reviewer Elsie B. Washington called Angelou "the black woman's poet laureate". Sales of the paperback version of her books and poetry rose by 300–600% the week after Angelou's recitation. Random House, which published the poem later that year, had to reprint 400,000 copies of all her books to keep up with the demand. They sold more of her books in January 1993 than they did in all of 1992, accounting for a 1,200% increase. Angelou famously said, in response to criticism regarding using the details of her life in her work, "I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money'." Younge, speaking after the publication of Angelou's third book of essays, Letter to My Daughter (2008), has said, "For the last couple of decades she has merged her various talents into a kind of performance art—issuing a message of personal and social uplift by blending poetry, song and conversation."
Angelou's books, especially I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, have been criticized by many parents, causing their removal from school curricula and library shelves. According to the National Coalition Against Censorship, some parents and some schools have objected to Caged Bird's depictions of lesbianism, premarital cohabitation, pornography, and violence. Some have been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use of language, and irreverent depictions of religion. Caged Bird appeared third on the American Library Association (ALA) list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 and sixth on the ALA's 2000–2009 list.
### Awards and honors
Angelou was honored by universities, literary organizations, government agencies, and special interest groups. Her honors included a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie, a Tony Award nomination for her role in the 1973 play Look Away, and three Grammys for her spoken word albums. She served on two presidential committees, and was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1994, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Angelou was awarded more than fifty honorary degrees. In 2021, the United States Mint announced that Angelou would be among the first women depicted on the reverse of the quarter as a part of the American Women quarters series. The coins were released in January 2022. She is the first Black woman to be depicted on a quarter.
### Uses in education
Angelou's autobiographies have been used in narrative and multicultural approaches in teacher education. Jocelyn A. Glazier, a professor at George Washington University, has trained teachers how to "talk about race" in their classrooms with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name. According to Glazier, Angelou's use of understatement, self-mockery, humor, and irony have left readers of Angelou's autobiographies unsure of what she left out and how they should respond to the events she described. Angelou's depictions of her experiences of racism have forced white readers to either explore their feelings about race and their own "privileged status", or to avoid the discussion as a means of keeping their privilege. Glazier found that critics have focused on the way Angelou fits within the genre of African-American autobiography and on her literary techniques, but readers have tended to react to her storytelling with "surprise, particularly when [they] enter the text with certain expectations about the genre of autobiography".
Educator Daniel Challener, in his 1997 book Stories of Resilience in Childhood, analyzed the events in Caged Bird to illustrate resiliency in children. He argued that Angelou's book has provided a "useful framework" for exploring the obstacles many children like Maya have faced and how their communities have helped them succeed. Psychologist Chris Boyatzis has reported using Caged Bird to supplement scientific theory and research in the instruction of child development topics such as the development of self-concept and self-esteem, ego resilience, industry versus inferiority, effects of abuse, parenting styles, sibling and friendship relations, gender issues, cognitive development, puberty, and identity formation in adolescence. He found Caged Bird a "highly effective" tool for providing real-life examples of these psychological concepts.
## Poetry
Angelou is best known for her seven autobiographies, but she was also a prolific and successful poet. She was called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her poems have been called the anthems of African Americans. Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young age, and used poetry and other great literature to cope with her rape as a young girl, as described in Caged Bird. According to scholar Yasmin Y. DeGout, literature also affected Angelou's sensibilities as the poet and writer she became, especially the "liberating discourse that would evolve in her own poetic canon".
Many critics consider Angelou's autobiographies more important than her poetry. Although all her books have been bestsellers, her poetry has not been perceived to be as serious as her prose and has been understudied. Her poems were more interesting when she recited and performed them, and many critics emphasized the public aspect of her poetry. Angelou's lack of critical acclaim has been attributed to both the public nature of many of her poems and to Angelou's popular success, and to critics' preferences for poetry as a written form rather than a verbal, performed one. Zofia Burr has countered Angelou's critics by condemning them for not taking into account Angelou's larger purposes in her writing: "to be representative rather than individual, authoritative rather than confessional".
In the view of Harold Bloom, Professor of Literature (Yale University and New York University) and literary critic:
> Her poetry has a large public, but very little critical esteem. It is, in every sense, "popular poetry," and makes no formal or cognitive demands upon the reader. Of Angelou's sincerity, good-will towards all, and personal vitality, there can be no doubt. She is professionally an inspirational writer, of the self-help variety, which perhaps places her beyond criticism. [...] Angelou seems best at ballads, the most traditional kind of popular poetry. The function of such work is necessarily social rather than aesthetic, particularly in an era totally dominated by visual media. One has to be grateful for the benignity, humor, and whole-heartedness of Angelou's project, even if her autobiographical prose necessarily centers her achievement.
## Style and genre in autobiographies
Angelou's use of fiction-writing techniques such as dialogue, characterization, and development of theme, setting, plot, and language has often resulted in the placement of her books into the genre of autobiographical fiction. Angelou made a deliberate attempt in her books to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Scholar Mary Jane Lupton argues that all of Angelou's autobiographies conform to the genre's standard structure: they are written by a single author, they are chronological, and they contain elements of character, technique, and theme. Angelou recognizes that there are fictional aspects to her books; Lupton agrees, stating that Angelou tended to "diverge from the conventional notion of autobiography as truth", which parallels the conventions of much of African-American autobiography written during the abolitionist period of U.S. history, when as both Lupton and African-American scholar Crispin Sartwell put it, the truth was censored out of the need for self-protection. Scholar Lyman B. Hagen places Angelou in the long tradition of African-American autobiography, but claims that Angelou created a unique interpretation of the autobiographical form.
According to African-American literature scholar Pierre A. Walker, the challenge for much of the history of African-American literature was that its authors have had to confirm its status as literature before they could accomplish their political goals, which was why Angelou's editor Robert Loomis was able to dare her into writing Caged Bird by challenging her to write an autobiography that could be considered "high art". Angelou acknowledged that she followed the slave narrative tradition of "speaking in the first-person singular talking about the first-person plural, always saying I meaning 'we'". Scholar John McWhorter calls Angelou's books "tracts" that defend African-American culture and fight negative stereotypes. According to McWhorter, Angelou structured her books, which to him seem to be written more for children than for adults, to support her defense of Black culture. McWhorter sees Angelou as she depicts herself in her autobiographies "as a kind of stand-in figure for the Black American in Troubled Times". McWhorter views Angelou's works as dated, but recognizes that "she has helped to pave the way for contemporary black writers who are able to enjoy the luxury of being merely individuals, no longer representatives of the race, only themselves". Scholar Lynn Z. Bloom compares Angelou's works to the writings of Frederick Douglass, stating that both fulfilled the same purpose: to describe Black culture and to interpret it for their wider, white audiences.
According to scholar Sondra O'Neale, Angelou's poetry can be placed within the African-American oral tradition, and her prose "follows classic technique in nonpoetic Western forms". O'Neale states that Angelou avoided using a "monolithic Black language", and accomplished, through direct dialogue, what O'Neale calls a "more expected ghetto expressiveness". McWhorter finds both the language Angelou used in her autobiographies and the people she depicted unrealistic, resulting in a separation between her and her audience. As McWhorter states, "I have never read autobiographical writing where I had such a hard time summoning a sense of how the subject talks, or a sense of who the subject really is". McWhorter asserts, for example, that key figures in Angelou's books, like herself, her son Guy, and mother Vivian do not speak as one would expect, and that their speech is "cleaned up" for her readers. Guy, for example, represents the young Black male, while Vivian represents the idealized mother figure, and the stiff language they use, as well as the language in Angelou's text, is intended to prove that Blacks can use standard English competently.
McWhorter recognizes that much of the reason for Angelou's style was the "apologetic" nature of her writing. When Angelou wrote Caged Bird at the end of the 1960s, one of the necessary and accepted features of literature at the time was "organic unity", and one of her goals was to create a book that satisfied that criterion. The events in her books were episodic and crafted like a series of short stories, but their arrangements did not follow a strict chronology. Instead, they were placed to emphasize the themes of her books, which include racism, identity, family, and travel. English literature scholar Valerie Sayers has asserted that "Angelou's poetry and prose are similar". They both rely on her "direct voice", which alternates steady rhythms with syncopated patterns and uses similes and metaphors (e.g., the caged bird). According to Hagen, Angelou's works were influenced by both conventional literary and the oral traditions of the African-American community. For example, she referenced more than 100 literary characters throughout her books and poetry. In addition, she used the elements of blues music, including the act of testimony when speaking of one's life and struggles, ironic understatement, and the use of natural metaphors, rhythms, and intonations. Angelou, instead of depending upon plot, used personal and historical events to shape her books.
|
6,764,062 |
Banksia epica
| 1,140,763,222 |
Shrub found on the south coast of Western Australia
|
[
"Banksia taxa by scientific name",
"Eudicots of Western Australia",
"Plants described in 1988"
] |
Banksia epica is a shrub that grows on the south coast of Western Australia. A spreading bush with wedge-shaped serrated leaves and large creamy-yellow flower spikes, it grows up to 31⁄2 metres (111⁄2 ft) high. It is known only from two isolated populations in the remote southeast of the state, near the western edge of the Great Australian Bight. Both populations occur among coastal heath on cliff-top dunes of siliceous sand.
One of the most recently described Banksia species, it was probably seen by Edward John Eyre in 1841, but was not collected until 1973, and was only recognised as a distinct species in 1988. There has been very little research on the species since then, so knowledge of its ecology and cultivation potential is limited. It is placed in Banksia ser. Cyrtostylis, alongside its close relative, the well-known and widely cultivated B. media (southern plains banksia).
## Description
Banksia epica grows as a spreading bushy shrub with many branches to 3 metres (9.8 feet) tall. It has grey, fissured bark, and dark green, wedge-shaped leaves, 1+1⁄2 to 5 centimetres (1⁄2–2 in) long and 6 to 15 millimetres (1⁄8–2⁄3 in) wide, with serrated margins.
Flowers occur in Banksia's characteristic "flower spike", an inflorescence made up of hundreds of pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral round a woody axis. B. epica's flower spike is yellow or cream-yellow in colour, cylindrical, 9 to 17 centimetres (3+1⁄2–6+1⁄2 inches) tall and around 6 centimetres (2+1⁄2 inches) in diameter. In bud, it may have green-grey or brownish pollen presenters, not unlike B. robur (swamp banksia). Each flower consists of a tubular perianth made up of four fused tepals, and one long wiry style. Characteristic of its taxonomic section, the styles of B. epica are straight rather than hooked. The style ends are initially trapped inside the upper perianth parts, but break free at anthesis. The fruiting structure is a stout woody "cone" embedded with up to 50 follicles; old withered flower parts persist on the "cones", giving them a hairy appearance. The follicles have an attractive purple hue.
Banksia epica is similar in appearance to its close relative B. media, from which it differs in having slightly shorter leaves and larger flowers. In addition, the persistent flower parts on B. epica's fruiting structures are curled and point upwards, whereas they are straight and point downwards on B. media.
## Taxonomy
### Discovery and naming
The first European to see B. epica was probably Edward John Eyre, the first explorer of the area, who recorded "stunted specimens" of Banksia as he was nearing the western edge of the Great Australian Bight on 1 May 1841:
> "One circumstance in our route to-day cheered me greatly, and led me shortly to expect some important and decisive change in the character and formation of the country. It was the appearance for the first time of the Banksia, a shrub which I had never before found to the westward of Spencer's Gulf, but which I knew to abound in the vicinity of King George's Sound, and that description of country generally. Those only who have looked out with the eagerness and anxiety of a person in my situation, to note any change in the vegetation or physical appearance of a country, can appreciate the degree of satisfaction with which I recognised and welcomed the first appearance of the Banksia. Isolated as it was amidst the scrub, and insignificant as the stunted specimens were that I first met with, they led to an inference that I could not be mistaken in, and added, in a tenfold degree, to the interest and expectation with which every mile of our route had now become invested."
Eyre is thought to have been passing through the Toolinna Cove sand patch at the time of writing. B. epica and B. media are the only Banksia species that occur at that location, and both have a form and habit that accords with Eyre's description. As he did not collect specimens, it is impossible to determine what species he saw.
The first herbarium collection of B. epica was not made until October 1973, when Ernest Charles Nelson visited Toolinna Cove to collect specimens for a taxonomic revision of Adenanthos. Nelson was stimulated to make that revision from an interest in the problem of disjunct plant distributions in southern Australia, and therefore collected specimens of a range of plant species. On 22 October, he collected a specimen of B. epica in old flower, but incorrectly identified it as B. media, and later lodged it in the herbarium at Canberra under that name.
In 1985, two volunteer field collectors for The Banksia Atlas project, John and Lalage Falconer of Esperance, became convinced that there were three Banksia species rather than two at Point Culver. Returning to the locality on 9 January 1986, they collected leaves and old flowers of what they thought was an undescribed species. The specimens did indeed suggest that a new species had been discovered, but they were not sufficient for formal publication. Early in May the following year, John Falconer drove over 2000 kilometres on unsealed tracks from Warburton to Point Culver and back again, to collect fresh flowers and fruit of the purported new species. Alex George then began preparing a formal description of the species. During his research, he discovered that Nelson's Toolinna Cove specimen was also referable to the undescribed species. In the absence of any genuine B. media specimens from Toolinna Cove, George inferred that only B. epica occurred there, and that Eyre must have sighted B. epica in 1841. In 1988, he published a formal description of the species, naming it Banksia epica in reference to the two "epic" journeys of Eyre and Falconer. Thus the species' full name is Banksia epica A.S.George. It was later established that both B. epica and B. media occur at Toolinna Cove.
### Infrageneric placement
George placed B. epica in B. subg. Banksia, because its inflorescences are typical Banksia flower spikes; B. sect. Banksia because of its straight styles; and B. ser. Cyrtostylis because it has slender flowers. He considered its closest relatives to be B. praemorsa (cut-leaf banksia) and B. media, both of which have shorter flowers and smaller pollen-presenters than B. epica. In addition, B. praemorsa differs in having a hairless perianth, and B. media has larger, more undulate leaves.
In 1996, Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges published the results of a cladistic analysis of morphological characters of Banksia. They retained George's subgenera and many of his series, but discarded his sections. George's B. ser. Cyrtostylis was found to be "widely polyphyletic", as six of the fourteen taxa in that series occurred singly in locations throughout Thiele and Ladiges' cladogram. The remaining eight formed a clade that further resolved into two subclades, with B. epica appeared in one of them:
Thiele and Ladiges preferred to give series rank to the subclades, rather than the entire clade, so they transferred the taxa of the second clade into B. ser. Ochraceae, retaining only the taxa of the first clade in B. ser. Cyrtostylis. B. epica's placement under Thiele and Ladiges' arrangement may be summarised as follows:
Banksia
: B. subg. Isostylis (3 species)
: B. elegans (incertae sedis)
: B. subg. Banksia
: : B. ser. Tetragonae (4 species)
: : B. ser. Lindleyanae (1 species)
: : B. ser. Banksia (2 subseries, 12 species)
: : B. baueri (incertae sedis)
: : B. lullfitzii (incertae sedis)
: : B. attenuata (incertae sedis)
: : B. ashbyi (incertae sedis)
: : B. coccinea (incertae sedis)
: : B. ser. Prostratae (8 species)
: : B. ser. Cyrtostylis
: : : B. pilostylis
: : : B. media
: : : B. epica
: : : B. praemorsa
: : B. ser. Ochraceae (3 species, 2 subspecies)
: : B. ser. Grandes (2 species)
: : B. ser. Salicinae (2 series, 11 species, 4 subspecies)
: : B. ser. Spicigerae (3 series, 7 species, 6 varieties)
: : B. ser. Quercinae (2 species)
: : B. ser. Dryandroideae (1 species)
: : B. ser. Abietinae (4 subseries, 15 species, 8 varieties)
The arrangement of Thiele and Ladiges was not accepted by George, and was discarded in his 1999 revision. Under George's 1999 arrangement, B. epica's placement was as follows:
Banksia
: B. subg. Banksia
: : B. sect. Banksia
: : : B. ser. Salicinae (11 species, 7 subspecies)
: : : B. ser. Grandes (2 species)
: : : B. ser. Banksia (8 species)
: : : B. ser. Crocinae (4 species)
: : : B. ser. Prostratae (6 species, 3 varieties)
: : : B. ser. Cyrtostylis
: : : : B. media
: : : : B. praemorsa
: : : : B. epica
: : : : B. pilostylis
: : : : B. attenuata
: : : : B. ashbyi
: : : : B. benthamiana
: : : : B. audax
: : : : B. lullfitzii
: : : : B. elderiana
: : : : B. laevigata (2 subspecies)
: : : : B. elegans
: : : : B. lindleyana
: : : B. ser. Tetragonae (3 species)
: : : B. ser. Bauerinae (1 species)
: : : B. ser. Quercinae (2 species)
: : B. sect. Coccinea (1 species)
: : B. sect. Oncostylis (4 series, 22 species, 4 subspecies, 11 varieties)
: B. subg. Isostylis (3 species)
Since 1998, Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae. His analyses suggest a phylogeny that is rather different from previous taxonomic arrangements. With respect to B. epica, however, Mast's results accord closely with the arrangement of Thiele and Ladiges, placing it in a polytomous clade corresponding exactly with Thiele and Ladiges' B. ser. Cyrtostylis.
Early in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement by transferring Dryandra to Banksia, and publishing B. subg. Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped cotyledons; in this way they also redefined the autonym B. subg. Banksia. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra was complete; in the meantime, if Mast and Thiele's nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. epica is placed in B. subg. Banksia.
## Distribution and habitat
Banksia epica is known only from two populations in eastern parts of the Esperance Plains region of the South West Botanical Province, near the western edge of the Great Australian Bight. The main population occurs about 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Point Culver; there were over 2000 plants there when surveyed in June 1989. A smaller population occurs about 70 kilometres (43 miles) further east at Toolinna Cove; when surveyed in August 1991, this locality had around 350 plants. This latter population represents the easternmost limit of the western Banksia species; east of Toolinna Cove no Banksia species occurs for over 900 kilometres (560 miles).
In both localities, B. epica occurs among heath on cliff-top dunes of deep, white siliceous sand over limestone. It co-occurs with B. media in both localities, and B. praemorsa is also present at Point Culver. Toolinna Cove sand is somewhat alkaline, making B. epica and B. media the only Banksia species that grow in alkaline soil.
These two localities are unusual in having cliff-top dunes of siliceous sand: cliff-top dunes are an unusual topographic formation, and nearly all soil in the area is calcareous. As Banksia species are intolerant of calcareous soils, and are not adapted to long range seed dispersal, the two populations of B. epica appear to be reproductively isolated. Nelson has suggested that there was once a continuous strip of siliceous sand along the coast, providing an extensive and unfragmented habitat for B. epica; rises in the sea level had submerged this strip, leaving only the cliff-top dunes as suitable habitat. The fact that the resultant isolated populations have not perceptibly speciated since then suggests that the species has been fragmented for only a short time, perhaps only since the Last Glacial Maximum.
## Ecology
Pollinators of B. epica include Phylidonyris novaehollandiae (New Holland honeyeater) and Acanthiza chrysorrhoa (yellow-rumped thornbill). No other pollinators have been recorded, but the species is poorly surveyed, and studies of other Banksia species have consistently indicated a wide range of invertebrate and vertebrate pollinators. For example, a survey of the closely related and co-occurring B. media found that "honeyeater birds and marsupial nectarivores were abundant in the study area and most carried the pollen of Banksia media while it flowered.... Self-pollination and pollination by insects clearly also play major roles in seed production."
Like most other Proteaceae, B. epica has proteoid roots, roots with dense clusters of short lateral rootlets that form a mat in the soil just below the leaf litter. These enhance solubilisation of nutrients, allowing nutrient uptake in low-nutrient soils such as the phosphorus-deficient native soils of Australia. The species lacks a lignotuber, so is thought to be killed by fire. Like most Banksia species, however, it is adapted to release its aerial seed bank following a bushfire, so populations regenerate rapidly. It is highly susceptible to Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback.
Because so few populations are known, B. epica has been listed on the Department of Environment and Conservation's Declared Rare and Priority Flora List as "Priority Two – Poorly Known Taxa""; and as 2RC under the ROTAP system (rare but not currently endangered or vulnerable, and having a range less than 100 km). It is not considered to be under threat, however, because both known populations occur within the Nuytsland Nature Reserve, and are undisturbed and healthy. Furthermore, the area in which it occurs is poorly surveyed, so it is possible that other populations exist.
## Cultivation
B. epica is fairly new to cultivation. Kevin Collins of the Banksia Farm in Albany, Western Australia is said to have pioneered its cultivation, growing it in loamy clay or sandy gravel. It showed good tolerance for alkaline soils in those conditions, and has also succeeded in sandy, alkaline soil near the coast between Mandurah and Kwinana. The Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra has also had some success in cultivating the species. Seeds were sown in February 1996, and planted out in November 1997; seedlings planted into sections without good drainage died, but two seedlings that were planted into a section with excellent drainage were about a metre tall by 2002, and flowering prolifically.
Propagation is by seed or cuttings. Seeds do not require any treatment, and take 14 to 49 days to germinate. In the absence of further information specific to B. epica, George recommends that cultivated plants be treated as for B. media and B. praemorsa, both of which require a sunny position in well-drained soil, and tolerate only light pruning not below the green foliage.
|
635,553 |
Tokyo Mew Mew
| 1,172,070,033 |
Japanese manga series and its franchise
|
[
"2000 manga",
"2002 Japanese television series debuts",
"2002 anime television series debuts",
"2003 Japanese television series endings",
"2003 manga",
"2022 anime television series debuts",
"Graphinica",
"Kodansha manga",
"Magical girl anime and manga",
"Pierrot (company)",
"Sentai Filmworks",
"Shōjo manga",
"Superheroes in anime and manga",
"TV Tokyo original programming",
"Tokyopop titles",
"Yumeta Company"
] |
Tokyo Mew Mew (Japanese: 東京ミュウミュウ, Hepburn: Tōkyō Myū Myū) is a Japanese manga series created and written by Reiko Yoshida and illustrated by Mia Ikumi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's shōjo manga magazine Nakayoshi from September 2000 to February 2003, with its chapters collected in seven tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. It focuses on five girls infused with the DNA of endangered animals which gives them special powers and allows them to transform into "Mew Mews". Led by Ichigo Momomiya, the girls protect Earth from aliens who wish to "reclaim" it.
The series was adapted into a fifty-two episode anime series produced by TV Aichi, We've Inc., Tokyu Agency and Studio Pierrot. The anime aired in Japan from April 6, 2002, to March 29, 2003 on TXN affiliates. A two-volume sequel to the manga, Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode, was serialized in Nakayoshi from February 2002 to January 2003. The sequel introduces a new character, Berry Shirayuki, who becomes the temporary leader of the Mew Mews. The series would inspire two video games: a puzzle adventure game for Game Boy Advance, and a role-playing video game for the PlayStation.
Tokyopop originally licensed Tokyo Mew Mew for English-language publication in North America, and would release both the original series and à la Mode. Kodansha Comics would publish a newly translated version of the manga in September 2011. 4Kids Entertainment licensed the anime series for North American broadcast under the title Mew Mew Power''', and produced an edited English-language localization. The first twenty-three episodes of the series would air on 4Kids TV in the United States, with three additional episodes airing on YTV in Canada. 4Kids was unable to license the remaining 26 episodes of the series or release the series on home video.
Tokyo Mew Mew was well received by English-language readers, with critics praising the manga for being a "cute and entertaining" series with "free-flowing style and character designs". Several volumes of the manga series appeared in the Top 50 sales lists for graphic novels in their respective months of release. The anime series received high ratings in Japan, while Mew Mew Power would become 4Kids' highest-rated show during its American broadcast, and be licensed for regional release in several other countries.
In 2020, a second, two-chapter sequel called Tokyo Mew Mew 2020 Re-Turn was released, featuring the main characters with updated designs; and as well as a spinoff, titled Tokyo Mew Mew Olé!, which features a new team of male Mew Mews. In addition, a new anime adaptation of the series, Tokyo Mew Mew New, was announced; the series aired from July to September 2022. A second season premiered in April 2023.
## Plot
In Tokyo, Japan, a young girl named Ichigo Momomiya attends an endangered species exhibit with her "crush" Masaya Aoyama. After an earthquake, Ichigo and four other girls are bathed in a strange light. A cat appears before Ichigo, then merges with her. The next day, she begins acting like a cat and making cat puns. After meeting Ryou Shirogane and Keiichirou Akasaka, Ichigo learns that she was infused with the DNA of the Iriomote cat. Ryou and Keiichirou explain that this allows her to transform into Mew Ichigo, a powerful heroic cat girl. She is ordered to defeat Chimera Animas—alien parasites which infect animals and turn them into monsters. Ryou and Keiichirou instruct Ichigo to find the four other girls from the exhibit—the remaining Mew Mews.
The first Mew Mew Ichigo encounters is Minto Aizawa, a spoiled, wealthy girl and ballerina who is infused with the genes of the blue lorikeet; Retasu Midorikawa, a shy but smart girl who endures constant bullying from three girls and absorbs the genes of the finless porpoise; a hyper and yet young girl named Bu-Ling Huang who receives the genes of the golden lion tamarin; and Zakuro Fujiwara, a professional actress and model infused with the genes of the gray wolf.
The five Mew Mews battle the Chimera Animas and their alien controllers Quiche, Pie and Tart. Quiche falls in love with Ichigo where he tries to gain her love despite the fact that he is trying to eliminate the other Mew Mews. One of the Mew Mew gets attacked and dies from an alien bite, but then comes back to life. Pie and Tart later join Quiche in trying to destroy the Mew Mews.
As the fighting intensifies, the Mew Mews are tasked with finding "Mew Aqua", a material created from pure water that contains immense power for combating the alien attacks and can be sensed by the Mew Mews. During a battle with Quiche at an aquarium, Ichigo is in danger of losing when the mysterious Blue Knight appears and rescues her. He returns periodically throughout the series, protecting Ichigo from various dangers. It is later revealed that the Blue Knight is in fact Masaya. Shortly after this discovery, Masaya collapses and transforms again. This time, he transforms into Deep Blue, the alien leader who wants to destroy humanity. After explaining to Ichigo that Masaya was a false form for temporary use, Deep Blue attacks the Mew Mews. Pie and Tart try to stop the other mew mews while Ichigo goes after Deep Blue. He and Quiche battle and Deep Blue wins.
Masaya's personality briefly reappears and he uses the Mew Aqua inside Deep Blue to save Ichigo and Tokyo, killing himself in the process. Devastated over his loss, Ichigo pours her power into Masaya to save his life, losing her own in the process. Masaya kisses her, changing her back to a human and revives her. Ryou gives Pie the remaining Mew Aqua to save the aliens' world, after which Quiche, Pie, and Tart say their goodbyes and return to their own world.
### Sequels
#### Tokyo Mew Mew à La Mode
Ichigo and Masaya move to England to study endangered species. The remaining Mew Mews continue to eliminate the Chimera Animas left behind by the aliens. They face a new threat in the form of the Saint Rose Crusaders: Humans with supernatural abilities who desire to conquer the world and create a "utopia" while taking over the remaining Chimera Animas.
Berry Shirayuki becomes the sixth Mew Mew and temporarily takes Ichigo's place as the leader. Berry is the first Mew Mew to be infused with the DNA of two endangered species, the Andean mountain cat and the Amami rabbit. As one of the strongest Mew Mews, Berry is targeted by two of the Crusaders, who attack her at school. Ichigo returns to provide assistance during this battle. For their final attack, two Crusaders hypnotize the citizens of Tokyo and set them against the Mew Mews. Berry and her childhood friend Tasuku Meguro use their newfound feelings of love to reverse the hypnosis and cause a change of heart in the Crusaders.
#### Tokyo Mew Mew Olé
## Production
Mia Ikumi spent a year designing the Tokyo Mew Mew manga before the release of the first volume in February 2001. The story she originally presented to her editors, Tokyo Black Cat Girl, featured a heroine named Hime Azumi. An intergalactic police officer named Masha gave her the ability to transform into a cat-girl and asked her to aid him in defeating alien invaders called the Bugs. After the production team decided to focus on five female superheroes, Ikumi was asked to reconstruct the lead character. She had reservations about the changes, as the character was originally designed for a more dramatic series.
As Tokyo Mew Mew became a viable project, Kodansha hired Reiko Yoshida to be the series' scenario writer and story supervisor. Yoshida and two other editors determined each volume's plot, created a scenario by adding stage directions and dialogue, and presented it to Ikumi. Ikumi added her own ideas and changes, creating the manuscript's first draft, which was taken to the publishers for final review and approval. This differs from most manga series, in which the manga writer also creates the scenarios and stories before submitting to their editor for approval.
After the first volume's release, a two-day Tokyo Mew Mew festival was held during the Golden Week holiday—a week-long span in late April and early May during which four public holidays occur—to promote the series. Events included a Tokyo Mew Mew art gallery and the release of new merchandise. Ikumi, the series' artist, created a special poster for the event, featuring all twelve characters. She also cosplayed as characters from the series, as Minto Aizawa on one day and Retasu Midorikawa on the other.
## Media
### Manga
Written by Reiko Yoshida and illustrated by Mia Ikumi, Tokyo Mew Mew was first serialized in Nakayoshi magazine between September 2000 and February 2003. The twenty-nine chapters were then compiled into seven tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. The first volume was released on February 1, 2001, with the final volume released April 4, 2003. In April 2003, a sequel called Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode premiered in Nakayoshi. Running until February 2004 and written solely by Mia Ikumi, the sequel was published as two volumes. In December 2019, an additional spinoff called Tokyo Mew Mew Olé! made by Madoka Seizuki began running in Nakayoshi. The spinoff focuses on a new team of male Mew Mews. The manga ended in August 2022, and was compiled into seven volumes. A short, 2-chapter manga sequel of the original series made by the original creators titled Tokyo Mew Mew 2020 Re-Turn was published between December 2019 and January 2020. It was Ikumi's final manga before her death in March 2022.
Tokyo Mew Mew and Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode are licensed for an English-language release in North America by Tokyopop. The first volume of the main series was released on June 1, 2004, with volumes released subsequently until the seventh volume was published on December 15, 2005. The two volumes of Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode were released on June 7 and September 13, 2005, respectively. Unlike the Japanese releases, each Tokyopop chapter is named. The main series is licensed for an English language release in Singapore by Chuang Yi. Carlsen Comics has licensed the series, through its regional divisions, and released the series in German, Danish and Swedish. The series is also licensed for regional language releases in French by Pika Édition, in Polish by Japonica Polonica Fantastica, and in Finnish by Sangatsu Manga. Tokyo Mew Mew was one of the first manga series released in Spanish in North America by Public Square Books. Kodansha Comics released an omnibus version of the series, featuring a new translation in September 2011.
### Anime
Pierrot, TV Aichi, Tokyu Agency and We've Inc. adapted Tokyo Mew Mew into a fifty-two episode anime series, directed by Noriyuki Abe. Broadcast on TXN affiliates, the series premiered on April 6, 2002, and aired weekly until its conclusion on March 29, 2003. Most of the music for the series was produced by Shin Yoshimura and composed by Takayuki Negishi. Two pieces of theme music were also used for the anime series. "My Sweet Heart", performed by Rika Komatsu, was the series opening theme. The ending theme "Koi wa A La Mode" is performed by the five voice actors who play the Mew Mews. In Japan, the series was released across nine Region 2 DVD volumes. The ninth volume included a bonus DVD containing extra content. At some point during the TV broadcast, AEON changed its name to We've.
Tokyo Mew Mew was later licensed for an English-language dubbed release by 4Kids Entertainment. In its announcement about the series, 4Kids originally noted that the show would be renamed to Hollywood Mew Mew and that they would be heavily editing and localizing episodes so that viewers would not recognize its Japanese origins. Subsequent 4Kids press releases about the series referred to the new series as The Mew Mews and its original name Tokyo Mew Mew. When the series premiered on 4Kids TV on February 19, 2005, it aired under the name as Mew Mew Power. Characters and episodes were renamed, scenes were cut and storylines were modified. The music was replaced with a new score provided by Bear in the Big Blue House and The Book of Pooh composer, Julian Harris, and the opening theme was replaced with the song "Team Up", performed by Bree Sharp and Mollie Weaver. Twenty-six episodes of Mew Mew Power aired on 4Kids Entertainment in the United States because 4Kids was unable to get a merchandising deal for the series and the English dub had stopped production. The 4Kids episodes aired on YTV in Canada and on the Pop Girl satellite television channel in the United Kingdom; these included three dubbed episodes not broadcast in the United States.
Although Mew Mew Power has not been released to home video in North America, ten of the 4Kids episodes have been released to Region 4 DVD in Australia and New Zealand by Magna Pacific and all twenty-six 4Kids episodes were released to Region 2 DVD in South Africa. Mew Mew Power was licensed for regional airing in French by Arès Films, which released nine dubbed 4Kids episodes to DVD in February 2006 as a single volume through Warner Home Vidéo France. The French dub aired on Télétoon as part of their Code F block. The company also licensed the remaining twenty-six episodes of the series that 4Kids had not obtained, releasing them in two DVD box sets through AK Vidéo.
A new anime adaptation titled Tokyo Mew Mew New was announced to commemorate the manga's 20th anniversary. It was later revealed that the adaptation will be animated by Yumeta Company and Graphinica, and directed by Takahiro Natori, with Yuka Yamada handling the series' scripts, Satoshi Ishino designing the characters, and Yasuharu Takanashi composing the music. New cast members were chosen to play the Mew Mews through a public audition held in Q2 2020, and they will also be promoting as an idol group named Smewthie as their characters. The new series premiered on July 6, 2022, on TV Tokyo. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the series outside of Asia and was streamed on Hidive.
A second season of Tokyo Mew Mew New was announced at the end of the final episode on September 21, 2022. It premiered in April 2023.
### Video games
Two video games based on the Tokyo Mew Mew series were launched in 2002 by Takara. The first, Hamepane Tokyo Mew Mew (はめパネ 東京ミュウミュウ, Hamepane Tōkyō Myū Myū), a puzzle adventure game for the Game Boy Advance, was released in Japan on July 11, 2002.
The second title, Tōkyō Mew Mew – Enter the New Mew Mew! – Serve Everyone Together (東京ミュウミュウ 登場 新ミュウミュウ!みんないっしょにご奉仕するにゃん, Tōkyō Myū Myū – Tōjō Shin Myū Myū! Minna Issho ni Gohōshi suru Nyan), was released in Japan on December 5, 2002. It is a PlayStation turn-based role-playing video game in which the player controls a new Mew Mew, Ringo Akai (赤井 りんご, Akai Ringo), as well as the original five heroines. They must defend Ringo's island from Quiche, the Chimera Animas and a new alien named Gateau du Roi (ガトー·デュ·ロワ, Gatō dyu Rowa). Both Ringo Akai and Gateau were created by the manga's artist, Mia Ikumi, following design specifications from Takara. The game uses voice actors from the anime series, with the two new characters voiced by Taeko Kawata and Ryōtarō Okiayu, respectively. Ikumi was pleased with how both characters turned out and expressed a desire to use Ringo as a regular character in a future manga series. Ringo later joined the other Mew Mews in the Petite Mew Mew bonus story in the second volume of Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode.
### CDs
Multiple music and character CDs have been released for the Tokyo Mew Mew series by King Records. The first, a CD single, contained the full and karaoke versions of "Koi wa A La Mode", performed by the five voice actors who played the Mew Mews, and a second song performed by Saki Nakajima, who voices Ichigo.
On July 24, 2002, a five-disc limited edition collector's box set was released containing character songs for each of the Mew Mews, performed by their respective voice actors and a remix of "Koi wa A La Mode". The individual character song discs were released as standalone CDs on September 4, 2002. An additional character CD set, containing remixed versions of two songs from each individual album, followed on December 25, 2002. A second character CD for Ichigo, containing five new tracks performed by Nakajima, was released on February 26, 2003.
The first full anime soundtrack, Tokyo Mew Mew Original Soundtrack was released on September 25, 2002, by NEC. The CD included the series opening and ending themes and twenty-seven pieces of series background music. NEC released a second soundtrack on January 22, 2003; it contains the opening and closing themes, along with an additional twenty-nine tracks of background music. On March 26, 2003, two "best of" CDs were released for the anime series: Tokyo Mew Mew Super Best Hit – Cafe Mew Mew side and Tokyo Mew Mew Super Best Hit – Tokyo Mew Mew side. Each CD includes ten of the series' "most popular" musical pieces.
## Reception
The Tokyo Mew Mew manga series was well received by English-speaking audiences. In March and April 2003, the first volume sold an estimated 1,597 and 1,746 copies respectively. This put the volume at the low end of the top 50 sales for each month. By 2004, with most of the series released, it became a mild success for licensor Tokyopop. It was ranked 16th on the list of Manga Top 50 for the first quarter of 2004 in the ICv2 Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga, based on sales from both mainstream bookstores and comic book shops. Sales of the sixth and seventh volumes dropped slightly; however, both were among the top 100 best-selling graphic novels in March and May 2004. The first volume of Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode debuted 63rd on the list of top 100 best-selling graphic novels of May 2005, with nearly double the sales figures of the last volume of the main series. On the Nielsen Bookscan charts, the volume debuted at rank 39 before quickly climbing to the 14th spot. The second volume of à la Mode saw similar success, debuting in the 69th slot before advancing to the 12th position, a result of the Mew Mew Power show appearing on 4Kids TV.
Tokyo Mew Mew was generally well received by reviewers, who described it as cute and entertaining. Though AnimeFringe's Patrick King notes that it is not a very intellectual series and that it avoids complex plot points, he lauded it as engrossing "brain candy" and an "endearing action-romance" that has no "delusions of grandeur". Critics praised the artwork in both Tokyo Mew Mew and the sequel Tokyo Mew Mew à La Mode. Ikumi's "free flowing" style and character designs were seen as a perfect fit for the series. Criticism of Ikumi's art focused on images which regularly spilled out of panel borders and speech bubbles with ambiguous speakers. Patrick King of Animefringe stated: "one of the most attractive aspects of Tokyo Mew Mew is easily Mia Ikumi's ultra-cute artwork. Big eyes, cat ears, fuzzy tails, and short skirts all come together in a cuteness combo that's hard to resist." According to Carlo Santos of Anime News Network, "Mia Ikumi's artwork is perfectly suited to the story, and it is not even all that wispy and frilly compared to other shōjo material. Like many budding manga artist, Ikumi's greatest strength is in carefully posed character portraits, and her prolific use of tones creates unique effects while also sidestepping the challenge of backgrounds."
Over all Tokyo Mew Mew à La Mode had more mixed reviews. Critics praised it for being a modern manga that typifies the magical girl formula, highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses. Mike Dungan, of Mania Entertainment, considered the original series to be "quite charming" and felt that à la Mode was a good continuation of the series with the "same fun and excitement" as its predecessor. Others felt Berry was an overly shallow heroine and that the sequel offered nothing new for readers with the Saint Rose Crusaders' costumes and plans being nothing more than concepts borrowed from Sailor Moon. Janet Crocker, Shannon Fay and Chris Istel of Animefringe criticized à la Mode for having the character Duke, the main villain of the arc, dressed in a white robe similar to those used by the white supremacy group, the Ku Klux Klan. Garrity felt à La Mode was a vehicle for referencing Tokyo Mew Mew fandom and merchandise and that Berry was a "transparent wish-fulfillment protagonist".
The anime adaptation has been compared to Sailor Moon and Yes! PreCure 5 due to both having female protagonists, five original team members with signature colors and powers, and similar plot lines, as have many magical girl series. Tokyo Mew Mew received high ratings in Japan with extensive merchandizing tie ins and marketing events to promote the series. The announcement of 4Kids licensing the anime series drew negative reactions from English-speaking in the U.S. fans, due to 4Kids' practice of removing cultural elements from their English-dubbed adaptations. Several fans would campaign to have the company to release an uncut version of the anime series. Overall viewer reception to Mew Mew Power would be mixed, but the show would become the block's highest-rated program at the start of the Fall 2005 season. Despite this, the series was never released to DVD in North America. Mew Mew Power'' would be licensed for broadcast in France, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Brazil, Albania, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, South Africa, Denmark, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Israel.
|
494,604 |
Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō
| 1,134,777,234 |
Aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy
|
[
"1921 ships",
"Aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy",
"Second Sino-Japanese War naval ships of Japan",
"Ships built in Japan",
"World War II aircraft carriers of Japan"
] |
Hōshō (鳳翔, literally "phoenix flying") was the world's first commissioned ship that was built as an aircraft carrier, and the first aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Commissioned in 1922, the ship was used for testing carrier aircraft operations equipment, techniques, such as take-offs and landings, and carrier aircraft operational methods and tactics. The ship provided valuable lessons and experience for the IJN in early carrier air operations. Hōshō's superstructure and other obstructions to the flight deck were removed in 1924 on the advice of experienced aircrews.
Hōshō and her aircraft group participated in the Shanghai Incident in 1932 and in the opening stages of the Sino-Japanese War in late 1937. During those two conflicts, the carrier's aircraft supported Imperial Japanese Army ground operations and engaged in aerial combat with aircraft of the Nationalist Chinese Air Force. The small size of the ship and her assigned airgroups (usually around 15 aircraft) limited the effectiveness of her contributions to combat operations. As a result, the carrier was placed in reserve after her return to Japan from China and she became a training ship in 1939.
During World War II, Hōshō participated in the Battle of Midway in June 1942 in a secondary role. After the battle, the carrier resumed her training role in Japanese home waters for the duration of the conflict and survived the war with only minor damage from air attacks. She was surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war and used to repatriate Japanese troops until she was scrapped in 1946.
## Design and description
Construction of a seaplane carrier was authorized by the Japanese government in its "eight-six" fleet program of 1918. A planned sister ship, named Shokaku, was cancelled in 1922 before any construction started. Hōshō was the second warship, after the British HMS Hermes, to be built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier, but was launched and completed earlier than Hermes.
Hōshō was initially designed as a seaplane carrier like HMS Campania with a forward flying-off deck, 32 aircraft, four low-angle 14-centimeter (5.5 in) guns, and four anti-aircraft (AA) guns. The plan was revised after reports were received from Japanese observers with the Royal Navy in Europe about the desirability to be able to land aircraft on the ship. The new requirements were modeled on HMS Furious after she received her rear flight deck in 1918. The ship was to be capable of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) and fitted with a forward flight deck, island and funnels amidships, and a large hangar aft. Shortly thereafter based on observations of landing trials on Furious and HMS Argus, the world's first flush-decked aircraft carrier, Hōshō's flight deck design was revised in April 1919. The island was removed and the funnels were moved to one side to create an unobstructed, full-length flight deck, and the ship was reclassified as an aircraft carrier. The ship's hull was based on that of a large cruiser and she was given a small island. Her three funnels were mounted on the starboard side and swiveled to lie horizontal during flight operations. Hōshō's designed speed was reduced to 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), based on British experiences during World War I.
### General characteristics
Hōshō was completed with an overall length of 168.25 meters (552 ft). She had a beam of 17.98 meters (59 ft) and a mean draft of 6.17 meters (20 ft 3 in). The ship displaced 7,470 long tons (7,590 t) at standard load, and 9,494 long tons (9,646 t) at normal load. Her crew totaled 512 officers and men. The ship was almost completely unarmored.
### Propulsion
Hōshō had two Parsons geared turbine sets with a total of 30,000 shaft horsepower (22,000 kW) driving two propeller shafts. Eight Kampon Type B water-tube boilers with a working pressure of 18.3 kg/cm<sup>2</sup> (1,790 kPa; 260 psi) and a temperature of 138 °C (280 °F) provided steam to the turbines, although only four were oil-fired. The other four used a mix of oil and coal. The ship's designed speed was 25 knots, but she made 26.66 knots (49.37 km/h; 30.68 mph) from 31,117 shp (23,204 kW) on her sea trials on 30 November 1922. She carried 2,700 long tons (2,700 t) of fuel oil and 940 long tons (960 t) of coal, an extraordinary total for such a small ship, to give her a range of 8,680 nautical miles (16,080 km; 9,990 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).
To reduce rolling and increase stability for aircraft operations, a gyrostabilizer produced by the American Sperry Gyroscope Company was installed. The installation initially proved unreliable as the Japanese technicians were badly trained by Sperry, but eventually the system proved its worth as the technicians gained experience.
### Flight deck arrangements
Hōshō's flight deck was 168.25 meters (552 ft) long and 22.62 meters (74 ft 3 in) wide. The forward end sloped down at an angle of −5° to help aircraft accelerate during takeoff. A small island was mounted well forward on the starboard side and contained the ship's bridge and air-operations control center. The island was fitted with a small tripod mast intended to carry the ship's fire-control system. Fifteen different types of arresting gear were evaluated before the British longitudinal wire system was adopted. Low landing speeds of the time meant that aircraft had little difficulty in stopping, but their light weight made them vulnerable to wind gusts that could blow them over the side of the carrier, and the longitudinal wires helped to prevent that. Forward of the island was a collapsible crane for loading aircraft into the forward hangar.
The flight deck, unlike those on Royal Navy carriers, was superimposed on the ship's hull rather than constructed as a strength deck supporting the carrier's hull structure. A system of lights and mirrors along the flight deck assisted pilots in landing on the carrier.
Hōshō was the only Japanese aircraft carrier with two hangars. The forward hangar was 67.2 by 9.5 meters (220 ft 6 in by 31 ft 2 in) and only one deck in height as it was intended to house nine small aircraft, such as fighters. The two-story rear hangar measured 16.5 by 14 meters (54 ft 2 in by 45 ft 11 in) at the forward end and 29.4 by 12 meters (96 ft 5 in by 39 ft 4 in) at the rear end. It was designed to house six large aircraft, such as torpedo bombers, as well as six reserve aircraft. Each hangar was served by an aircraft elevator. The forward elevator was 10.35 by 7.86 meters (34.0 by 25.8 ft) and the aft elevator measured 13.71 by 6.34 meters (45 ft 0 in by 20 ft 10 in).
### Air group
Hōshō had a normal capacity of fifteen aircraft, subject to the limitations of her hangars. She was first commissioned with an air group of nine Mitsubishi 1MF (Type 10) fighters and three to six Mitsubishi B1M3 (Type 13) torpedo bombers. In 1928, the fighters were replaced by the A1N1 (Type 3). Three years later the air group consisted of Nakajima A2N (Type 90) fighters and Mitsubishi B2M (Type 89) torpedo bombers. In 1938 Nakajima A4N (Type 95) fighters and Yokosuka B3Y (Type 92) bombers flew from the ship. In 1940 the air group was modernized with Mitsubishi A5M (Type 96) "Claude" fighters and Yokosuka B4Y1 (Type 96) "Jean" bombers.
### Armament
Hōshō was armed with four 50-caliber 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type guns, two on each side. The two forward guns had a firing arc of 150°, including straight ahead, while the rear guns could fire 120° on either side. They fired 38-kilogram (84 lb) projectiles at a rate of six to ten rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of about 850 m/s (2,800 ft/s); at 35°, they had a maximum range of 19,750 m (21,600 yd). A heavy gun armament was provided for Hōshō; as carrier doctrine was just evolving at this time, the impracticability of carriers engaging in gun duels had not yet been realized. Her large flight deck and lack of armor made her a vulnerable target in surface battles.
A pair of 40-caliber 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type guns on retractable mounts provided Hōshō's only anti-aircraft defense. They were positioned on the flight deck, just forward of the rear elevator. These guns fired 5.67–5.99-kilogram (12.5–13.2 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of about 680 m/s (2,231 ft/s); at 45°, this provided a maximum range of 10,800 meters (11,800 yd), and they had a maximum ceiling of 7,200 meters (23,600 ft) at 75° elevation. Their effective rate of fire was 13 to 20 rounds per minute.
## Service
### Early career
Hōshō was laid down by the Asano Shipbuilding Company in Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, on 16 December 1920. She was launched on 13 November 1921 and towed to Yokosuka Naval Arsenal for completion on 10 January 1922. Hōshō was delayed by repeated design changes and late deliveries of equipment, pushing the commissioning date from March to 27 December 1922. She was commissioned lacking much of her aviation equipment, and did not begin landing trials until 22 February 1923. The first landings were made by British pilots under contract, who were quickly replaced by Japanese pilots trained by the British Aviation Mission. After Hōshō was commissioned, experienced aircrews requested changes, and the ship was modified by the shipyard from 6 June to 20 August 1924. The island, tripod mast, and aircraft crane were removed since they partially obstructed the flight deck and obscured pilot visibility. The forward part of the flight deck was made horizontal, and the 8 cm AA guns were moved forward, close to the position of the former island and out of the way of landing operations. Another reason for removal of the island was that the IJN found that it was too small and cramped to be of effective use in controlling air operations or conning the ship. After the island was removed, the carrier's flight operations were controlled from a platform extending from the side of the flight deck, a design that would be repeated in subsequent Japanese aircraft carriers. The ship was then assigned to the 1st Fleet until 15 November 1924.
Hōshō was fitted with a net used as a barricade aft of the forward elevator between 10 March and 2 July 1925. It was intended to prevent landing aircraft from colliding with aircraft preparing to take off, and stop them from falling into the open elevator well. The barrier was hydraulically operated and could be erected in three seconds.
As the first of her kind, Hōshō provided valuable experience and insight into carrier air operations for the IJN. The ship was used for testing aircraft and equipment, particularly various types of arresting gear and optical landing aids. The lessons learned influenced the design and construction of Ryūjō and the subsequent conversions of battlecruiser Akagi and battleship Kaga into aircraft carriers. Hōshō was actively used to develop carrier operational methods and tactics for the IJN during the 1920s. She was assigned to the First Carrier Division with Akagi on 1 April 1928. During the 1930s Hōshō was fitted with three different types of transverse arresting gear for trials.
### Shanghai
Along with Kaga, Hōshō was assigned to the First Carrier Division and sent to China during the Shanghai Incident that began in January 1932. Operating with the Third Fleet, Hōshō arrived at the mouth of the Yangtze River on 1 February. Her aircraft participated in the IJN's first aerial combat on 5 February when three fighters, escorting two attack aircraft, were engaged by nine Chinese fighters over Shanghai; one Chinese fighter was damaged, although the Japanese pilots made no claim. Two days later, the two carriers sent some of their aircraft to Kunda Airfield where they flew ground attack missions in support of the Imperial Japanese Army. Between 23 and 26 February, Kaga and Hōshō bombers attacked Chinese airfields at Hangzhou and Suzhou, destroying a number of Chinese aircraft on the ground. On 26 February, six fighters from Hōshō, escorting nine attack aircraft from Kaga on one of the bombing raids, shot down three of five Chinese fighters that engaged them. The First Carrier Division rejoined the Combined Fleet on 20 March, after a ceasefire had been declared on 3 March.
### Fourth Fleet incident
Hōshō participated in the Combined Fleet Maneuvers of 1935 during which she was attached to the IJN Fourth Fleet. Caught in a typhoon on 23 September, the carrier and a number of other Japanese ships were badly damaged in what was referred to as the "Fourth Fleet incident." The ship's forward flight deck collapsed and part had to be cut away before the carrier could proceed to Yokosuka for repairs. The Fourth Fleet incident and the Tomozuru Incident of 1934, in which a top-heavy torpedo boat capsized in heavy weather, caused the Japanese command to investigate the stability of all their ships, resulting in a number of design changes to improve stability and increase hull strength.
While the Hōshō was at the dockyard between 22 November 1935 and 31 March 1936, her stability was improved; the forward flight deck's supports were reinforced and increased in number; the ship's AA guns, aircraft crane and upper deck aviation fuel tanks were removed; the funnels were fixed in the horizontal position with their mouths angled slightly downwards; the front sides of Hōshō's forward hangar and bridge were reinforced; and the ship's hull was reinforced in the vicinity of her rear hangar to increase her longitudinal strength. At full load, her metacentric height after these changes was 1.11 meters (3 ft 8 in). Six twin 13.2 mm Type 93 Hotchkiss machine guns were also fitted.
### Sino-Japanese War
During the Sino-Japanese War, Hōshō rejoined the Third Fleet and supported land operations of the army in Central China in August 1937 with Ryūjō, later joined by Kaga. The three carriers carried a total of 90 aircraft to the conflict in China, including 15 from Hōshō, 27 on Ryūjō, and the rest with Kaga. Details of the activities of Hōshō's aircraft are scarce, but three of the ship's Nakajima A2N fighters shot down a Martin B-10 bomber on 25 July.
The carrier returned to Japan to refuel on 1 September and then sailed to the South China coast, accompanied by Ryūjō, and began operations against Chinese forces near Canton, now Guangzhou, on 21 September. That day, Hōshō contributed six fighters to escort bombers attacking airfields and the combined force encountered seven Curtiss Hawk III fighters, shooting down two, in addition to a pair of observation planes, for no combat losses of their own. Five of the Japanese fighters ran out of fuel during the return flight and had to ditch in the sea, although the aircrews were rescued. A followup air strike that afternoon was unsuccessfully attacked by the five remaining Hawks, at the cost of one of their own. The Japanese pilots claimed to have shot down sixteen enemy aircraft and an additional probable loss during the day's fighting. Hōshō and Ryūjō returned to the Shanghai area on 3 October and Hōshō's aircraft were temporarily transferred to Kunda airfield to support ground operations. On 17 October, the carrier transferred all of her aircraft to Ryūjō and returned to Japan where she was placed in reserve on 1 December.
During this time, her aircraft elevators were enlarged in 1939: the forward elevator to 12.8 by 8.5 meters (42 by 28 ft) and the rear elevator to 13.7 by 7 meters (45 by 23 ft). On 12 August 1939 Hōshō was deemed useful as a training carrier and, in critical battles, as a platform for A4N1 (Type 95) fighters and B4Y1 (Type 96) torpedo bombers, for as long as those planes remained serviceable. A later investigation determined on 23 December 1940 that she could not operate the latest aircraft types like the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Aichi D3A "Val", or the Nakajima B5N "Kate" in combat. Also, the small size of the carrier's airgroup limited the ship's potential value to the fleet in any future conflicts.
### World War II
#### Pearl Harbor and Midway
Hōshō began the Pacific War in the Third Carrier Division assigned to the 1st Fleet under Vice Admiral Shirō Takasu. The carrier, captained by Kaoru Umetani, was tasked along with Zuihō to provide air support, including scouting, anti-submarine patrols, and combat air patrol for the Combined Fleet's "Main Body" battle-line of six battleships: Nagato, Mutsu, Fusō, Yamashiro, Ise, and Hyūga. With the Main Body, Hōshō sortied from the Inland Sea on 7 December 1941 to provide distant cover for the carrier forces under Chūichi Nagumo which were attacking Pearl Harbor. The battleship force turned back 300 nautical miles (556 km) east of Japan, but Hōshō became separated on 10 December due to radio silence restrictions while conducting anti-submarine air operations. The ship lost contact because she had launched aircraft near dusk to investigate a submarine sighting. The aircraft returned after dark and landed safely after the carrier turned on its lights. In order to recover the aircraft, however, the carrier and her three escorting destroyers had to steam east and therefore lost sight of the Main Body in the darkness. There does not appear to have been any US or other enemy submarines in Japanese waters at this time. The carrier was located by scout aircraft the next day 500 nautical miles (926 km) east of the Main Body and returned to port at Kure on 12 December.
On 29 May 1942, Hōshō sortied from Japan with the rest of the fleet for the operation which resulted in the Battle of Midway, providing modest air protection, scouting, and anti-submarine support for the Main Body, now consisting of the battleships Yamato, Nagato, and Mutsu. Her aircraft complement for the operation consisted of eight obsolete Yokosuka B4Y "Jean" torpedo bombers.
With the Main Body trailing 300 nautical miles (556 km) behind the carrier striking force, Hōshō missed the major portion of the battle in which Nagumo's four fleet carriers were ambushed and fatally damaged by US carrier aircraft on 4 June. The next day, the carrier's aircraft helped guide the remnants of Nagumo's force to a rendezvous with the Main Body as well helped other Japanese warships to rendezvous during and after the battle, including the cruiser Sendai. Around the same time, one of Hōshō's aircraft discovered the burning, sinking Hiryū. Photographs of the abandoned carrier have been described as "among the most dramatic of the war in the Pacific". The observer aboard the aircraft also reported seeing survivors left behind on Hiryū so the destroyer Tanikaze was sent to unsuccessfully search for the wrecked carrier. With the battle lost, a significant strategic defeat for Japan, the carrier returned to Japan with the rest of the fleet, arriving at the Hashirajima anchorage on 14 June.
#### Training ship
After her return to Japan, Hōshō was transferred to the Third Fleet, unofficially assigned to the training fleet (later called the Mobile Force Training Force), and officially assigned in October. She conducted flight training in the Inland Sea for aircraft that flew in from shore bases, since no aircraft were based onboard Hōshō. On 15 January 1943, the 50th Air Flotilla was created for carrier aircrew training and both Hōshō and Ryūhō were assigned to the new unit. The two ships provided carrier landing training and served as target ships for torpedo training. In January 1944, Hōshō was reassigned to the 12th Air Fleet, then to the Combined Fleet, but continued to perform the same mission of training fleet carrier pilots in the Inland Sea. In this role, Hōshō shuttled back and forth between Kure and the Western Inland Sea, spending equal amounts of time at each location.
In order to service new and larger aircraft like the Nakajima B6N "Jill" torpedo bomber and the Yokosuka D4Y "Judy" dive bomber, the flight deck was extended over 6 meters (19 ft 8 in) at each end to a total length of 180.8 meters (593 ft 2 in) from 27 March to 26 April 1944. Hōshō also received new arresting gear and a new crash barrier. The additional weight high up in the ship adversely affected her stability and she was restricted from operations in bad weather lest she capsize. At some point during the war the ship's 14 cm guns were removed and she received about twenty 25-millimeter Type 96 autocannons in single mounts. They fired .25-kilogram (0.55 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 900 m/s (3,000 ft/s); at 50°, this provided a maximum range of 7,500 meters (8,202 yd), and an effective ceiling of 5,500 meters (18,000 ft). The 15-round magazines needed to be changed frequently, and the maximum effective rate of fire was only between 110 and 120 rounds per minute.
After the modifications, Hōshō continued to provide training to navy pilots in the Inland Sea, including acting as a target ship for torpedo training. At 05:30 on 19 March 1945, possibly while berthed at Kure, the carrier was caught in an air raid by carrier aircraft from the United States Task Force 58. Hōshō's flight deck was damaged by three bomb hits which killed six crewmen. Emergency repairs were made and her captain was ordered to keep her in readiness on 10 April. However, this order was revoked two days later and the carrier became a "4th reserve ship" with most of her crew transferred elsewhere. Hōshō was taken out of reserve as a "special guard ship" on 1 June and many of her crew were transferred back. During this time, the ship remained moored and camouflaged off Nishinomishima at Kure.
Hōshō was slightly damaged by a single bomb or aerial rocket hit when the Allies attacked Kure again on 24 July 1945. Information is scarce on the extent of the ship's involvement in the action, but it appears the carrier's participation was minimal, as she embarked no aircraft at the time. Hōshō was repaired within 15 days, although the ship relocated to Moji two days later.
## Post-war
The ship was turned over to Allied forces at the time of the surrender of Japan on 2 September and was stricken from the navy list on 5 October. Hōshō then served as a repatriation transport to retrieve Japanese servicemen and civilians stationed overseas and return them to Japan. In October and November 1945, accompanied by the cruiser Kashima, she carried 700 passengers from Wotje Atoll, 311 from Jaluit Atoll, and an undocumented number from Enewetak Atoll to Uraga, Kanagawa.
In December 1945, Hōshō's overhanging flight deck at the bow was cut off to improve visibility from the bridge and her hangars were modified to carry more passengers. Thereafter, she undertook more repatriation missions beginning with one to Wewak on 5 January 1946 and subsequent trips to China. In total, the carrier made nine repatriation trips before 15 August 1946 and transported about 40,000 passengers. Hōshō was transferred to the Home Ministry on 31 August for disposal. She was scrapped in Osaka from 2 September 1946 to 1 May 1947 by the Kyōwa Shipbuilding Company.
|
7,154,685 |
Abyssinia, Henry
| 1,171,738,817 | null |
[
"1975 American television episodes",
"M*A*S*H (season 3) episodes",
"Television episodes about death"
] |
"Abyssinia, Henry" is the 72nd episode of the M\*A\*S\*H television series, and the final episode of the series' third season. It was written by Everett Greenbaum and Jim Fritzell, and first aired on March 18, 1975. The episode is notable for its shocking ending, in which the unit's amiable commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (played by McLean Stevenson) receives an honorable discharge and leaves for home, but in the final scene is reported killed by enemy fire. This ending prompted more than 1,000 letters to series producers Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart, and drew fire from both CBS and 20th Century Fox.
The title of the episode refers to the 1920s–1930s slang use of "Abyssinia" for "goodbye". ("Abyssinia", pronounced "ab-ee-SIN-ee-ah" can be understood as "I'll be seeing you".)
After the production of this episode, both Stevenson and Wayne Rogers, who played the character of Trapper John McIntyre, left the series to pursue other interests. While Stevenson's departure was announced prior to and written into "Abyssinia, Henry", Rogers unexpectedly left the series during the break between seasons, and so his character's departure takes place off-screen in the following episode, "Welcome to Korea", the first of the show's fourth season. These combined departures and their subsequent cast replacements also signaled the beginning of a shift in focus of the M\*A\*S\*H series as a whole, with a greater focus on the character of Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda.
## Plot
The episode opens with a typical operating room scene; Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff) enters and informs Henry Blake that Blake has received all of the needed Army service points to be discharged and sent home. Henry begins planning his return and places a telephone call to Bloomington, Illinois to inform his wife and family of the good news.
Majors Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) and Frank Burns (Larry Linville) celebrate privately that Frank will become the unit commander. Henry and Radar share a sentimental moment in which young Radar describes Henry as a father figure, and gives Henry an inscribed Winchester cartridge; a surprised Henry returns the favor by spontaneously giving Radar a rectal thermometer that once belonged to his father. On the night before Henry's departure, Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda), Trapper McIntyre (Wayne Rogers), and Radar throw a drunken going-away party for Henry at Rosie's Bar and Grill, and present him with a tailored civilian suit as a parting gift.
The next morning, Frank attempts to assemble the company for a formal send-off, but Hawkeye and Trapper are out of uniform and unshaven, and Corporal Klinger (Jamie Farr) wears a particularly elaborate dress made specially for the occasion. Henry arrives in his new suit, and Frank and Margaret give Blake a formal salute, but Henry chides Frank for being too disciplined. Henry's affectionate individual goodbyes to the others are cut short by the imminent arrival of his helicopter, but Hawkeye pulls him aside and persuades him to give a long parting kiss to Margaret, to her surprise and Frank's annoyance.
The staff follow Henry to the helicopter pad, which also bears a wounded soldier that Henry tries to care for before the other doctors nudge him on. Henry spots an emotional Radar saluting him and approaches to return the salute, hug him, and chide him like a loving father to behave himself, before boarding and flying away.
Towards the end of the episode, in another typical operating-room scene, Radar enters, visibly shaken. Trapper and Hawkeye make joking comments, but Radar announces, "I have a message. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors." Radar then leaves the operating room as the camera pans across the stunned staff, each visibly fighting to retain composure and continue with their work.
After a commercial break, the episode closes with a "reluctant and affectionate farewell" to Blake by means of a light-hearted montage of clips from past episodes.
## Production
The final scene, in which Radar informs the 4077th of the death of Henry Blake, was unprecedented: it was the first time in American television history that a main character departing a comedy series was killed off in a tragic way. When Stevenson decided to leave the series partway through the third season, producers Gene Reynolds and Larry Gelbart decided to make a statement regarding the unexpectancies and horror of war, especially with the Vietnam War fresh in viewers' minds.
To evoke genuine emotions of shock and sadness, the final O.R. scene was kept a secret from the cast until immediately before filming; only then did Gelbart hand out the last page of the script. As a result, Stevenson was still on the set and saw the final scene being filmed. After shooting was completed, a season-ending cast party was planned. Stevenson left the set almost immediately after the end of filming, and the party was canceled due to the dour mood of the cast. Stevenson later said in an interview that he was deeply hurt that his character's death was revealed in this fashion and the party was "ruined". Gelbart later said of the event, "I wish we could say to him, 'We didn't mean it, Mac.'"
## Reaction and impact
Certain journalists revealed Blake's fate in the weeks leading up to the episode's broadcast. Gary Deeb of The Chicago Tribune, for instance, revealed Blake's death nearly two months before the episode aired. Still, shortly after the episode originally aired, the reactions and feedback of viewers were intense, both in support and condemnation of the events of the episode. It is estimated that over 1,000 letters were received by the producers regarding the episode; "some ... were from people who understood. Many were from people that didn't." Many who objected also cited the fact that M\*A\*S\*H was considered a situation comedy, and that Blake's "cheap" killing did not belong in the show; one caller to Reynolds stated after the episode aired that they "don't know why [they] did it; it's not necessary, it's just a little comedy show" and that "you've upset everybody [in the family]", before vowing never to watch the show again. Another, more lighthearted response to the episode came from an unhappy viewer in Lubbock, Texas, who sent a telegram stating that "Henry Blake has been found in a raft in Lake Lubbock."
Initially, Gelbart and Reynolds hand-wrote letters in response to the feedback, but eventually, due to the overwhelming number of letters, a form response was created explaining the rationale of their decisions. Negative reactions were not exclusive to the home viewers of the program: both CBS, the network that aired M\*A\*S\*H, and 20th Century Fox, the company that produced M\*A\*S\*H, expressed their unhappiness at the killing of Henry Blake. In fact, CBS's distaste with the episode was so great that during a later rerun of the episode, the final O.R. scene was cut from the episode. The final scenes have always been shown in syndication, and were uncut on the DVD release of the series' third season in 2003.
Not all reaction to the airing was negative. On an episode of the variety series Cher that aired shortly afterward and featured Stevenson as a guest, the situation was parodied when the episode opened to a studio shot of Stevenson as Blake floating on a smoking raft and shouting, "I'm OK! I'm OK!"
In Bobbie Ann Mason's 1985 novel In Country, the teenage protagonist recalls having watched the episode as a child and being "so shocked she went around stunned for days," and confesses that Blake's death on the show had seemed more real to her than the death of her own father in Vietnam.
The final scene was spoofed on the Family Guy episode "Fifteen Minutes of Shame" when a cutaway shows Brian Griffin saying to the rest of the family, "I have an announcement. Meg Griffin's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."
In 1997, TV Guide included this episode in their list of the "100 Greatest Episodes of All Time," ranking it number 20.
In 2005, TV Land included this episode as part of its "Top 100 Most Unexpected Moments in TV History", ranking it number 15.
## Aftermath
While "Abyssinia, Henry" is well known for the departure of McLean Stevenson from the series, it was also the final episode in which Wayne Rogers appeared. During the summer 1975 break between seasons three and four, he quit the series. 20th Century Fox sued him for breach of contract, but the lawsuit collapsed, because Rogers hadn't signed any contract. The character of Trapper John McIntyre was subsequently written off the series in "Welcome to Korea," the first episode of the next season.
As a result, when the cast returned to begin filming the series' fourth season in September 1975, there were major changes in both the makeup and the direction of the show. The more earnest and faithful family man Captain B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell) had replaced Trapper John, and the regular Army Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan) had replaced Henry Blake as commander of the 4077th. Longtime recurring guest cast member Jamie Farr, who played Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger, was elevated to the regular cast, with his name being featured on the opening credits. Episodes following this represented a major change in focus for the show; the individual effects and psychological damages of war were explored more, often in parallel to the ending of the Vietnam War, and the Korean culture was portrayed in greater depth than had been done before, instead of focusing on a "boorish, military mindset" as before.
In general, the show began to take on a more serious tone as a seriocomic (or dramedy) series, in which the focus was on the character rather than the character type, and moved away from its status as a situation comedy.
|
3,205,447 |
Pyramid of Unas
| 1,117,556,107 |
Fifth Dynasty Egyptian pyramid complex
|
[
"1881 archaeological discoveries",
"3rd-millennium BC establishments in Egypt",
"Buildings and structures completed in the 24th century BC",
"Pyramids of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt",
"Saqqara"
] |
The pyramid of Unas (Egyptian: Nfr swt Wnjs "Beautiful are the places of Unas") is a smooth-sided pyramid built in the 24th century BC for the Egyptian pharaoh Unas, the ninth and final king of the Fifth Dynasty. It is the smallest Old Kingdom pyramid, but significant due to the discovery of Pyramid Texts, spells for the king's afterlife incised into the walls of its subterranean chambers. Inscribed for the first time in Unas's pyramid, the tradition of funerary texts carried on in the pyramids of subsequent rulers, through to the end of the Old Kingdom, and into the Middle Kingdom through the Coffin Texts that form the basis of the Book of the Dead.
Unas built his pyramid between the complexes of Sekhemket and Djoser, in North Saqqara. Anchored to the valley temple at a nearby lake, a long causeway was constructed to provide access to the pyramid site. The causeway had elaborately decorated walls covered with a roof which had a slit in one section allowing light to enter, illuminating the images. A long wadi was used as a pathway. The terrain was difficult to negotiate and contained old buildings and tomb superstructures. These were torn down and repurposed as underlay for the causeway. A significant stretch of Djoser's causeway was reused for embankments. Tombs that were on the path had their superstructures demolished and were paved over, preserving their decorations. Two Second Dynasty tombs, presumed to belong to Hotepsekhemwy, Nebra, and Ninetjer, from seals found inside, are among those that lie under the causeway. The site was later used for numerous burials of Fifth Dynasty officials, private individuals from the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties, and a collection of Late Period monuments known as the "Persian tombs".
The causeway joined the temple in the harbour with the mortuary temple on the east face of the pyramid. The mortuary temple was entered on its east side through a large granite doorway, seemingly constructed by Unas's successor, Teti. Just south of the upper causeway are two long boat pits. These may have contained two wooden boats: the solar barques of Ra, the sun god. The temple was laid out in a similar manner to Djedkare Isesi's. A transverse corridor separates the outer from the inner temple. The entry chapel of the inner temple has been completely destroyed, though it once contained five statues in niches. A feature of the inner temple was a single quartzite column that was contained in the antichambre carrée. The room is otherwise ruined. Quartzite is an atypical material to use in architectural projects, though examples of it being used sparingly in the Old Kingdom exist. The material is associated with the sun cult due to its sun-like coloration.
The underground chambers remained unexplored until 1881, when Gaston Maspero, who had recently discovered inscribed texts in the pyramids of Pepi I and Merenre I, gained entry. Maspero found the same texts inscribed on the walls of Unas's pyramid, their first known appearance. The 283 spells in Unas's pyramid constitute the oldest, smallest and best preserved corpus of religious writing from the Old Kingdom. Their function was to guide the ruler through to eternal life and ensure his continued survival even if the funerary cult ceased to function. In Unas's case, the funerary cult may have survived the turbulent First Intermediate Period and up until the Twelfth or Thirteenth Dynasty, during the Middle Kingdom. This is a matter of dispute amongst Egyptologists, where a competing idea is that the cult was revived during the Middle Kingdom, rather than having survived until then.
## Location and excavation
The pyramid is situated on the Saqqara plateau and lies on a line running from the pyramid of Sekhemkhet to the pyramid of Menkauhor. The site required the construction of an exceptionally long causeway to reach a nearby lake, suggesting the site held some significance to Unas.
The pyramid was briefly examined by John Shae Perring, and soon after by Karl Richard Lepsius, who listed the pyramid on his pioneering list as number XXXV. Entry was first gained by Gaston Maspero, who examined its substructure in 1881. He had recently discovered a set of texts in the pyramids of Pepi I and Merenre I. Those same texts were discovered in Unas's tomb, making this their earliest known appearance. From 1899 to 1901, the architect and Egyptologist Alessandro Barsanti conducted the first systematic investigation of the pyramid site, succeeding in excavating part of the mortuary temple, as well as a series of tombs from the Second Dynasty and the Late Period. Later excavations by Cecil Mallaby Firth, from 1929 until his death in 1931, followed by those of the architect Jean-Philippe Lauer from 1936 to 1939, were conducted with little success. The archaeologists Selim Hassan, Muhammed Zakaria Goneim and A. H. Hussein mainly focused on the causeway leading to the pyramid while conducting their investigations from 1937 to 1949. Hussein discovered a pair of limestone-lined boat pits at the upper end of the causeway. In the 1970s, Ahmad Moussa excavated the lower half of the causeway and the valley temple. Moussa and another archaeologist, Audran Labrousse [fr], conducted an architectural survey of the valley temple from 1971 to 1981. The pyramids of Unas, Teti, Pepi I and Merenre were the subjects of a major architectural and epigraphic project in Saqqara, led by Jean Leclant. From 1999 until 2001, the Supreme Council of Antiquities conducted a major restoration and reconstruction project on the valley temple. The three entrances and ramps were restored, and a low limestone wall built to demarcate the temple's plan.
## Mortuary complex
### Layout
Unas's complex is situated between the pyramid of Sekhemkhet and the south-west corner of the pyramid complex of Djoser. It is in symmetry with the pyramid of Userkaf situated at the north-east corner, in Saqqara. Old Kingdom mortuary complexes consist of five essential components: (1) a valley temple; (2) a causeway; (3) a mortuary temple; (4) a cult pyramid; and (5) the main pyramid. Unas's monument has all of these elements: the main pyramid, constructed six steps high from limestone blocks; a valley temple situated in a natural harbour at the mouth of a wadi; a causeway constructed using the same wadi as a path; a mortuary temple similar in layout to that of Unas's predecessor, Djedkare Isesi's, and a cult pyramid in the south of the mortuary temple. The pyramid, mortuary temple and cult pyramid were enclosed by a 7 m (23 ft; 13 cu) tall perimeter wall. The perimeter wall from the north-east to north-west corner is about 86 m (282 ft; 164 cu) long, and stretches 76 m (249 ft; 145 cu) from north to south.
### Main pyramid
Though Unas's reign lasted for around thirty to thirty-three years, his pyramid was the smallest built in the Old Kingdom. Time constraints cannot be considered a factor explaining the small size, and it is more likely that resource accessibility constrained the project. The monument's size was also inhibited due to the extensive quarrying necessary to increase the size of the pyramid. Unas chose to avoid that additional burden and instead kept his pyramid small.
The core of the pyramid was built six steps high, constructed with roughly dressed limestone blocks which decreased in size in each step. The construction material for the core would, ideally, have been locally sourced. This was then encased with fine white limestone blocks quarried from Tura. Some of the casing on the lowest steps has remained intact. The pyramid had a base length of 57.75 m (189.5 ft; 110.21 cu) converging towards the apex at an angle of approximately 56°, giving it a height of 43 metres (141 ft; 82 cu) on completion. The pyramid had a total volume of 47,390 m<sup>3</sup> (61,980 cu yd). The pyramid was smooth-sided. The pyramid has since been ruined, as have all others of the Fifth Dynasty, a result of its poor construction and materials. The pyramids of the Fifth Dynasty were further systematically dismantled during the New Kingdom to be reused in the construction of new tombs.
Unas abandoned the practice of building pyramids for his consorts; instead, Khenut and Nebet were buried in a double mastaba north-east of the main pyramid. Each queen was accorded separate rooms and an individual entrance, though the layout of the tombs is identical. Khenut owned the western half, and Nebet owned the eastern half. Their chambers were extensively decorated. The chapel for Nebet's mastaba contains four recesses. One bears a cartouche of Unas's name, indicating that it may have contained a statue of the king, whereas the others contained statues of the queen. Directly north of the mastaba were the tombs for Unas's son Unasankh and daughter Iput. Another daughter, Hemetre, was buried in a tomb west of Djoser's complex.
### Substructure
A small chapel, called the "north chapel" or "entrance chapel", was situated adjacent to the pyramid's north face. It consisted of a single room, with an altar and a stela bearing the hieroglyph for "offering table". Only trace elements of the chapel remain. These chapels had a false door and a decoration scheme similar to the offering hall, which the archaeologist Dieter Arnold suggests indicates that the chapel was a "miniature offering chapel".
The entrance into the substructure of the pyramid lay under the chapel's pavement. The substructure of the pyramid is similar to that of Unas's predecessor, Djedkare Isesi. The entry leads into a 14.35 m (47.1 ft) long vertically sloping corridor inclined at 22° that leads to a vestibule at its bottom. The vestibule is 2.47 m (8.1 ft) long and 2.08 m (6.8 ft) wide. From the vestibule, a 14.10 m (46.3 ft) long horizontal passage follows a level path to the antechamber and is guarded by three granite slab portcullises in succession. The passage ends at an antechamber, a room measuring 3.75 m (12.3 ft) by 3.08 m (10.1 ft), located under the centre axis of the pyramid. To the east, a doorway leads to a room – called the serdab – with three recesses. The serdab measures 6.75 m (22.1 ft) wide and 2 m (6.6 ft) deep. To the west lay the burial chamber, a room measuring 7.3 m (24 ft) by 3.08 m (10.1 ft), containing the ruler's sarcophagus. The roof of both the antechamber and burial chamber were gabled, in a similar fashion to earlier pyramids of the era.
Near the burial chamber's west wall sat Unas's coffin, made from greywacke rather than basalt as was originally presumed. The coffin was undamaged, but its contents had been robbed. A canopic chest had once been buried at the foot of the south-east corner of the coffin. Traces of the burial are fragmentary; all that remain are portions of a mummy, including its right arm, skull and shinbone, as well as the wooden handles of two knives used during the opening of the mouth ceremony. The mummy remains have been displayed in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.
The walls of the chambers were lined with Tura limestone, while those surrounding Unas's sarcophagus were sheathed in white alabaster incised and painted to represent the doors of the royal palace facade, complementing the eastern passage. Taken as symbolically functional, these allowed the king to depart the tomb in any direction. The ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with gold stars to resemble the night sky. The ceiling of the antechamber and corridor were similarly painted. Whereas the stars in the antechamber and the burial chamber pointed northward, the stars in the corridor pointed towards the zenith. The remaining walls of the burial chamber, antechamber, and parts of the corridor were inscribed with a series of vertically written texts, chiselled in bas-relief and painted blue.
#### Pyramid Texts of Unas
The inscriptions, known as the Pyramid Texts, were the central innovation of Unas's pyramid, on whose subterranean walls they were first etched. The Pyramid Texts are the oldest large corpus of religious writing known from ancient Egypt. A total of 283 such spells, out of at least 1,000 known and an indeterminate number of unknown ones, appear in Unas's pyramid. The spells are the smallest and best-preserved collection of Pyramid Texts known from the Old Kingdom. Though they first appeared in Unas's pyramid, many of the texts are significantly older. The texts subsequently appeared in the pyramids of the kings and queens of the Sixth to Eighth Dynasties, until the end of the Old Kingdom. With the exception of a single spell, copies of Unas's texts appeared throughout the Middle Kingdom and later, including a near complete replica of the texts in the tomb of Senwosretankh at El-Lisht.
Ancient Egyptian belief held that the individual consisted of three basic parts; the body, the ka, and the ba. When the person died, the ka would separate from the body and return to the gods from where it had come, while the ba remained with the body. The body of the individual, interred in the burial chamber, never physically left; but the ba, awakened, released itself from the body and began its journey toward new life. Significant to this journey was the Akhet: the horizon, a junction between the earth, the sky, and the Duat. To ancient Egyptians, the Akhet was the place from where the sun rose, and so symbolised a place of birth or resurrection. In the texts, the king is called upon to transform into an akh in the Akhet. The akh, literally "effective being", was the resurrected form of the deceased, attained through individual action and ritual performance. If the deceased failed to complete the transformation, they became mutu, that is "the dead". The function of the texts, in congruence with all funerary literature, was to enable the reunion of the ruler's ba and ka leading to the transformation into an akh, and to secure eternal life among the gods in the sky.
The writings on the west gable in Unas's burial chamber consist of spells that protect the sarcophagus and mummy within. The north and south walls of the chamber are dedicated to the offering and resurrection rituals respectively, and the east wall contains texts asserting the king's control over his sustenance in the form of a response to the offering ritual. The offering ritual texts continue onto the north and south walls of the passageway splitting the resurrection ritual which concludes on the south wall. In the rituals of the burial chamber, the king is identified both as himself and as the god Osiris, being addressed as "Osiris Unas". The king is also identified with other deities, occasionally several, alongside Osiris in other texts. The Egyptologist James Allen identifies the last piece of ritual text on the west gable of the antechamber:
> Your son Horus has acted for you.
> The great ones will shake, having seen the knife in your arm as you emerge from the Duat.
> Greetings, experienced one! Geb has created you, the Ennead has given you birth.
> Horus has become content about his father, Atum has become content about his years, the eastern and western gods have become content about the great thing that has happened in his embrace – the god's birth.
> It is Unis: Unis, see! It is Unis: Unis, look! It is Unis: hear! It is Unis: Unis, exist! It is Unis: Unis, raise yourself from your side!
> Do my command, you who hate sleep but were made slack. Stand up, you in Nedit. Your good bread has been made in Pe; receive your control of Heliopolis.
> It is Horus (who speaks), having been commanded to act for his father.
> The storm-lord, the one with spittle in his vicinity, Seth – he will bear you: he is the one who will bear Atum.
The antechamber and corridor were inscribed primarily with personal texts. The west, north and south walls of the antechamber contain texts whose primary concern is the transition from the human realm to the next, and with the king's ascent to the sky. The east wall held a second set of protective spells, starting with the "Cannibal Hymn". In the hymn, Unas consumes the gods to absorb their power for his resurrection. The Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson identifies the hymn as a mythologizing of the "butchery ritual" in which a bull is sacrificed. The serdab remained uninscribed. The southern section of the walls of the corridor contain texts that focus primarily on the resurrection and ascension of the deceased. The mere presence of the spells within the tomb were believed to have efficacy, thus protecting the king even if the funerary cult ceased to function.
Parts of the corpus of Pyramid Texts were passed down into the Coffin Texts, an expanded set of new texts written on non-royal tombs of the Middle Kingdom, some retaining Old Kingdom grammatical conventions and with many formulations of the Pyramid Texts recurring. The transition to the Coffin Texts was begun in the reign of Pepi I and completed by the Middle Kingdom. The Coffin Texts formed the basis for the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom and Late Period. The texts would resurface in tombs and on papyri for two millennia, finally disappearing around the time that Christianity was adopted.
### Valley temple
Unas's valley temple is situated in a harbour that naturally forms at the point where the mouth of a wadi meets the lake. The same wadi was used as a path for the causeway. The temple sits between those of Nyuserre Ini and Pepi II. Despite a complex plan, the temple did not contain any significant innovations. It was richly decorated – in a fashion similar to the causeway and mortuary temple – and the surviving palm granite columns that stood at the entrance into the temple evidence their high quality craftsmanship.
The main entrance into the temple was on the east side, consisting of a portico with eight granite palm columns arranged into two rows. A narrow westward corridor led from the entry into a rectangular north–south oriented hall. A second hall was to the south. Two secondary entrances into the halls were built on the north and south sides. Each had a portico with two columns. These were approached by narrow ramps. West of the two halls was the main cult hall. It had a second chamber with three storerooms to the south and a passageway leading to the causeway to the north-west.
### Causeway
The causeway connecting the valley temple to the mortuary temple of Unas's pyramid complex was constructed along the path provided by a natural wadi. The Egyptologist Iorwerth Edwards estimates the walls to be 4 m (13 ft) high, and 2.04 m (6 ft 8 in) thick. The passageway was about 2.65 m (8 ft 8 in) wide. It had a roof constructed from slabs 0.45 m (1 ft 6 in) thick projecting from each wall toward the centre. The causeway, at between 720 m (2,360 ft) and 750 m (2,460 ft) long, was among the longest constructed for any pyramid, comparable to the causeway of Khufu's pyramid. The causeway is also the best preserved of any from the Old Kingdom. Construction of the causeway was complicated and required negotiating uneven terrain and older buildings which were torn down and their stones appropriated as underlay. The causeway was built with two turns, rather than in a straight line. Around 250 m (820 ft) worth of Djoser's causeway was used to provide embankments for Unas's causeway and to plug gaps between it and the wadi. South of the uppermost bend of the causeway were two 45 m (148 ft) long boat pits of white limestone, which might originally have housed wooden boats with curved keels representing the day and night vessels of Ra, the sun god. The boats lay side by side in an east–west orientation.
Tombs in the path of the causeway were built over, preserving their decorations, but not their contents, indicating that the tombs had been robbed either before or during the causeway's construction. Two large royal tombs, dating to the Second Dynasty, are among those that lie beneath the causeway. The western gallery tomb contains seals bearing the names of Hotepsekhemwy and Nebra, and the eastern gallery tomb contains numerous seals inscribed with the name of Ninetjer indicating probable ownership. The superstructures of the tombs were demolished, allowing the mortuary temple and upper end of the causeway to be built over the top of them.
The interior walls of the causeway were highly decorated with painted bas-reliefs, but records of these are fragmentary. The remnants depict a variety of scenes including the hunting of wild animals, the conducting of harvests, scenes from the markets, craftsmen working copper and gold, a fleet returning from Byblos, boats transporting columns from Aswan to the construction site, battles with enemies and nomadic tribes, the transport of prisoners, lines of people bearing offerings, and a procession of representatives from the nomes of Egypt. A slit was left in a section of the causeway roofing, allowing light to enter illuminating the brightly painted decorations on the walls. The archaeologist Peter Clayton notes that these depictions were more akin to those found in the mastabas of nobles.
The Egyptologist Miroslav Verner highlights one particular scene from the causeway depicting famished desert nomads. The scene had been used as "unique proof" that the living standards of desert dwellers had declined during Unas's reign as a result of climatic changes in the middle of the third millennium B.C. The discovery of a similar relief painting on the blocks of Sahure's causeway casts doubt on this hypothesis. Verner contends that the nomads may have been brought in to demonstrate the hardships faced by pyramid builders bringing in higher quality stone from remote mountain areas. Grimal suggested that this scene foreshadowed the nationwide famine that seems to have struck Egypt at the onset of the First Intermediate Period. According to Allen et al., the most widely accepted explanation for the scene is that it was meant to illustrate the generosity of the sovereign in aiding famished populations.
A collection of tombs were found north of the causeway. The tomb of Akhethetep, a vizier, was discovered by a team led by Christiane Ziegler. The other mastabas belong to the viziers Ihy, Iy–nofert, Ny-ankh-ba and Mehu. The tombs are conjectured to belong to Unas's viziers, with the exception of Mehu's tomb, which is associated with Pepi I. Another tomb, belonging to Unas-ankh, son of Unas, separates the tombs of Ihy and Iy-nofert. It may be dated late into Unas's reign.
Ahmed Moussa discovered the rock-cut tombs of Nefer and Ka-hay – court singers during Menkauhor's reign – south of Unas's causeway, containing nine burials along with an extremely well preserved mummy found in a coffin in a shaft under the east wall of the chapel. The Chief Inspector at Saqqara, Mounir Basta, discovered another rock-cut tomb just south of the causeway in 1964, later excavated by Ahmed Moussa. The tombs belonged to two palace officials – manicurists – living during the reigns of Nyuserre Ini and Menkauhor, in the Fifth Dynasty, named Ni-ankh-khnum and Khnum-hotep. A highly decorated chapel for the tomb was discovered the following year. The chapel was located inside a unique stone mastaba that was connected to the tombs through an undecorated open court.
### Mortuary temple
The mortuary temple in Unas's pyramid complex has a layout comparable to his predecessor, Djedkare Isesi's, with one notable exception. A pink granite doorway separates the end of the causeway from the entrance hall. It bears the names and titles of Teti, Unas's successor, indicating that he must have had the doorway constructed following Unas's death. The entrance hall had a vaulted ceiling, and a floor paved with alabaster. The walls in the room were decorated with relief paintings that depicted the making of offerings. The entrance hall terminates in an open columned courtyard, with eighteen – two more columns than in Djedkare Isesi's complex – pink granite palm columns supporting the roof of an ambulatory. Some of the columns were reused centuries later in buildings in Tanis, the capital of Egypt during the Twenty First and Twenty Second Dynasties. Other columns have been displayed in the British Museum, and in the Louvre. Relief decorations that were formerly in the courtyard have also been reused in later projects, as shown by the presence of reliefs of Unas in Amenemhat I's pyramid complex in El-Lisht.
North and south of the entrance hall and columned courtyard were storerooms. These were stocked regularly with offering items for the royal funerary cult, which had expanded influence in the Fifth Dynasty. Their irregular placement resulted in the northern storerooms being twice as numerous as the southern. The rooms were used for burials in the Late Period, as noted by the presence of large shaft tombs. At the far end of the courtyard was a transverse corridor creating an intersection between the columned courtyard at its east and inner temple to its west, with a cult pyramid to the south, and a larger courtyard surrounding the pyramid to the north.
The inner temple is accessed by a small staircase leading into a ruined chapel with five statue niches. The chapel and offering hall were surrounded by storerooms; as elsewhere in the temple, there were more storerooms to the north than south. The antichambre carrée – a square antechamber – separated the chapel from the offering hall. The room measures 4.2 m (14 ft; 8.0 cu) on each side, making it the smallest such chamber from the Old Kingdom, but has been largely destroyed. It was originally entered through a door on its eastern side, and contained two additional doors leading to the offering hall and storeroom. The room contained a single column made of quartzite – fragments of which have been found in the south-west part of the temple – quarried from the Gabel Ahmar stone quarry near Heliopolis. Quartzite, being a particularly hard stone – a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale – was not typically used in architectural projects, but was used sparingly as a building material at some Old Kingdom sites in Saqqara. The hard stone is associated with the sun cult, a natural development caused by the coloration of the material being sun-like. Remnants of a granite false door bearing an inscription concerning the souls of the residents of Nekhen and Buto marks what little of the offering hall has been preserved. A block from the door has been displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
### Cult pyramid
The purpose of the cult pyramid remains unclear. It had a burial chamber but was not used for burials, and instead appears to have been a purely symbolic structure. It may have hosted the pharaoh's ka, or a miniature statue of the king. It may have been used for ritual performances centring around the burial and resurrection of the ka spirit during the Sed festival.
The cult pyramid in Unas's complex has identifiable remains, but has otherwise been destroyed. The preserved elements suggest that it had a base length of 11.5 m (38 ft; 22 cu), a fifth of that of the main pyramid. The pyramid's covering slabs were inclined at 69°. This was typical for cult pyramids which had a 2:1 ratio-ed slope, and thus a height equal to the length of the base, i.e. 11.5 m (38 ft; 22 cu). A small channel was dug in front of the pyramid entrance, perhaps to prevent run-off from entering the pyramid. The first slabs of the descending corridor are declined at 30.5°. The pit measures 5.15 m (17 ft; 10 cu) north-south and 8.15 m (27 ft; 16 cu) east-west. The burial chamber was cut 2.03 m (7 ft; 4 cu) deep into the rock, sits 2.12 m (7 ft; 4 cu) beneath the pavement and measures 5 m (16 ft; 10 cu) by 2.5 m (8 ft; 5 cu).
The "great enclosure" of the main pyramid and inner temple has an identifiable anomaly. Four m (13 ft; 8 cu) from the cult pyramid's west face the wall abruptly turns to the north before receding for 12 m (39 ft; 23 cu) toward the main pyramid. It stops 2.6 m (8.5 ft; 5.0 cu) from the main pyramid and turns once more back onto its original alignment. The only explanation for this is the presence of the Second Dynasty Hotepsekhemwy's large tomb which spans the width of the whole temple and crosses directly under the recess. The architects of the pyramid appear to have preferred for the enclosure wall to run over the tomb's passageway, rather than over the top of the subterranean gallery. The cult pyramid has its own secondary enclosure that runs along the north face of the pyramid and half of its west face. This secondary wall was about 1.04 m (3 ft; 2 cu) thick, and had a double-door 0.8 m (2.6 ft) thick built close to its start.
## Later history
Evidence suggests that Unas's funerary cult survived through the First Intermediate Period and into the Middle Kingdom, an indication that Unas retained prestige long after his death. Two independent pieces of evidence corroborate the existence of the cult in the Middle Kingdom: 1) A stela dated to the Twelfth Dynasty bearing the name Unasemsaf and 2) A statue of a Memphite official, Sermaat, from the Twelfth or Thirteenth Dynasty, with an inscription invoking Unas's name. The Egyptologist Jaromír Málek contends that the evidence only suggests a theoretical revival of the cult, a result of the valley temple serving as a useful entry path into the Saqqara necropolis, but not its persistence from the Old Kingdom. Despite renewed interest in the Old Kingdom rulers at the time, their funerary complexes, including Unas's, were partially reused in the construction of Amenemhat I's and Senusret I's pyramid complexes at El-Lisht. One block used in Amenemhat's complex has been positively identified as originating from Unas's complex, likely taken from the causeway, on the basis of inscriptions containing his name appearing upon it. Several other blocks have their origins speculatively assigned to Unas's complex as well.
The Saqqara plateau witnessed a new era of tomb building in the New Kingdom. Starting with the reign of Thutmose III in the Eighteenth Dynasty and up until possibly the Twentieth Dynasty, Saqqara was used as a site for the tombs of private individuals. The largest concentrations of tombs from the period are found in a large area south of Unas's causeway. This area came to prominent use around the time of Tutankhamun. Unas's pyramid underwent restorative work in the New Kingdom. In the Nineteenth Dynasty, Khaemweset, High Priest of Memphis and son of Ramesses II, had an inscription carved onto a block on the pyramid's south side commemorating his restoration work.
Late Period monuments, colloquially called the "Persian tombs", thought to date to the reign of Amasis II, were discovered near the causeway. These include tombs built for Tjannehebu, Overseer of the Royal Navy; Psamtik, the Chief Physician; and Peteniese, Overseer of Confidential Documents. The Egyptologist John D. Ray explains that the site was chosen because it was readily accessible from both Memphis and the Nile Valley. Traces of Phoenician and Aramaic burials have been reported in the area directly south of Unas's causeway.
## See also
- List of Egyptian pyramids
- List of megalithic sites
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10,616,733 |
Mark XIV bomb sight
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Bombsight used by the RAF during World War II
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[
"Optical bombsights",
"World War II military equipment of the United Kingdom"
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The Mark XIV Bomb Sight was a bombsight developed by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command during the Second World War. It was also known as the Blackett sight after its primary inventor, P. M. S. Blackett. Production of a slightly modified version was also undertaken in the United States as the Sperry T-1, which was interchangeable with the UK-built version. It was the RAF's standard bombsight for the second half of the war.
Developed starting in 1939, the Mk. XIV began replacing the First World War–era Course Setting Bomb Sight in 1942. The Mk. XIV was essentially an automated version of the Course Setting sight, using a mechanical computer to update the sights in real-time as conditions changed. The Mk. XIV required only 10 seconds of straight flight before the drop and automatically accounted for shallow climbs and dives. More importantly, the Mk. XIV sighting unit was much smaller than the Course Setting sight, which allowed it to contain a gyro stabilization platform. This kept the sight pointed at the target even as the bomber manoeuvred, dramatically increasing its accuracy and ease of sighting.
The Mk. XIV was theoretically less accurate than the contemporary Norden bombsight. However, it was smaller, easier to use, faster-acting, and better suited to night bombing. In practice, it demonstrated accuracy roughly equal to the Norden's. It equipped the majority of the RAF bomber fleet during the second half of the war; small numbers of the Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight and Low Level Bombsight, Mark III were used in specialist roles. The Low Level Bombsight was built using parts of the Mark XIV, stabilized in pitch rather than roll.
A post-war upgrade, the T-4, also known by its rainbow code Blue Devil, connected directly to the Navigation and Bombing System computers to automate the setting of wind speed and direction. This eliminated the one potential inaccuracy in the system, further increased accuracy, and simplified operation. These equipped the V Bomber force as well as other aircraft until their retirement from service in the 1960s.
## History
### Course-setting sights
A problem with early bombsights was that they could only correct for the effects of the wind in a simple way and required the bomber to fly directly up- or down-wind from the target, to minimise the complexity of the required calculations. This made it difficult to attack moving targets and allowed anti-aircraft artillery to sight their weapons along the wind line.
In 1917 Harry Wimperis introduced the Course Setting Bomb Sight (CSBS), which replaced the tables and timings used in earlier sights with a simple mechanical calculator capable of solving the sideways drift due to the wind. As the bomb aimer turned a wind direction knob, the main portion of the sight was pushed to the left or right, indicating the required angle to fly to take the aircraft over the target. The CSBS was the first bombsight that allowed the bomber to approach the target from any direction, which offered greatly increased tactical freedom.
The downside to the CSBS was that the settings, made through four main input dials, were useful for one operational setup, a given altitude and heading. If the aircraft manoeuvred, the entire system had to be reset. Additionally, the system required the bomber's direction to be compared to objects on the ground, requiring a time-consuming process sighting through thin metal wires against a suitable object on the ground below. As the sight was not stabilized, any manoeuvres to correct for misalignment interfered with the ability to measure the heading, so these corrections further extended the bomb run. The CSBS generally required the bomber to fly straight and level for a lengthy time.
Although the need for an improved CSBS was known in the 1930s, little work on developing such a sight was carried out. That was because an entirely new class of tachometric bombsights were being developed, which offered dramatically improved accuracy and automated much of the setup. The RAF was working on such a design, the Automatic Bomb Sight, but development was slow and it had not been accepted for use when the war started. Learning of a similar design developed by the US Navy, the Air Ministry began extensive negotiations in an effort to gain a production licence for this Norden bombsight. The US Navy constantly refused these requests, deeming it too sensitive to risk losing over Germany, and their refusals ultimately led to significant political friction between the two nations. Ironically, the plans of the Norden bombsight had been passed to the German military by a US-based spy in 1938.
As the war started, revised versions of the CSBS, the Mk. VII and Mk. IX, remained universal. The Mk. X, a more extensive improvement, was in mass production and being readied for service entry.
### A pressing need
On 28 March 1939, the head of RAF Bomber Command Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt hosted a conference on the state of Bomber Command. Among the many problems with operational readiness, he noted that RAF bombs were much too small and that bombsight technology was obsolete. Given the problems of obtaining a modern bombsight, he pressed for the creation of a high-speed bomber design that could safely attack at low levels.
On 18 December 1939, Vickers Wellington bombers carried out a raid on German shipping in what became known as the Air Battle of the Heligoland Bight. Detected on radar and engaged en route to their targets, over half the attacking force was destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Ludlow-Hewitt presented a report on the attack on 22 December 1939, noting that flying straight and level for the CSBS made the bombers easy targets for fighters and anti-aircraft gunners. He again pressed for a new bombsight that featured stabilization to allow the aircraft to manoeuvre while it approached the target.
The CSBS and the improved version, the Mk. X, were insufficient, as both were too large to easily stabilize. Because of the way it was built, the Automatic Bomb Sight could be equipped with a stabilizer but it was estimated that it would be some time before it could be modified and brought into production. The Norden did offer stabilization but it also required relatively long setup times and was still not available for purchase.
Another solution to the vulnerability of the RAF bombers was to fly at night, which was taken up as the primary tactic of Bomber Command. The Mk. X proved to be very difficult to read at night and bombers that carried it were quickly refitted with the earlier Mk. VII or Mk. IX sight. The Norden was unable to work at night at all; the bomb aimer had to locate the target long in advance of the drop point using a built-in telescope and targets were simply not visible at the required distances in low light.
What was needed was a new bombsight, one that could be very quickly set up, had useful illumination of the crosshairs for night use, and was stabilized so the bomb aimer could watch the approach as the bomber was manoeuvring. An early attempt was the Mk. XI, which mounted a cut-down CSBS on the front of a gyro unit taken from a Sperry Gyroscope artificial horizon, to provide stabilization in the horizontal plane, useful for aiding drift measurements and corrections. But it was no easy task to manually calculate the range angle on the separate Course and Speed Calculator. It was introduced in 1941, but only a small number were produced.
### Blackett's solution
The request for a new bombsight was quickly passed on to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, where Patrick Blackett of the Aeronautical Research Committee volunteered to lead the effort. His solution to the problem was a thorough revision of the CSBS concept.
The advance in the Blackett design was the way the sighting head was aimed. Instead of dialling the parameters into the sight directly as in the CSBS, these inputs were dialled into a separate console. The console was equipped with repeaters for each of the aircraft instruments needed to operate the sight, like altitude and airspeed. The operator simply turned the dials on the console so their indicator arrows matched the readings on the instruments displayed in the same location, known as laying needle on needle. This reduced the possibility that the numbers would not be changed as the bomber manoeuvred, but required so much manual working that a new crew member was introduced to operate the console, the bomb-aimer's mate.
The inputs operated by the bomb-aimer's mate drove a mechanical calculator inside the console, or computor. The output of the calculator drove flexible shafts that rotated the sight head to the proper angles in azimuth and altitude, representing the wind drift and range angle. The sight head replaced the older wire crosshairs with a modern reflector sight that was easy to see at night. The sight could be rotated manually to view objects well in front of the aircraft, allowing the bomb aimer to select among a wider variety of objects to use for drift measurements.
With the CSBS, the sighting system and calculator were the same device, which required the bombsight to be fairly large. With this restriction removed, the sight head was much smaller and lighter than the older versions. The resulting sight head was easy to mount on a stabilizer system, adapted from the same Sperry gyroscope as earlier experiments. With the sight head stabilized, the bomb aimer could continue to measure drift even as he indicated turns to the pilot, eliminating the need to correct, re-measure and correct again. The remote console and second operator eliminated the need for the bomb aimer to look away from the sights, to make adjustments while on the bomb run. As a result of these changes, short aiming periods of a few seconds would be enough for an accurate drop.
The new Mk. XII bombsight was first tested in September and October 1940 and by the end of October, 20 examples had been built. A slightly improved version, the Mk. XIII was designed but not put into production.
### Automation
The need for the second crewman was an obvious problem with the Mk. XII, especially as few bombers of the era had enough room for the operator. Working with Henry Braddick, Blackett developed a new version of the calculator that included aircraft instruments inside the computor, eliminating the need for the needle-on-needle matching and completely automating the calculations. After the initial design was complete, Blackett moved onto other matters with RAF Coastal Command, where he continued development of his theories of operational research.
The new design reduced the bomb aimer's setup workload to dialling in four settings. Two of these could be set before the mission: the altitude of the target above sea level and the terminal velocity of the bomb, a function of the particular bomb being used on that mission. The only settings that had to be adjusted in flight were the measured wind direction and speed. The altitude, airspeed and course were all measured by the internal instruments and presented to the user in windows on the side of the computor case. Once set, the computor would automatically update the calculations and display the resulting bombing angle in another window. The computor could even account for steady changes in altitude, allowing the bomb run to take place in a shallow climb of up to 5 degrees or dive of up to 20 degrees.
The resulting Mk. XIV was first tested in June 1941. It was the first modern bombsight that allowed for accurate bombing immediately after radical manoeuvring, with a settling time as little as 10 seconds. The fast settling time was invaluable during night bombing missions, as it allowed the bomber to fly a corkscrew (a helical path), climbing and turning, and then level out immediately before the drop. Even slow turns made it difficult for night fighters to track the bombers within the limited view of their radar systems and continually changing altitude was an effective way to avoid anti-aircraft fire.
The Mk. XIV was not as accurate as the Norden at altitudes over 20,000 feet (6,100 m), but for typical night bombing altitudes from 12,000–16,000 feet (3,700–4,900 m), any differences in accuracy were minor. When the need for more accuracy for use with the Tallboy bombs arose in 1943, the Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight (SABS), a development of the earlier Automatic Bomb Sight, was introduced in limited numbers.
### Production and use
Existing sources do not record when the Mk. XIV went into production in the UK; operational testing started in January 1942, and production examples started reaching squadrons in March. It was manufactured by small machine shops and instrument makers like the Aron Meter Company. Production was too slow to meet the demand; between July and October, fewer than a hundred a month were being delivered. As the design was finalized, automated production was undertaken and by mid-1943, 900 a month were available. This was enough to equip the heavy bombers as they arrived from the production lines and by late 1942 the Handley Page Halifax was being delivered with the sight head already installed.
To fill the demand for other aircraft, especially smaller ones like the de Havilland Mosquito, the Air Ministry began looking at US manufacturers to supply the bombsight. Frederic Blin Vose of Sperry Gyroscope expressed an interest in the design and felt he could adapt the Mk. XIV to US production methods and have it in mass production rapidly. Sperry arranged for AC Spark Plug to take over manufacture, initially on a sub-contract basis and later for direct sales to the UK.
The two companies made some basic changes to the design to make it easier to produce and a final design was ready in May 1942. The Sperry T-1 was fully compatible with UK-built versions and a T-1 computer could be used with a Mk. XIV sight head or vice versa. Full production commenced at the AC plant in Flint, Michigan, in November and T-1s arrived in the UK from March 1943. The sights were sent to medium bombers like the Wellington, while UK-built versions were sent to the heavy bombers. In August 1943, George Mann of AC Spark Plug visited the UK for a period of about a year, liaising with RAE Farnborough, Boscombe Down and the Ministry of Aircraft Production.
### Later versions
In May 1943, the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, requested that the maximum bombing altitude be increased from 20,000 to 30,000 feet (6,100 to 9,100 m), as the Avro Lancaster units were now carrying out missions as high as 22,000 feet (6,700 m). The Air Ministry responded with a compromise improvement of 25,000 feet (7,600 m) and a more accurate angle mechanism. These changes produced the Mk. XIVA, which arrived in December 1944. The A model also introduced the ability for the minor differences in instrument readings for indicated and true air speed between aircraft to be corrected simply by replacing a cam.
The original design powered its gyros by blowing air across their outer rim, using ambient air from the cabin that was being sucked out of the aircraft by a hose connected to a vacuum source, provided by a venturi or a pump on the engine. These were (and remain) widely used for attitude indicators and gyrocompasses. Running these hoses to the stabilizer gyro in the sight head was problematic, so the new Mk. XIVB and T-1B replaced the suction-powered gyros with electrical ones, eliminating the need for a separate connection. This was introduced with the 18,000th T-1 on the AC production line.
The Mk. XV was a version designed for the Royal Navy and Coastal Command for attacking submarines. As these operations took place at low altitudes, even small changes of altitude air pressure could lead to large errors in calculations. The Mk. XV allowed the altitude input to be taken directly from a radar altimeter, eliminating these inaccuracies and any instrument lag. The Mk. XVII was a Mk. XV modified for the very high attack speeds of the Naval Mosquito at more than 400 mph (640 km/h). As the Naval Mosquito did not have a bomb aimer's position, an unstabilized version of the sight head was mounted in front of the pilot.
### Post-war use
In the post-war era, the UK produced derivatives of the design based on the T-1, as opposed to the original Mk. XIV. These T-2 and T-4 (Blue Devil) designs had much higher altitude, airspeed and wind-speed settings, suitable for high-altitude bombing in the jet stream. These were normally part of the Navigation and Bombing System, which combined inputs from aircraft instruments, H2S and Green Satin radars, star fixes and radio navigation systems. These measurements were fed into a mechanical computer that directly output the latitude and longitude of the aircraft, based on automatic dead reckoning. The same outputs were also sent to the sighting head of the T-4, eliminating the need to manually set the windage and providing those values with much higher accuracy (about ±0.1 mph and ±0.1 degrees).
Most wartime optical sights like the Mk. XIV were useless for operations in jet aircraft. Flying at roughly twice the altitude and three times the speed of their wartime antecedents, the range—the distance the bombs travelled after being dropped—increased from perhaps 2 miles (3.2 km) to as much as 7 miles (11 km). This long range, plus the additional altitude, made the distance between the target and aircraft so great that it was often impossible to see the target before the aircraft had already passed the drop point. Optical bombing gave way to radar bombing, and the Mk. XIV was withdrawn from RAF service in 1965.
## Description
### Basic mechanism
The Mk. XIV consisted of two independent parts, the sighting head and the computor. The sighting head was located in the bomb aimer's window at the front of the aircraft. The separate computor cabinet was assembled with the operating knobs positioned on the right side of the case, so it had to be placed on the left side of the fuselage. The two were connected via two flexible cable drives.
The computor cabinet included only four main controls. On the left side of the chassis, from top to bottom, were dials that set the wind direction, wind speed, target altitude and terminal velocity of the bomb. All these inputs were set by reading their value in a small window on the left side of the dials. Additional windows provided output values for the indicated airspeed, course, and bombing angle (or range angle). Clips in the upper right held a card with levelling data, as well as notes about the sight or the bombs being dropped. The computor was also connected to several external sources. Compressed air was supplied from the engines to drive the mechanism, and an exhaust allowed the less dense used air to escape. Tubes were also connected to the pitot tube and static air source, which allowed the accurate measurement of airspeed. A separate electrical connection input the direction measured on the distant reading compass, using a selsyn.
The CSBS had introduced a mounting system on the left side of the bombsight that allowed it to be easily removed and then replaced without affecting its levelling. The Mk. XIV was designed to mount to this same system, which it did by mounting all the moving parts on a square platform that then connected to the mount. A small thumbscrew on the mount allowed it to be levelled if needed, checked against a spirit level mounted just above it. A release lever beside the thumbscrew allowed the entire assembly to be lifted off the mounts.
Above the mounting platform was the stabilization gyro. This was connected to a pie-wedge-shaped metal plate, causing the plate to rotate around a mounting point at the top of the wedge. The rear part of the reflector sight was mounted at this point and the opposite, forward, end was supported by a rotating pintle inserted into a gudgeon mounted to the frame. Rolling the aircraft caused the gyro to rotate in the same direction, which was geared to cause the opposite motion in the reflector. As the sights worked by reflecting light off the reflector in the centre, motion of the mirror would result in twice the motion of the aim point. To address this, the gyro was attached through levers with a 2-to-1 reduction.
The reflector sight mechanism was mounted in front of the gyro, slightly to the left. A metal flap protected the half-mirror from damage when the sight was stowed. The flap was rotated rearward during use, covering the spirit level. The collimator was mounted on a prominent arm that projected above and in front of the sight when in use, and folded forward when stored. Electrical power was provided to light the collimator as well as the drift scale, which indicated the angle to fly to correct for the wind drift.
### Operation
The main design feature of the Mk. XIV was that it gave the bomb aimer more time to work on the problem of bringing the aircraft to the proper location to drop the bombs. As the calculations of this location were being carried out automatically, he could concentrate solely on the sight throughout the bomb run. The sight projected crosshairs into space at infinity so the user could focus their eyes on the target and see sharp lines superimposed on it.
The vertical line on the sight was relatively short, and could not be used directly to measure drift – unlike the long drift wires of the CSBS it replaced. To address this, the collimator handle could be used to manually rotate the sighting assembly forward, allowing the bomb aimer to point the sight further in front of the aircraft's location. This allowed the bomb aimer to select any convenient object on the ground for drift measurements, including the target itself, long before the aircraft reached it. Through periodic movements of the handle, the bomb aimer could ensure the drift line continued to pass through the target. When the handle was returned to the resting position and released, the shaft to the computor automatically re-engaged and started tracking the proper range angle again. The handle was also used to rotate the collimator forward for storage.
Many of the figures used in the calculation of the bomb's trajectory were based on fixed values, and were entered before the mission started. In particular, the terminal velocity was based on the type of bomb being dropped and did not change during the mission. This was used to calculate how steep the path of the bomb would be when dropped from high altitudes; at lower altitudes and airspeeds, the bomb did not reach terminal velocity and followed a more parabolic path. Other measures were entered only as the aircraft approached the target.
### Measuring wind
The only major measurement that could not be made automatically or before the mission was the determination of the wind speed and direction. These change over time, and also due to changes in location, altitude, or wind shear. This demanded an accurate determination of the wind in the general area of the target, and would normally be highly inaccurate if dialled in at the mission start. Taking this measurement while nearing the target was an important procedure on the CSBS; its manual included several methods of determining the wind speed. The manual for the Mk. XIV described only one method of determining the wind speed, equivalent to the most complex of the procedures from the CSBS model.
Prior to the bomb run the pilot was directed to fly the aircraft in several different directions in sequence, preferably about 120 degrees apart. On each leg, the bomb aimer used the reticle to measure the drift angle, either by rotating the wind direction dial on the computor to get the sight head to the right angle, or by unlocking the azimuth control from the computor and turning the sight manually. The drift angle was whatever angle the sight head was pointing when objects on the ground could be seen to be moving along the line on the sight. Once measured, the angle of the aircraft and the angle of the drift (measured either from the dial on the computor or the scale on the sight) were recorded. Using the Mk. III Navigation Computor, the RAF's version of the modern E6B, the three sets of angles were entered on the wind calculator face. This normally resulted in a small triangular area forming where the three lines came close to meeting, and the centre of this triangle revealed the wind speed and direction. This value was then entered into the computor.
### Other details
As the Mk. XIV could calculate the effects of a shallow climb or dive (or glide as it is referred to in bombing), the computor included its own levelling mechanism. This was added to the range angle calculated by the computor to move the sight head. Levelling the system required adjustment of both the computor and the sight head. Since these were in a fixed relationship to each other, levelling could be carried out on the ground and then left alone. Any adjustments required were recorded on a card fixed to the front of the computor.
As the computor held the level line and was sending angle commands to the sight, it eliminated the need for a two-axis gyro in the sighting head itself. The gyro on the sight head only adjusted for rotation of the aircraft around its roll axis.
The bomb sight was also supplied with the Emergency Computor, a simple circular slide rule for use when the main computor stopped working. In this case the bomb aimer would dial in the same basic parameters on the various disks, and read out the proper sighting angle at the bottom. Wind had to be estimated and calculated by hand. The angles were then entered manually into the sight; the drive cables were clutched out, the aiming angle entered using the operating handle, and the drift angle set by a small locking screw.
A separate switchbox was used to control the brightness of the lamps driving the drift scale and reticle.
## Accuracy
In testing on the bomb range, the Mk. XIV demonstrated an average accuracy of 130 yards (120 m) from 10,000 feet (3,000 m) altitude. In service, the average systematic error was 300 yards (270 m), while the random error was 385 yards (352 m). In comparison, units using the much more complex Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight (SABS) improved the systematic error to 120 yards (110 m) under the same operational conditions and altitude.
A series of reports in the summer of 1944 produced by Bomber Command's operational research division attempted to explain these differences, starting with problems in the bombsight itself. Almost all the reasons ultimately offered were purely operational in nature. These included the fact that the target indicator flares used as a reference covered an area of 400 by 500 yards (370 by 460 m), that the bombers were dropping salvos of bombs, not a single test bomb, and that the Master Bomber would change the marking point during the process of the raid, making it very difficult to correlate the bomb craters to the marking.
The difference between bombing results on the test range and in operational conditions was by no means unique to the Mk. XIV. At the same time the US was introducing the Norden, which had consistently demonstrated a circular error probable (CEP) of 75 feet (23 m) in testing, but produced an average CEP of 1,200 feet (370 m) during missions in 1943. As was the case with the Mk. XIV, most of the difference was traced to operational factors like crew training and visibility over the target. Through various changes in operational technique, CEP had improved to 900 feet (270 m) by 1945.
A later report covering the use the Tallboy bomb was able to directly compare the performance of the Mk. XIV and SABS in similar mission profiles. Eliminating bombs that fell far from the target as gross errors, those that fell near the target were twice as close to it when using SABS. Additionally, the number of gross errors with the Mk. XIV was double that of the SABS. The report noted that this additional accuracy did not confer any sort of superiority because the Mk. XIV's tactical freedom in terms of manoeuvring offset any advantage when a long bomb run was not possible. They also noted that a mission using SABS to drop bombs on a target marker would not be any more accurate than the Mk. XIV.
## See also
- Norden Bombsight, a similar vintage USAAF bomb sight
- Stabilized Automatic Bomb Sight, a contemporary bomb sight used for precision bombing by the RAF
- Low Level Bombsight, Mark III. a Coastal Command bombsight that used some of the Mk. XIV's components.
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5,373,140 |
59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division
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Second World War British Army unit
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[
"Infantry divisions of the British Army in World War II",
"Military units and formations disestablished in 1944",
"Military units and formations established in 1939"
] |
The 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was formed during the Second World War and fought in the Battle of Normandy. In March 1939, after Germany re-emerged as a significant military power and invaded Czechoslovakia, the British Army increased the number of divisions in the Territorial Army (TA) by duplicating existing units. The 59th (Staffordshire) Motor Division was formed in September 1939, as a second-line duplicate of the 55th (West Lancashire) Motor Division. The division's battalions were all, initially, raised in Staffordshire.
Established using the motor division concept, the division was formed with only two infantry brigades, rather than the usual three for an infantry division, and was fully mobile. The intention was to increase battlefield mobility, enabling the motor divisions to follow armoured forces through breaches in the enemy frontline to rapidly consolidate captured territory. Following the Battle of France, the concept was abandoned. The division was allocated a third infantry brigade, and became the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division. It remained within the United Kingdom until 1944, assigned to anti-invasion and guard duties, while training for combat overseas.
In late June 1944, the division was assigned to the Second Army and transferred to France to take part in the Battle for Normandy. On 7 July, the division saw action in Operation Charnwood, which resulted in the capture of the German-occupied city of Caen. A week later, the division fought in Operation Pomegranate. The territorial goal of this operation was to capture the town of Noyers, which was not accomplished due to determined German resistance. The fighting played an important role in distracting German forces from the major British offensive, Operation Goodwood, which was launched soon after. By late July, the German frontline was crumbling, and a general offensive was launched. The division advanced and captured a bridgehead over the River Orne, fending off several counter-attacks to maintain its hold; during these actions one member of the division earned the Victoria Cross. The division's final combat was a protracted battle to capture the town of Thury-Harcourt. Historians have praised the effort of the division in these battles, during which it suffered several thousand casualties. By August 1944, the British Army was badly short of manpower in many of its units. As the division was the most recently established formation serving within the Second Army in France, and not as a result of its performance, it was chosen to be disbanded and its men transferred to other units to bring them up to strength. The division was broken up on 26 August, and officially disbanded on 19 October 1944.
## Background
During the 1930s, tensions increased between Germany and the United Kingdom and its allies. In late 1937 and throughout 1938, German demands for the annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia led to an international crisis. To avoid war, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in September and brokered the Munich Agreement. The agreement averted a war and allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland. Although Chamberlain had intended the agreement to lead to further peaceful resolution of issues, relations between both countries soon deteriorated. On 15 March 1939, Germany breached the terms of the agreement by invading and occupying the remnants of the Czech state.
On 29 March, British Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha announced plans to increase the part-time Territorial Army (TA) from 130,000 to 340,000 men and double the number of TA divisions. The plan was for existing TA divisions, referred to as the first-line, to recruit over their establishments (aided by an increase in pay for Territorials, the removal of restrictions on promotion which had hindered recruiting, construction of better-quality barracks and an increase in supper rations) and then form a new division, known as the second-line, from cadres around which the divisions could be expanded. This process was dubbed "duplicating". The 59th Division was to be a second-line unit, a duplicate of the first-line 55th (West Lancashire) Motor Division. In April, limited conscription was introduced. This resulted in 34,500 twenty-year-old militiamen being conscripted into the regular army, initially to be trained for six months before deployment to the forming second-line units. It was envisioned that the duplicating process and recruiting the required numbers of men would take no more than six months. Some TA divisions had made little progress by the time the Second World War began; others were able to complete this work within a matter of weeks.
## Formation and home defence
On 15 September, the 59th (Staffordshire) Motor Division became active. The division took control of the 176th and the 177th Brigades, as well as divisional support units, which had previously been administered by the 55th (West Lancashire) Motor Division. The 176th Brigade initially consisted of the 7th Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment (7SSR), and the 6th and 7th Battalions, North Staffordshire Regiment (6NSR and 7NSR). When transferred to the division, the 177th Infantry Brigade was made up of the 1/6th, 2/6th, and 5th Battalions, South Staffordshire Regiment (1/6SSR, 2/6SSR, 5SSR). The division was assigned to Western Command, Major-General John Blakiston-Houston becoming the division's first General Officer Commanding (GOC). Blakiston-Houston, who had retired in 1938, was the former Commandant of the School of Equitation and the Inspector of Cavalry. To denote the association of the division with the Staffordshire area, where most of the division's battalions were raised, its insignia referred to the Staffordshire coalfields: a black triangle denoting a slag heap, with a pit winding gear tower in red.
The division was formed as a motor division, one of five such divisions in the British Army. British military doctrine development during the inter-war period resulted in three types of division by the end of the 1930s: the infantry division; the mobile division (later called the armoured division); and the motor division. David French, a historian, wrote "The main role of the infantry ... was to break into the enemy's defensive position." This would then be exploited by the mobile division, followed by the motor divisions that would "carry out the rapid consolidation of the ground captured by the mobile divisions" therefore "transform[ing] the 'break-in' into a 'break-through'." Per French, the motor division "matched that of the German army's motorized and light divisions. But there the similarities ended." German motorised divisions contained three brigades and were as fully equipped as a regular infantry division, while their smaller light divisions contained a tank battalion. The British motor division, while being fully motorised and capable of transporting all their infantry, was "otherwise much weaker than normal infantry divisions" or their German counterparts as it was made up of only two brigades, had two artillery regiments as opposed to an infantry division's three, and contained no tanks.
The TA's war deployment plan envisioned the divisions being deployed, as equipment became available, to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) already dispatched to Europe. The TA would join regular army divisions in waves as its divisions completed their training, the final divisions deploying a year after the war began. The 59th Division spent the early months of the war training new recruits including conscripts; a task made difficult by the need for the division to provide guards for important locations, and a severe shortage of equipment and trained officers and non-commissioned officers. On 1 December 1939, Major-General Thomas Ralph Eastwood, previously the commandant of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, took command of the division and held this position until May 1940. During this period, the 1/6SSR was the only element of the division to go abroad. It was dispatched to France, while officially remaining part of the division's 177th Brigade, as part of the attempt to address manpower shortages among the BEF's rear-echelon units, and its personnel were utilised in a pioneer capacity digging anti-tank ditches and constructing breastworks. The battalion was caught up in the latter stages of the Battle of France and the withdrawal to Dunkirk harbour; on 2 June, the battalion was evacuated via the harbour's mole. The rest of the division was not deployed, and as a result of the evacuation was not deployed to France per the original deployment timeline.
In May, Eastwood was selected by Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke for a staff role within the Second BEF and was replaced by Major-General Frederick Witts, who arrived from a General Staff position. As soon as the Battle of France ended, the British Army began implementing lessons learnt from the campaign. This included a decision that the standard division would be based around three brigades, and the abandonment of the motor division concept. This process involved the break up of four second-line territorial divisions to reinforce depleted formations and aid in transforming the Army's five motor divisions, each made up of two brigades, into infantry divisions made up of three brigades. As part of this process, on 23 June, the 66th Infantry Division was disbanded. This freed up the 197th Infantry Brigade and an artillery regiment to be transferred to the 59th (Staffordshire) Motor Division, which became the 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division.
During June, the division moved to defend the Humber estuary and was deployed in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, assigned to Northern Command, before joining the newly formed X Corps on 24 June. The division alternated between anti-invasion and beach defence duties against a potential German invasion, and training for offensive operations. Priority for new equipment was given to a handful of formations in Southern England that would launch the riposte to any German landing. The 59th Division, at the end of May 1940, was short of equipment and had to requisition civilian transport. On paper, an infantry division was to have seventy-two 25-pounder field guns, but the 59th was only equipped with four First World War-vintage 18-pounder field guns and seven 4.5 in (110 mm) howitzers of similar vintage. Furthermore, the division had no anti-tank guns against a nominal establishment of 48. As the year progressed, the British Army raised 140 infantry battalions. In October, these battalions were formed into independent infantry brigades for static beach defence. Several brigades were assigned to Northern Command, which allowed the 59th Division to be relieved of its defensive role and begin brigade and division exercises.
On 15 February 1941, Witts was replaced by newly promoted Major-General James Steele (who had commanded the 132nd Brigade during the Battle of France). On 20 June, Brooke, now Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, inspected the division and left highly satisfied, believing the men possessed an "eagerness in the eyes". Brooke recorded in his diary, "Spent day inspecting 59th Div, which has made great progress during the last year". Intensive training began and new equipment started to arrive; in September the division joined IX Corps as a mobile reserve, behind the Durham and North Riding County Division, the corps' static beach defence formation.
In November, the division was deployed to Northern Ireland where it came under the command of III Corps in Western Command. On 8 April, Steele was promoted and left the division; he was replaced by Major-General William Bradshaw (who had held a series of brigade appointments within the United Kingdom). In June, the division was assigned to British Forces Northern Ireland. For the majority of 1942, the division conducted extensive field exercises. In June 1942, the division was visited by King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth. Later in the month, it took part in the first major joint Anglo-American exercise, a ten-day event codenamed Atlantic, in which the United States V Corps (US 1st Armored Division, 59th (Staffordshire), and British 72nd Infantry Brigade) engaged British Forces Northern Ireland (US 34th, and British 61st Divisions).
On 22 March 1943, the division returned to England. It was placed under the command of XII Corps, and based in Kent. The intensity of divisional training increased for amphibious landings and combined operations. As the division had had little in the way of tank-infantry co-operation training or experience, the 34th Tank Brigade was attached in September. In November, the division took part in exercise "Canute II". In December, General Bernard Montgomery arrived in the United Kingdom and took over the 21st Army Group. Montgomery met with division commanders and replaced inexperienced commanders with ones who had served under him in North Africa and Italy. Bradshaw and two of his brigade commanders were removed. Bradshaw was replaced by the highly experienced Major-General Lewis Lyne, who had commanded infantry brigades in Africa and Italy. Lyne concluded that the divisional training lacked realism, and arranged further training exercises to prepare the division for combat. In April 1944, the division received several Canadian officers as part of the CANLOAN scheme (a project that saw the Canadian Army loan 673 officers, mostly lieutenants, to the British Army). The men of the division continued training until they were ordered to Normandy.
## Overseas service
### Operation Charnwood
On 6 June 1944, the Allies launched Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-occupied Western Europe, with landings at several points along the Normandy coastline in France. The primary objective of the 21st Army Group was the capture of the city of Caen. The initial assault, carried out by the 3rd Infantry Division, was unable to capture the city resulting in the prolonged Battle of Caen. Subsequent operations, including Operations Perch and Epsom, also failed in their attempts to capture the city. In late June, Montgomery ordered XII Corps, part of the British Second Army and of the 21st Army Group, to be shipped to France due to the need for fresh infantry formations. The 59th Division, which was still part of XII Corps, started transferring to Normandy on 21 June and completed the move on the 27th. Elements of the division landed at Le Hamel, on Gold Beach. The 59th was the final British infantry division to arrive in Normandy. The next large-scale attack in the attempt to seize Caen was Operation Charnwood. While previous attacks had utilised flanking manoeuvres, Charnwood was intended as a frontal assault on the city. The attack would be undertaken by I Corps, and on 4 July the 59th Division was assigned to the corps to take part in the impending operation.
During the evening of 7 July, around 2,500 long tons (2,500 metric tons) of bombs were dropped on northern Caen. The first divisional casualties were also suffered, due to German shelling. The 59th Division, supported by the 27th Armoured Brigade, with the British 3rd Division on the left and the 3rd Canadian Division on the right, launched their attack the following morning. Charnwood began at 04:20, with the 176th and 177th Brigades leading the division's effort. On the western flank, 2/6SSR spearheaded the 177th Brigade's attack on Galmanche and the surrounding wood; on the eastern flank, 6NSR led the 177th Brigade's move to capture La Bijude. The division was initially opposed by elements of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend'''s 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 25th SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment, which put up a determined resistance inside the villages and from a trench system located between the two.
At 07:30, following the capture of the first objectives, including La Bijude, the next stage of the offensive began. Fresh troops moved forward. The 176th Brigade's 7th Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment advanced on Épron; the 197th Brigade's 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers moved towards Mâlon; and the 1/7th Royal Warwickshire Regiment pushed towards St-Contest. The area had not been thoroughly cleared, and surviving Hitlerjugend troops reoccupied La Bijude, Galmanche, and the nearby trench system. Panzer IV tanks, which were based in Buron, moved forward to reinforce the frontline German infantry. The ensuing day-long battle saw mixed results, and the use of flamethrowers. Heavy casualties were suffered in the attempt to capture Épron. The approach to the village was covered by thick hedges, steep banks, and cornfields. These factors, along with Épron's location on a reverse slope from the direction of the British advance, provided excellent terrain advantage to the German defenders. As the Norfolks emerged from the cornfields, they were engaged by heavy German defensive fire. Pinned down, the men were subjected to artillery and mortar fire, which took a heavy toll. The German reoccupation of La Bijude further impeded attempts to capture Épron, as both positions were able to engage the attacking British troops. The 59th Division consolidated its hold on La Bijude and captured St-Contest; Épron fell following a German withdrawal; and Hitlerjugend retained its hold on Galmanche and Mâlon.
On 9 July, the 59th Division was ordered to consolidate the area it had captured and search for German holdouts, before advancing to capture the next line of German positions in the villages and farms of Bitot, Couvrechef, and La Folie. At midday, the 33rd Armoured Brigade, attached to the 3rd Infantry Division, moved across the division's line of advance and captured Couvrechef. The 3rd Infantry's advance threatened to cut off the Germans still resisting the 59th's push south. The delay in capturing Bitot also impacted moves by the Canadians, who came under fire from the German positions there. The 3rd British and 3rd Canadian Divisions entered Caen during the day. The following morning, the 59th Division moved through the villages north of the city, mopping up remaining German units, before entering the city. During the operation, the division suffered 1,200 casualties including 239 men killed. The historian John Buckley wrote "for the inexperienced troops of 59th Division for whom Charnwood was their baptism of fire, the grim and appalling realities of combat were a chastening experience."
### Battle of Noyers
With Operation Charnwood over, the division was transferred to XII Corps and withdrawn into reserve. It was allowed to rest, refit, and absorb replacements; these included men who had been left out of battle – a practice intended to preserve a cadre of experienced troops and leaders, who would be able to absorb new troops and rebuild in the event of catastrophic losses. Detailed planning for the next attack, Operation Goodwood, soon began. As part of this effort, the Second Army intended to launch several diversionary attacks by XII and XXX Corps to divert German attention from the location of the main Goodwood thrust. On 13 July, the division was allocated to XXX Corps, and the next day moved into the area incorporating Loucelles, Cristot, and Fontenay-le-Pesnel in preparation for the upcoming fight. Following the move, the division was subjected to German harassing artillery fire and suffered losses. The XXX Corps attack, code-named Operation Pomegranate, would form part of the larger Second Battle of the Odon. The division's objectives were the capture of Landelle, Noyers, Missy and the nearby orchard, and the destruction of German forces within these areas. Noyers, the main objective, is north of the Odon river valley, astride the main road from Caen to Villers-Bocage. British corps commander Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor believed that Noyers, which could not be dominated from the high ground south of the river, was key to controlling the river valley, and subsequent operations to cross the river. The area was held by the German 276th and 277th Infantry Divisions. To assist the 59th Division, it was assigned elements of the 33rd Armoured Brigade and 79th Armoured Division; the latter was a formation that provided specialist armoured vehicles as needed.
The first phase of the attack was assigned to three battalions, from the 197th and 177th Brigades, and intended to clear several villages and farms on the approach to Noyers. On 16 July, at 05:30, the attack started. The 5th East Lancashire Regiment, on the right, met stiff German resistance which delayed their advance. By 08:00, they had reached their first objective and captured part of Vendes. Subsequent German counter-attacks, supported by tanks, overran some of the East Lancashire troops and pushed them back to their start line. Two South Staffordshire battalions, on the left flank, fared better. The 1/6SSR rapidly captured Brettevillette and Queudeville, but suffered heavy losses in the process. Further losses were suffered as a result of anti-personnel mines, and most of the battalion's supporting tanks were lost on anti-tank mines. The 5SSR captured the orchards near Grainville-sur-Odon, and then advanced to capture Les Nouillons. With most of the first-phase objectives captured, flail tanks were brought up to breach German minefields. Due to the mixed results of the initial fighting, the second phase of the attack, to secure the line Landelle-Noyers-Missy, was delayed. At 17:30, the 2/6SSR launched an attack directly against Noyers. After initial progress, against determined German resistance, they entered the village but were forced back. At 18:15, the 6NSR launched an attack towards Haut des Forges, and captured the area. After dark, the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers of the 197th Brigade made a second attempt to seize the uncaptured first-phase objectives. Heavy German mortar fire put a stop to this effort.
On 17 July, the 176th Brigade launched an attack towards Bordel, and captured the area the following day. The 197th Brigade made a further attempt to capture its first-phase objectives, which it finally achieved and then advanced to capture Ferme de Guiberon. Meanwhile, repeated attempts were made to take Noyers. The 1/6SSR, 2/6SSR, and 5SSR made several attempts throughout the 17th, but their attacks were defeated by the German 277th Division holding the village, which had been reinforced by the 9th-SS Panzer Division's reconnaissance battalion. The following day, the 177th Brigade launched two major attacks on Noyers that were also repulsed. Preparations were made for the 197th Brigade to assault Noyers on the 19th, but Operation Pomegranate was closed down following the launch of Goodwood. Peter Knight, author of the 59th Divisional history, wrote "The aim of Pomegranate had been to attract enemy attention ... away from the Caen Sector. In this we had succeeded, and Noyers itself had little tactical significance for us." Simon Trew, a historian, supports this position, indicating that the attacks made by XII and XXX Corps forced the Germans to keep the 2nd Panzer, 9th-SS Panzer, and 10th-SS Panzer divisions committed to the wrong sector of the battlefield and away from where Goodwood was launched. Ian Daglish, a historian, wrote "the results [of the fighting] were inconclusive", but they had the result of "keeping the defenders busy (and drawing in important parts of the elite 9. SS-Panzerdivision, Hohenstaufen)." The fighting cost the division 1,250 men killed, wounded or missing. In exchange, 575 prisoners were taken.
Following the battle, the division took over part of the front held by 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division. This resulted in all three of its brigades being committed to the frontline, to hold the entire sector. The following ten days involved manning the frontline, conducting patrols into German-held territory, engaging in small-scale skirmishing with the Germans, and mutual mortar bombardments.
### Battle of the Orne
On 24 July, the division returned to XII Corps. The following day, the American First Army launched a major offensive, codenamed Operation Cobra, on the western flank of the Normandy beachhead. On 27 July, Montgomery ordered the Second Army to launch a major assault west of Noyers, codenamed Operation Bluecoat, and maintain the pressure on the German forces along the rest of the front east of Noyers. As part of the latter, XII Corps was to push towards the Orne River. The task assigned to the 59th Division was to clear the area around Villers-Bocage, and then exploit towards Thury-Harcourt on the Orne and attempt to establish a bridgehead.
On 29 July, as a preliminary to any major move and to improve the division's position, the 197th Brigade launched an attack on Juvigny. In a three-day battle for the village, the brigade suffered 402 casualties. On 3 August, following German withdrawals along XII Corps' front, the division advanced, supported by elements of the 34th Tank Brigade. The 197th led the attack, encountering German forces north of Villers-Bocage; however, the Germans soon withdrew and the town was captured without any fighting. On 4 August, the 176th Brigade took over the lead and engaged German forces near the Orne, losing several of their supporting tanks in the process. Churchill AVRE tanks were moved up to engage and destroy German strongpoints. The northern riverbank was secured by nightfall. Patrols and reconnaissance missions were launched across the river, but a major effort was not conducted until the evening of 6 August. Near Ouffières, elements of the 176th Brigade waded across the river, initially achieving surprise by using decoy smokescreens. A Bailey bridge was erected, allowing the remainder of the brigade to cross as well as two squadrons of Churchill tanks from the 107th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps, part of the 34th Tank Brigade. Resistance to the crossing soon intensified, and the German 271st Infantry Division launched several counter-attacks that failed to dislodge the 59th, although it did result in some British positions being overrun. The division captured Grimbosq, and further German counter-attacks were launched over the next two days, which included elements of the Hitlerjugend''. During these engagements, several German tanks were knocked out by the division's anti-tank guns, and several of the supporting Churchill tanks were lost.
The 36-hour battle the division fought once across the Orne resulted in the Victoria Cross (VC) being awarded to Captain David Jamieson of the 7th Royal Norfolk Regiment. Despite having been severely wounded and evacuated from the battlefield, Jamieson returned to the frontline to direct and inspire his men, reporting targets and ordering artillery strikes. His VC citation stated: "He personally was largely responsible for the holding of this important bridgehead over the River Orne and for the repulse of seven German counter-attacks with great loss to the enemy." The Norfolks, who bore the brunt of the fighting, lost 226 men. German losses were reported to be heavy, and at least 200 prisoners were taken by the brigade.
Lyne praised the brigade "... for the magnificent fight which they successfully waged in the Orne bridgehead", and commented that the front "is literally strewn with bodies of men of the 12th S.S. Division, killed during their repeated counter-attacks, which you so ably repulsed." Buckley described the division as having "battled hard in generally non-glamorous roles", and in this particular battle "displayed grit, determination and intelligence in securing and holding a crossing over the River Orne". More critically, as part of an examination of the Second Army's morale by the end of July, David French stated at least seven men of the 2/6SSR were found guilty of mutiny for refusing to follow orders, and at least eight members of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers were found with self-inflicted wounds.
### Final fighting and disbandment
By mid-1944, the British Army was facing a manpower crisis as it did not have enough men to replace the losses suffered by frontline infantry units. While efforts were made to address this, such as transferring men from the Royal Artillery and the Royal Air Force to be retrained as infantry, the War Office began disbanding formations and transferring their men to other units to keep these as close to full strength as possible. This policy impacted the division shortly after the fighting along the Orne. Due to heavy losses within the division, as well as the 21st Army Group as a whole, along with a lack of infantry replacements, a reorganization was undertaken. An infantry battalion from each of the 177th and the 197th Brigades was disbanded, and these were replaced by battalions from the 176th Brigade. The remaining battalion of the 176th was also broken up, rendering the brigade non-existent, although it was not officially disbanded. The troops from the disbanded units were used to reinforce other formations to bring them up to strength. The 56th Independent Infantry Brigade, a formation under the direct command of the 21st Army Group, was temporarily assigned to the division on 5 August to bring the division back up to three brigades. The brigade consisted of the 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, the 2nd Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment (2nd Glosters), and the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Essex Regiment (2nd Essex).
The German 271st Infantry Division maintained its position around the 59th Division's bridgehead, and was able to make use of the rugged terrain north of Thury-Harcourt in its defensive effort. On 8 August, the 177th Brigade opened up the new phase of fighting. The brigade suffered casualties in an unsuccessful attempt to push south along the west bank of the Orne. Meanwhile, the 56th Brigade crossed the Orne near Brieux, 3 miles (5 km) north of Thury-Harcourt. The next day, the 197th Brigade renewed the effort to expand the bridgehead by attacking south-east; Knight described this as "literally uphill fighting". The brigade was able to push through the German positions and secure the area around La Moissonière and Le Mesnil, a few miles north of Thury-Harcourt. Meanwhile, the 56th Brigade attacked south; taking the village of La Forge a Cambro, south of the 197th Brigade's positions, on the last ridge before Thury-Harcourt and captured upwards of 200 prisoners. Patrols from the brigade entered Thury-Harcourt by midnight and found it to be still held by the Germans.
Efforts on 11 August by the 56th Brigade to take the town were thwarted, as were efforts by the 177th Brigade to force the Orne. While the 56th Brigade advanced south, securing the area around the village of Esson, south of Thury-Harcourt, the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division crossed the Orne further south. Between the lead elements of that division and the 56th Brigade, Thury-Harcourt was almost completely surrounded. The historian Andrew Holborn described some of the fighting during this period: "... vicious actions fought within [the confines of wooded areas]. At one stage German forces armed with a preponderance of automatic weapons overran a platoon of 2nd Essex, and the situation could only be restored by the use of heavy artillery." In another instance "there was hand-to-hand fighting", with friendly fire from artillery and mortars "bursting in the trees". Despite their precarious position, German resistance did not dissipate. German artillery bombarded British positions, while German infantry conducted counterattacks and attempted to retake lost villages.
By 12 August, Thury-Harcourt was believed to have been evacuated. The final attack was launched by the 2nd Glosters who had to navigate steeply descending terrain into the town. On the outskirts they were heavily engaged by German artillery and gunfire. German counter-attacks were also launched on other elements of the 56th Brigade during this period. The 2nd Glosters fought their way into the town, and engaged in house to house fighting to clear the strongly defended German positions that included at least one tank. By the end of the day, the battalion withdrew from the town that was now widely burning. The German defenders withdrew under the cover of darkness, and the battalion re-entered the town on 14 August to sweep for German holdouts and clear booby traps. The historian Terry Copp argued that the fighting the division took part in, a "five-day period of intense combat", has not been given "the attention it deserves". Copp, arguing against the Canadian official historian Charles Perry Stacey's criticism of Canadian forces being too slow during Operation Totalize, wrote
> Stacey has little to say about the slow progress of British forces ... or the inability of the 59th British Division to advance out of its bridgehead ... Perhaps it is time to recognize that there was no easy solution to the problems posed by an enemy that continued to wage a determined defensive battle even as its combat forces withered away.
Following a short break, during which the division undertook patrols, the 59th joined the fighting around what would become known as the Falaise Pocket. On 16 August, the 197th Brigade reached Ouilly. Two days later, the 177th Brigade took Les Isles-Bardel following a brief engagement that ended as the Germans withdrew as part of their general retreat, before they could inflict a serious delay. On the 19th, the 56th Brigade was withdrawn from the division. Further efforts by the 177th Brigade to advance were impeded by German resistance over the course of the next two days. Once overcome, a more rapid advance was made.
By August 1944, the manpower crisis had come to a head. In the United Kingdom, the vast majority of available replacements had already been dispatched to reinforce the 21st Army Group. By 7 August, a mere 2,654 fully trained and combat-ready men remained in the UK awaiting deployment. In an effort to maintain the frontline infantry strength across the 21st Army Group, Montgomery made the decision to cannibalise the 59th Division. He sent a telegram to Alan Brooke, which read: "Regret time has come when I must break up one Inf Div. My Inf Divs are so low in effective rifle strength that they can no (repeat no) longer fight effectively in major operations. Request permission to break up at once 59 Div."
The historian Carlo D'Este wrote that the division "had been selected because it was the junior division in the 21st Army Group and not as a result of its performance in battle." Once the decision was made, senior commanders within the 21st Army Group sent letters of appreciation to the division, and Montgomery personally visited the division's senior officers. The historian Stephen Hart wrote that towards "the end of the Normandy campaign, significant morale problems had emerged in as many as seven of the 21st Army Group's total of sixteen divisions" and that the remainder, which included the 59th, were rated by the 21st Army Group senior commanders "as completely reliable for offensive operations." On 26 August, the men of the division were dispersed among the other formations across the 21st Army Group. The 197th Brigade was not disbanded, instead, it was transformed into a battlefield clearance unit. In this new role of organising the clearance of all leftover equipment from battlefields, the brigade was assigned men from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and the Royal Pioneer Corps in lieu of the infantry it had lost. The division was not formally disbanded until 19 October 1944. Lyne was subsequently given command of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division in October, and one month later the 7th Armoured Division. The 59th Division was not re-raised post-war, when the TA was reformed in 1947.
## General officers commanding
The division had the following commanders:
## Order of battle
## See also
- British Army during the Second World War
- British Army Order of Battle (September 1939)
- British logistics in the Normandy Campaign
- List of British divisions in World War II
|
67,247,189 |
Deja Vu (Olivia Rodrigo song)
| 1,171,951,273 |
2021 single by Olivia Rodrigo
|
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"Songs written by Dan Nigro",
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"Songs written by Olivia Rodrigo",
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] |
"Deja Vu" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. It was released on April 1, 2021, through Geffen and Interscope Records, as the second single from her debut studio album, Sour (2021). Rodrigo wrote the song with its producer Dan Nigro, with Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent receiving writing credits for its interpolation of Swift's 2019 song "Cruel Summer". An incorporation of various pop sub-genres, "Deja Vu" is about heartbreak and explores Rodrigo's anguish about her ex-partner repeating things they did in his new relationship.
"Deja Vu" received acclaim from music critics, many of whom considered it a strong follow-up to "Drivers License" (2021) and praised its lyrics. In the United States, the song debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and made Rodrigo the first artist to debut their first two singles in the chart's top 10. It eventually peaked at number three. "Deja Vu" reached the top 10 in Ireland, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the Czech Republic.
Allie Avital directed the music video for "Deja Vu", filmed in Malibu, California, which depicts Rodrigo observing her ex-boyfriend mimic their relationship with his new love interest, played by Talia Ryder. Rodrigo performed the song on shows such as MTV Push and Billboard Women in Music, and included it on the set lists for her 2022 Sour concert tour and the Glastonbury Festival.
## Background
Olivia Rodrigo began meeting with record labels in early 2020, and subsequently signed with Geffen Records and Interscope Records, intending to release her debut extended play in 2021. American songwriter and producer Dan Nigro encountered a video of her performing her then-unreleased song "Happier" and was impressed by her vocals, stating, "her voice is insane". He contacted Rodrigo suggesting they make music together. Their plans were initially delayed due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the two began working on music at Nigro's home studio a few months later. Rodrigo and Nigro co-wrote the song "Drivers License" in July 2020, which she released as her debut single in January 2021, to unprecedented commercial success. Billboard declared it one of the "most dominant" hits in Hot 100 history.
Rodrigo and Nigro wrote "Deja Vu" within one day in August 2020, a month after "Drivers License" was written. The song was inspired by a lyric idea she had stored in the notes application on her phone: "When she was with you do you get deja vu?". Rodrigo elaborated on its concept: "I get déjà vu all the time. So I thought it would be a cool play on words to use déjà vu as a metaphor for this very universal thing that happens when you break up with someone and they get with somebody else, and see them living the life that you lived". The recording of "Deja Vu" went on over several months as she rerecorded her vocals and brainstormed new melodies. The song's bridge was influenced by Taylor Swift's 2019 song "Cruel Summer". Rodrigo and Nigro considered introducing electronic dance music-influenced vocal chops into its post-chorus, but opted for a synthesizer riff instead as Rodrigo thought the former were "too poppy".
Rodrigo began hinting the release of a new song by deleting posts from her Instagram account and sharing cryptic teasers of it in late March 2021. On March 29, she revealed its title, "Deja Vu", artwork, and release date. Rodrigo chose "Deja Vu" as her second single as she considered it a "natural progression" from "Drivers License", displaying her versatility as an artist: "I can make heartbreak songs but I can also make cool alternative pop songs. I didn't want to be pigeonholed into the 'heartbreak ballad girl' thing." She posted three clips preceding the announcement, featuring a melting ice cream cone, drifting clouds, and a car being driven along the ocean. In an interview with MTV News, Rodrigo stated that the song was "definitely not like 'Drivers License' at all", and was excited and nervous about her audience viewing a different aspect of her artistry on it. Geffen Records released it for digital download and streaming on April 1, 2021, as the second single from her debut studio album Sour (2021). Interscope Records sent "Deja Vu" to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States five days later, and for radio airplay in Italy on April 23. In July 2021, Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent, the writers of "Cruel Summer", received writing credits on "Deja Vu" for its interpolation of the former. This followed Swift and Antonoff previously being credited on Sour's fourth track "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back" for interpolating their 2017 song "New Year's Day", and preceded the members of Paramore receiving credits on "Good 4 U" (2021).
## Composition
"Deja Vu" is 3 minutes and 35 seconds long. Nigro produced and recorded the song at Amusement Studios in Los Angeles. He handled drum programming, and plays the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, Wurlitzer, bass, Juno 60, and percussion, Jam City plays the organ and guitar, and Ryan Linvill plays the flute and saxophone. Sterling Laws recorded the drum at Heavy Duty Studios in Burbank, and Chris Kaych and Jasmine Chen handled drum engineering. Mitch McCarthy mixed it at SOTA Studios in Los Angeles and Randy Merrill mastered it at Sterling Sound in New York City.
"Deja Vu" is a midtempo psychedelic pop, pop rock, art pop, and indie pop song, with influences of alternative music. The song is set over a piano instrumental, complemented by distorted guitars and heavy drums after the pre-chorus. It also includes buoyant synths. "Deja Vu" has a sensitive beat that crests into an expansive bridge according to Entertainment Weekly's Marcus Jones. Rodrigo delivers harmonious vocals over the song's chimes and faded electronics; The Observer's Michael Cragg thought its whispered vocals recalled Lorde. The song's similarity with "Cruel Summer" occurs during the bridge, where she emulates the "angry-chanty thing" from Swift's newer songs according to Variety's Chris Willman. Bobby Olivier of Spin thought that with the "attention [it] paid to quotable and cresting bridges", both songs concluded on a similar note, and The Guardian's Rachel Aroesti described "Deja Vu" as a "Taylor Swiftian" pop song.
"Deja Vu" has lyrics about heartbreak. Throughout the song, Rodrigo addresses a past partner who is currently pursuing a different relationship and recalls how they are repeating things he did with Rodrigo, like driving up the California coast, eating strawberry ice cream, trading jackets, watching reruns of Glee, and listening to Billy Joel's 1983 single "Uptown Girl". She expresses anguish about him recycling jokes she told. Over its hook, Rodrigo sarcastically wonders if he ever accidentally addresses his new girlfriend by her name. By the conclusion of "Deja Vu", she begins contemplating that the experiences she shared with him, perhaps, were not original to begin with: "I hate to think that I was just your type." Entertainment Weekly's Maura Johnston described the song as "a gauzy fantasia with a time-blackened heart" and a "venom-filled diatribe toward an ex who's moved on". Writing for The New York Times, Jon Caramanica identified its lyrics as "plain and pinpoint pained", and the "power struggle over who taught who about cool music" as an element reminiscent of Swift as well.
## Critical reception
"Deja Vu" received acclaim from music critics, many of whom perceived it as a strong follow-up to "Drivers License". Stereogum's Tom Breihan commended the song's stylistic change of pace from Rodrigo's debut single, describing it as a "giddy, stomping pop banger with a euphoric-singalong chorus", although he also noted their similar subject matter. Tatiana Tenreyro of The A.V. Club lauded it as an improvement, stating that it was a remarkable and sparkling track that "feels like a marriage between Taylor Swift and Radiohead". Writing for NME, Rhian Daly called "Deja Vu" an illustrious follow-up, and Rolling Stone's Angie Martoccio and Chicago Tribune thought it dispelled any notion that she was going to be a one-hit wonder.
Quinn Moreland of Pitchfork stated that with "Deja Vu", Rodrigo proved to be "pop music's next heavyweight", complimenting its gratifyingly enmeshing production, and deemed it an audacious and poignant catharsis. Cragg described the song as an outstanding and lyrically sharp "kiss-off", and writing for Exclaim!, Heather Taylor-Singh opined that it is mesmerizing and "displays the nuances of young love". Pitchfork's Olivia Horn wrote that she uses her emotional turbulence like jet fuel on it and praised its specific lyrics. Caramanica thought Rodrigo captured the torment of collapse, and the apprehension of watching your old partner reassemble. Craig Jenkins of New York thought "Deja Vu" worthy of immediately being placed in a "hall of fame". Writing for DIY, Jenessa Williams called "Deja Vu" the "perfect bedfellow to Conan Gray's 'Heather'", and described it as a "'don't know what you're missing' fantasy that thrives under [thick] drums and [hurtingly] relatable snark". AllMusic's Heather Phares viewed "shades of Alanis Morissette's jagged, jilted younger woman in [the song's] hyper-literate litany of tarnished memories".
Some publications included "Deja Vu" in their list of the 100 best songs of 2021. Rob Sheffield placed the song at number two, and deemed it the finest and most underrated among Rodrigo's successful releases that year, establishing her as the "pop savant of the moment". He was highly enthusiastic about its "Uptown Girl" reference: "It's a perfect ride on the pop time machine". Pitchfork included "Deja Vu" at number 10, and Jenn Pelly stated that despite the chart success of "Drivers License", "Deja Vu" heralded Rodrigo's emergence as an artist. She noted her earnest umbrage over her ex and his partner's trivial activities, and declared that "in the drama of [the song,] Olivia is directing". NPR listed it at number 20, and Lyndsey McKenna stated that despite the interpolation, "the track is all Rodrigo: a sharp send-off of an earworm, somehow delivered with both irreverent playfulness and brute force".
## Commercial performance
"Deja Vu" debuted at number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100 issued for April 17, 2021, making Rodrigo the first artist to debut their first two singles in the chart's top 10. Upon Sour's release, the song peaked at number three on the chart issued for June 5, 2021, and received a 4× Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. On the Canadian Hot 100, it charted at number four, and Music Canada certified it 3× Platinum. "Deja Vu" reached number four in the United Kingdom, and earned a Platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry.
In Australia, "Deja Vu" peaked at number three, and the Australian Recording Industry Association certified it 4× Platinum. The song appeared at number 33 on the Triple J Hottest 100, 2021, alongside four other songs from Sour. It charted at number three in New Zealand, and received a Platinum certification from Recorded Music NZ. "Deja Vu" reached the top 20 of national record charts, at number two in Ireland; number three in Malaysia and Singapore; number four in Latvia; number five in Portugal; number 10 in the Czech Republic; number 11 in South Africa; number 15 in India; number 17 in Lebanon, Lithuania, and Norway; and number 19 in Greece, Hungary, and Slovakia. The song earned a Platinum certification in Norway, Portugal, and Poland; and Gold in Denmark, Italy, and Sweden.
## Music video
Allie Avital directed the music video for "Deja Vu", which was released on April 1, 2021. Talia Ryder makes a cameo in it.
In the video, Rodrigo drives up the Pacific Coast Highway in a headscarf reminiscent of those worn by actresses in Alfred Hitchcock's movies. She reaches home and tries on the same green gown as Ryder, and faces the latter's reflection in the mirror. Rodrigo realizes the similarities between her ex-partner's former relationship with her and his present one with Ryder. She initially tries to be happy for her and smiles, but eventually gets angry and breaks television sets with a sledgehammer. According to People's Darlene Aderoju, it depicts "the emotional journey that a heartbroken lover experiences when their ex officially moves on with someone else".
## Live performances
Rodrigo's performance of "Deja Vu" for MTV Push was published online on May 1, 2021. She reprised the song during her Tiny Desk Concert in a department of motor vehicles in December 2021. Rodrigo sang it in a pink dress for Billboard Women in Music on March 2, 2022. She was accompanied by a four-piece, all-female band in all-white outfits during the pre-filmed performance. Billboard's Andrew Unterberger remarked that Rodrigo displayed typically vulnerable intimacy and bluntness and offered an alternately pleasant and grimy rendition. She included "Deja Vu" in the set list for her 2022 Sour concert tour. Rodrigo performed the song at the Glastonbury Festival 2022. She introduced it by saying "I just wanted to ask you guys a question, does anyone here ever get deja vu?", which The Guardian's Laura Snapes thought highlighted the cacophony between her more impromptu and planned moments during the show. Rodrigo reprised "Deja Vu" as a duet, with Billy Joel on piano, during one of the latter's Billy Joel in Concert shows, followed by "Uptown Girl".
## Usage in media
- The song was featured in the second episode of the second season of Amazon Prime Video's series, The Summer I Turned Pretty (2023).
## Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Sour and Tidal.
Studio locations
- Recorded at Amusement Studios (Los Angeles)
- Drums recorded at Heavy Duty Studios (Burbank)
- Mixed at SOTA Studios (Los Angeles)
- Mastered at Sterling Sound (New York City)
Personnel
- Olivia Rodrigo – vocals, backing vocals, songwriting
- Daniel Nigro – songwriting, production, recording, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, Wurlitzer, bass, drum programming, Juno 60, backing vocals, percussion
- Taylor Swift – songwriting, interpolation
- Jack Antonoff – songwriting, interpolation
- Annie Clark – songwriting, interpolation
- Dan Viafore – assistant engineering
- Jam City – organ, guitar
- Ryan Linvill – flute, saxophone
- Sterling Laws – drum recording
- Chis Kaych – drum engineering
- Jasmine Chen – drum engineering
- Mitch McCarthy – mixing
- Randy Merrill – mastering
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
## Certifications
## Release history
|
16,193 |
Jackie Robinson
| 1,173,481,916 |
American baseball player (1919–1972)
|
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Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. The Dodgers signing Robinson heralded the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
During his 10-year MLB career, Robinson won the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first black player so honored. Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship.
In 1997, Major League Baseball retired his uniform No. 42 across all major league teams; he was the first professional athlete in any sport to be so honored. MLB also adopted a new annual tradition, "Jackie Robinson Day", for the first time on April 15, 2004, on which every player on every team wears No. 42.
Robinson's character, his use of nonviolence, and his talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation that had then marked many other aspects of American life. He influenced the culture of and contributed significantly to the civil rights movement. Robinson also was the first black television analyst in MLB and the first black vice president of a major American corporation, Chock full o'Nuts. In the 1960s, he helped establish the Freedom National Bank, an African-American-owned financial institution based in Harlem, New York. After his death in 1972, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his achievements on and off the field.
## Early life
### Family and personal life
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, into a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia. He was the youngest of five children born to Mallie (née McGriff) and Jerry Robinson, after siblings Edgar, Frank, Matthew (nicknamed "Mack"), and Willa Mae. His middle name honored former President Theodore Roosevelt, who died 25 days before Robinson was born. After Robinson's father left the family in 1920, they moved to Pasadena, California.
The extended Robinson family established itself on a residential plot containing two small houses at 121 Pepper Street in Pasadena. Robinson's mother worked various odd jobs to support the family. Growing up in relative poverty in an otherwise affluent community, Robinson and his minority friends were excluded from many recreational opportunities. As a result, Robinson joined a neighborhood gang, but his friend Carl Anderson persuaded him to abandon it.
### John Muir High School
In 1935, Robinson graduated from Washington Junior High School and enrolled at John Muir Technical High School. Recognizing his athletic talents, Robinson's older brothers, Frank and Mack (himself an accomplished track and field athlete and silver medalist behind Jesse Owens in the 200 meters at the Berlin 1936 Summer Olympics) inspired Jackie to pursue his interest in sports.
At Muir Tech, Robinson played numerous sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track and field, and baseball. He played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team. With the track and field squad, he won awards in the broad jump. He was also a member of the tennis team.
In 1936, Robinson won the junior boys singles championship in the annual Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament and earned a place on the Pomona annual baseball tournament all-star team, which included future Hall of Famers Ted Williams and Bob Lemon. In late January 1937, the Pasadena Star-News newspaper reported that Robinson "for two years has been the outstanding athlete at Muir, starring in football, basketball, track, baseball, and tennis."
### Pasadena Junior College
After Muir, Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College (PJC), where he continued his athletic career by participating in basketball, football, baseball, and track. On the football team, he played quarterback and safety. He was a shortstop and leadoff hitter for the baseball team, and he broke an American junior college broad-jump record held by his brother Mack with a jump of 25 ft. 6+1⁄2 in. on May 7, 1938. As at Muir High School, most of Jackie's teammates were white. While playing football at PJC, Robinson suffered a fractured ankle, complications from which would eventually delay his deployment status while in the military. In 1938, he was elected to the All-Southland Junior College Team for baseball and selected as the region's Most Valuable Player.
That year, Robinson was one of 10 students named to the school's Order of the Mast and Dagger (Omicron Mu Delta), awarded to students performing "outstanding service to the school and whose scholastic and citizenship record is worthy of recognition." Also while at PJC, he was elected to the Lancers, a student-run police organization responsible for patrolling various school activities.
An incident at PJC illustrated Robinson's impatience with authority figures he perceived as racist—a character trait that would resurface repeatedly in his life. On January 25, 1938, he was arrested after vocally disputing the detention of a black friend by police. Robinson received a two-year suspended sentence, but the incident—along with other rumored run-ins between Robinson and police—gave Robinson a reputation for combativeness in the face of racial antagonism. While at PJC, he was motivated by a preacher (the Rev. Karl Downs) to attend church on a regular basis, and Downs became a confidant for Robinson, a Christian. Toward the end of his PJC tenure, Frank Robinson (to whom Robinson felt closest among his three brothers) was killed in a motorcycle accident. The event motivated Jackie to pursue his athletic career at the nearby University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he could remain closer to Frank's family.
### UCLA and afterward
After graduating from PJC in spring 1939, Robinson enrolled at UCLA, where he became the school's first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football, and track.
He was one of four black players on the Bruins' 1939 football team; the others were Woody Strode, Kenny Washington, and Ray Bartlett. Washington, Strode, and Robinson made up three of the team's four backfield players. At a time when only a few black students played mainstream college football, this made UCLA college football's most integrated team. They went undefeated with four ties at 6–0–4. Robinson finished the season with 12.2 yards per attempt on 42 carries, which is the school football record for highest rushing yards per carry in a season as of 2022. Robinson also led the NCAA in punt return average in the 1939 and 1940 seasons.
In track and field, Robinson won the 1940 NCAA championship in the long jump at 24 ft 10+1⁄4 in (7.58 m). Baseball was Robinson's "worst sport" at UCLA; he hit .097 in his only season, although in his first game he went 4-for-4 and twice stole home.
While a senior at UCLA, Robinson met his future wife, Rachel Isum (b.1922), a UCLA freshman who was familiar with Robinson's athletic career at PJC. He played football as a senior, but the 1940 Bruins won only one game. In the spring, Robinson left college just shy of graduation, despite the reservations of his mother and Isum. He took a job as an assistant athletic director with the government's National Youth Administration (NYA) in Atascadero, California.
After the government ceased NYA operations, Robinson traveled to Honolulu in the fall of 1941 to play football for the semi-professional, racially integrated Honolulu Bears. After a short season, Robinson returned to California in December 1941 to pursue a career as running back for the Los Angeles Bulldogs of the Pacific Coast Football League. By that time, however, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place, which drew the United States into World War II and ended Robinson's nascent football career.
## Military career
In 1942, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit at Fort Riley (in Kansas). Having the requisite qualifications, Robinson and several other black soldiers applied for admission to an Officer Candidate School (OCS) then located at Fort Riley. Although the Army's initial July 1941 guidelines for OCS had been drafted as race neutral, few black applicants were admitted into OCS until after subsequent directives by Army leadership. As a result, the applications of Robinson and his colleagues were delayed for several months. After protests by heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (then stationed at Fort Riley) and with the help of Truman Gibson (then an assistant civilian aide to the Secretary of War), the men were accepted into OCS. The experience led to a personal friendship between Robinson and Louis. Upon finishing OCS, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943. Shortly afterward, Robinson and Isum were formally engaged.
After receiving his commission, Robinson was reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas, where he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion. While at Fort Hood, Robinson often used his weekend leave to visit the Rev. Karl Downs, President of Sam Huston College (now Huston–Tillotson University) in nearby Austin, Texas; in California, Downs had been Robinson's pastor at Scott United Methodist Church while Robinson attended PJC.
An event on July 6, 1944, derailed Robinson's military career. While awaiting results of hospital tests on the ankle he had injured in junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer's wife; although the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line, the bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused. The driver backed down, but after reaching the end of the line, summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be court-martialed.
After Robinson's commander in the 761st, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the legal action, Robinson was summarily transferred to the 758th Battalion—where the commander quickly consented to charge Robinson with multiple offenses, including, among other charges, public drunkenness, even though Robinson did not drink.
By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning. Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers.
Although his former unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, became the first black tank unit to see combat in World War II, Robinson's court-martial proceedings prohibited him from being deployed overseas; thus, he never saw combat action.
After his acquittal, he was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honorable discharge in November 1944. While there, Robinson met a former player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, who encouraged Robinson to write the Monarchs and ask for a tryout. Robinson took the former player's advice and wrote to Monarchs co-owner Thomas Baird.
## Post-military
After his discharge, Robinson briefly returned to his old football club, the Los Angeles Bulldogs. Robinson then accepted an offer from his old friend and pastor Rev. Karl Downs to be the athletic director at Samuel Huston College in Austin, then of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The job included coaching the school's basketball team for the 1944–45 season. As it was a fledgling program, few students tried out for the basketball team, and Robinson even resorted to inserting himself into the lineup for exhibition games. Although his teams were outmatched by opponents, Robinson was respected as a disciplinarian coach, and drew the admiration of, among others, Langston University basketball player Marques Haynes, a future member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
## Playing career
### Negro leagues and major league prospects
In early 1945, while Robinson was at Sam Huston College, the Kansas City Monarchs sent him a written offer to play professional baseball in the Negro leagues. Robinson accepted a contract for \$400 per month. Although he played well for the Monarchs, Robinson was frustrated with the experience. He had grown used to a structured playing environment in college, and the Negro leagues' disorganization and embrace of gambling interests appalled him. The hectic travel schedule also placed a burden on his relationship with Isum, with whom he could now communicate only by letter. In all, Robinson played 47 games at shortstop for the Monarchs, hitting .387 with five home runs, and registering 13 stolen bases. He also appeared in the 1945 East–West All-Star Game, going hitless in five at-bats.
During the season, Robinson pursued potential major league interests. No black man had played in the major leagues since Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884, but the Boston Red Sox nevertheless held a tryout at Fenway Park for Robinson and other black players on April 16. The tryout, however, was a farce chiefly designed to assuage the desegregationist sensibilities of powerful Boston City Councilman Isadore H. Y. Muchnick. Even with the stands limited to management, Robinson was subjected to racial epithets. He left the tryout humiliated, and more than 14 years later, in July 1959, the Red Sox became the final major league team to integrate its roster.
Other teams, however, had more serious interest in signing a black ballplayer. In the mid-1940s, Branch Rickey, club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began to scout the Negro leagues for a possible addition to the Dodgers' roster. Rickey selected Robinson from a list of promising black players and interviewed him for possible assignment to Brooklyn's International League farm club, the Montreal Royals. Rickey was especially interested in making sure his eventual signee could withstand the inevitable racial abuse that would be directed at him. In a famous three-hour exchange on August 28, 1945, Rickey asked Robinson if he could face the racial animus without taking the bait and reacting angrily—a concern given Robinson's prior arguments with law enforcement officials at PJC and in the military. Robinson was aghast: "Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" Rickey replied that he needed a Negro player "with guts enough not to fight back." After obtaining a commitment from Robinson to "turn the other cheek" to racial antagonism, Rickey agreed to sign him to a contract for \$600 a month, equal to \$ today. Rickey did not offer compensation to the Monarchs, instead believing all Negro league players were free agents due to the contracts not containing a reserve clause. Among those with whom Rickey discussed prospects was Wendell Smith, writer for the black weekly Pittsburgh Courier, who, according to Cleveland Indians owner and team president Bill Veeck, "influenced Rickey to take Jack Robinson, for which he's never completely gotten credit."
Although he required Robinson to keep the arrangement a secret for the time being, Rickey committed to formally signing Robinson before November 1, 1945. On October 23, it was publicly announced that Robinson would be assigned to the Royals for the 1946 season. On the same day, with representatives of the Royals and Dodgers present, Robinson formally signed his contract with the Royals. In what was later referred to as "The Noble Experiment", Robinson was the first black baseball player in the International League since the 1880s. He was not necessarily the best player in the Negro leagues, and black talents Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson were upset when Robinson was selected first. Larry Doby, who broke the color line in the American League the same year as Robinson, said, "One of the things that was disappointing and disheartening to a lot of the black players at the time was that Jack was not the best player. The best was Josh Gibson. I think that's one of the reasons why Josh died so early—he was heartbroken."
Rickey's offer allowed Robinson to leave behind the Monarchs and their grueling bus rides, and he went home to Pasadena. That September, he signed with Chet Brewer's Kansas City Royals, a post-season barnstorming team in the California Winter League. Later that off-season, he briefly toured South America with another barnstorming team, while his fiancée Isum pursued nursing opportunities in New York City. On February 10, 1946, Robinson and Isum were married by their old friend, the Rev. Karl Downs.
### Minor leagues
In 1946, Robinson arrived at Daytona Beach, Florida, for spring training with the Montreal Royals of the Class AAA International League. Clay Hopper, the manager of the Royals, asked Rickey to assign Robinson to any other Dodger affiliate, but Rickey refused.
Robinson's presence was controversial in racially segregated Florida. He was not allowed to stay with his white teammates at the team hotel, and instead lodged at the home of Joe and Dufferin Harris, a politically active African American couple who introduced the Robinsons to civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Since the Dodgers organization did not own a spring training facility, scheduling was subject to the whim of area localities, several of which turned down any event involving Robinson or Johnny Wright, another black player whom Rickey had signed to the Dodgers' organization in January. In Sanford, Florida, the police chief threatened to cancel games if Robinson and Wright did not cease training activities there; as a result, Robinson was sent back to Daytona Beach. In Jacksonville, the stadium was padlocked shut without warning on game day, by order of the city's Parks and Public Property director. In DeLand, a scheduled day game was postponed, ostensibly because of issues with the stadium's electrical lighting.
After much lobbying of local officials by Rickey himself, the Royals were allowed to host a game involving Robinson in Daytona Beach. Robinson made his Royals debut at Daytona Beach's City Island Ballpark on March 17, 1946, in an exhibition game against the team's parent club, the Dodgers. Robinson thus became the first black player to openly play for a minor league team against a major league team since the de facto baseball color line had been implemented in the 1880s.
Later in spring training, after some less-than-stellar performances, Robinson was shifted from shortstop to second base, allowing him to make shorter throws to first base. Robinson's performance soon rebounded. On April 18, 1946, Roosevelt Stadium hosted the Jersey City Giants' season opener against the Montreal Royals, marking the professional debut of the Royals' Jackie Robinson and the first time the color barrier had been broken in a game between two minor league clubs. Pitching against Robinson was Warren Sandel who had played against him when they both lived in California. During Robinson's first at bat, the Jersey City catcher, Dick Bouknight, demanded that Sandel throw at Robinson, but Sandel refused. Although Sandel induced Robinson to ground out at his first at bat, Robinson ended up with four hits in his five at bats; his first hit was a three-run home run in the game's third inning. He also scored four runs, drove in three, and stole two bases in the Royals' 14–1 victory. Robinson proceeded to lead the International League that season with a .349 batting average and .985 fielding percentage, and he was named the league's Most Valuable Player. Although he often faced hostility while on road trips (the Royals were forced to cancel a Southern exhibition tour, for example), the Montreal fan base enthusiastically supported Robinson. Whether fans supported or opposed it, Robinson's presence on the field was a boon to attendance; more than one million people went to games involving Robinson in 1946, an astounding figure by International League standards. In the fall of 1946, following the baseball season, Robinson returned home to California and briefly played professional basketball for the short-lived Los Angeles Red Devils.
### Major leagues
#### Breaking the color barrier (1947)
In 1947, the Dodgers called Robinson up to the major leagues six days before the start of the season. With Eddie Stanky entrenched at second base for the Dodgers, Robinson played his initial major league season as a first baseman. Robinson made his debut as a Dodger wearing uniform number 42 on April 11, 1947, in a preseason exhibition game against the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field with 24,237 in attendance. On April 15, Robinson made his major league debut at the relatively advanced age of 28 at Ebbets Field before a crowd of 26,623 spectators, more than 14,000 of whom were black. Although he failed to get a base hit, he walked and scored a run in the Dodgers' 5–3 victory. Robinson became the first player since 1884 to openly break the major league baseball color line. Black fans began flocking to see the Dodgers when they came to town, abandoning their Negro league teams.
Robinson's promotion met a generally positive, although mixed, reception among newspapers and white major league players. However, racial tension existed in the Dodger clubhouse. Some Dodger players insinuated they would sit out rather than play alongside Robinson. The brewing mutiny ended when Dodgers management took a stand for Robinson. Manager Leo Durocher informed the team, "I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin' zebra. I'm the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What's more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded."
Robinson was also derided by opposing teams. According to a press report, the St. Louis Cardinals threatened to strike if Robinson played and spread the walkout across the entire National League. Existence of the plot was said to have been leaked by the Cardinals' team physician, Robert Hyland, to a friend, the New York Herald Tribune's Rutherford "Rud" Rennie. The reporter, concerned about protecting Hyland's anonymity and job, in turn leaked it to his Tribune colleague and editor, Stanley Woodward, whose own subsequent reporting with other sources protected Hyland. The Woodward article made national headlines. After it was published, National League President Ford Frick and Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler let it be known that any striking players would be suspended. "You will find that the friends that you think you have in the press box will not support you, that you will be outcasts," Frick was quoted as saying. "I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do it will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended and I don't care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America and one citizen has as much right to play as another." Woodward's article received the E. P. Dutton Award in 1947 for Best Sports Reporting. The Cardinals players denied that they were planning to strike, and Woodward later told author Roger Kahn that Frick was his true source; writer Warren Corbett said that Frick's speech "never happened". Regardless, the report led to Robinson receiving increased support from the sports media. Even The Sporting News, a publication that had backed the color line, came out against the idea of a strike.
Robinson nonetheless became the target of rough physical play by opponents (particularly the Cardinals). At one time, he received a seven-inch gash in his leg from Enos Slaughter. On April 22, 1947, during a game between the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies players and manager Ben Chapman called Robinson a "nigger" from their dugout and yelled that he should "go back to the cotton fields". Rickey later recalled that Chapman "did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united thirty men."
However, Robinson received significant encouragement from several major league players. Robinson named Lee "Jeep" Handley, who played for the Phillies at the time, as the first opposing player to wish him well. Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese once came to Robinson's defense with the famous line, "You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them." In 1947 or 1948, Reese is said to have put his arm around Robinson in response to fans who shouted racial slurs at Robinson before a game in Boston or Cincinnati. A statue by sculptor William Behrends, unveiled at KeySpan Park on November 1, 2005, depicts Reese with his arm around Robinson. Jewish baseball star Hank Greenberg, who had to deal with ethnic epithets during his career, also encouraged Robinson. Following an incident where Greenberg collided with Robinson at first base, he "whispered a few words into Robinson's ear", which Robinson later characterized as "words of encouragement". Greenberg had advised him to overcome his critics by defeating them in games. Robinson also talked frequently with Larry Doby, who endured his own hardships since becoming the first black player in the American League with the Cleveland Indians, as the two spoke to each other via telephone throughout the season.
Robinson finished the season having played in 151 games for the Dodgers, with a batting average of .297, an on-base percentage of .383, and a .427 slugging percentage. He had 175 hits (scoring 125 runs) including 31 doubles, 5 triples, and 12 home runs, driving in 48 runs for the year. Robinson led the league in sacrifice hits, with 28, and in stolen bases, with 29. His cumulative performance earned him the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award (separate National and American League Rookie of the Year honors were not awarded until 1949).
That year, the Brooklyn Dodgers won the National League pennant and went on to face the Yankees in the 1947 World Series. Robinson became the first black player to play in the World Series. He appeared in all seven games, with the Dodgers ultimately losing in Game 7.
#### MVP, Congressional testimony, and film biography (1948–1950)
Following Stanky's trade to the Boston Braves in March 1948, Robinson took over second base, where he logged a .980 fielding percentage that year (second in the National League at the position, fractionally behind Stanky). Robinson had a batting average of .296 and 22 stolen bases for the season. In a 12–7 win against the St. Louis Cardinals on August 29, 1948, he hit for the cycle—a home run, a triple, a double, and a single in the same game. The Dodgers briefly moved into first place in the National League in late August 1948, but they ultimately finished third as the Braves went on to win the pennant and lose to the Cleveland Indians in the World Series.
Racial pressure on Robinson eased in 1948 when a number of other black players entered the major leagues. Larry Doby (who broke the color barrier in the American League on July 5, 1947, just 11 weeks after Robinson) and Satchel Paige played for the Cleveland Indians, and the Dodgers had three other black players besides Robinson. In February 1948, he signed a \$12,500 contract (equal to \$ today) with the Dodgers; while a significant amount, this was less than Robinson made in the off-season from a vaudeville tour, where he answered pre-set baseball questions and a speaking tour of the South. Between the tours, he underwent surgery on his right ankle. Because of his off-season activities, Robinson reported to training camp 30 pounds (14 kg) overweight. He lost the weight during training camp, but dieting left him weak at the plate. In 1948, Wendell Smith's book, Jackie Robinson: My Own Story, was released.
In the spring of 1949, Robinson turned to Hall of Famer George Sisler, working as an advisor to the Dodgers, for batting help. At Sisler's suggestion, Robinson spent hours at a batting tee, learning to hit the ball to right field. Sisler taught Robinson to anticipate a fastball, on the theory that it is easier to subsequently adjust to a slower curveball. Robinson also noted that "Sisler showed me how to stop lunging, how to check my swing until the last fraction of a second". The tutelage helped Robinson raise his batting average from .296 in 1948 to .342 in 1949. In addition to his improved batting average, Robinson stole 37 bases that season, was second place in the league for both doubles and triples, and registered 124 runs batted in with 122 runs scored. For the performance Robinson earned the Most Valuable Player Award for the National League. Baseball fans also voted Robinson as the starting second baseman for the 1949 All-Star Game — the first All-Star Game to include black players.
That year, a song about Robinson by Buddy Johnson, "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?", reached number 13 on the charts; Count Basie recorded a famous version. Ultimately, the Dodgers won the National League pennant, but lost in five games to the New York Yankees in the 1949 World Series.
Summer 1949 brought an unwanted distraction for Robinson. In July, he was called to testify before the United States House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) concerning statements made that April by black athlete and actor Paul Robeson. Robinson was reluctant to testify, but he eventually agreed to do so, fearing it might negatively affect his career if he declined.
In 1950, Robinson led the National League in double plays made by a second baseman with 133. His salary that year was the highest any Dodger had been paid to that point: \$35,000 (\$ in dollars). He finished the year with 99 runs scored, a .328 batting average, and 12 stolen bases. The year saw the release of a film biography of Robinson's life, The Jackie Robinson Story, in which Robinson played himself, and actress Ruby Dee played Rachel "Rae" (Isum) Robinson. The project had been previously delayed when the film's producers refused to accede to demands of two Hollywood studios that the movie include scenes of Robinson being tutored in baseball by a white man. The New York Times wrote that Robinson, "doing that rare thing of playing himself in the picture's leading role, displays a calm assurance and composure that might be envied by many a Hollywood star."
Robinson's Hollywood exploits, however, did not sit well with Dodgers co-owner Walter O'Malley, who referred to Robinson as "Rickey's prima donna". In late 1950, Rickey's contract as the Dodgers' team President expired. Weary of constant disagreements with O'Malley, and with no hope of being re-appointed as President of the Dodgers, Rickey cashed out his one-quarter financial interest in the team, leaving O'Malley in full control of the franchise. Rickey shortly thereafter became general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Robinson was disappointed at the turn of events and wrote a sympathetic letter to Rickey, whom he considered a father figure, stating, "Regardless of what happens to me in the future, it all can be placed on what you have done and, believe me, I appreciate it."
#### Pennant races and outside interests (1951–1953)
Before the 1951 season, O'Malley reportedly offered Robinson the job of manager of the Montreal Royals, effective at the end of Robinson's playing career. O'Malley was quoted in the Montreal Standard as saying, "Jackie told me that he would be both delighted and honored to tackle this managerial post"—although reports differed as to whether a position was ever formally offered.
During the 1951 season, Robinson led the National League in double plays made by a second baseman for the second year in a row, with 137. He also kept the Dodgers in contention for the 1951 pennant. During the last game of the regular season, in the 13th inning, he had a hit to tie the game and then hit a home run in the 14th inning, which proved to be the winning margin. This forced a best-of-three playoff series against the crosstown rival New York Giants.
Despite Robinson's regular-season heroics, on October 3, 1951, the Dodgers lost the pennant on Bobby Thomson's famous home run, known as the Shot Heard 'Round the World. Overcoming his dejection, Robinson dutifully observed Thomson's feet to ensure he touched all the bases. Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully later noted that the incident showed "how much of a competitor Robinson was." He finished the season with 106 runs scored, a batting average of .335, and 25 stolen bases.
Robinson had what was an average year for him in 1952. He finished the year with 104 runs, a .308 batting average, and 24 stolen bases. He did, however, record a career-high on-base percentage of .436. The Dodgers improved on their performance from the year before, winning the National League pennant before losing the 1952 World Series to the New York Yankees in seven games. That year, on the television show Youth Wants to Know, Robinson challenged the Yankees' general manager, George Weiss, on the racial record of his team, which had yet to sign a black player. Sportswriter Dick Young, whom Robinson had described as a "bigot", said, "If there was one flaw in Jackie, it was the common one. He believed that everything unpleasant that happened to him happened because of his blackness." The 1952 season was the last year Robinson was an everyday starter at second base. Afterward, Robinson played variously at first, second, and third bases, shortstop, and in the outfield, with Jim Gilliam, another black player, taking over everyday second base duties. Robinson's interests began to shift toward the prospect of managing a major league team. He had hoped to gain experience by managing in the Puerto Rican Winter League, but according to the New York Post, Commissioner Happy Chandler denied the request.
In 1953, Robinson had 109 runs, a .329 batting average, and 17 steals,leading the Dodgers to another National League pennant (and another World Series loss to the Yankees, this time in six games). Robinson's continued success spawned a string of death threats. He was not dissuaded, however, from addressing racial issues publicly. That year, he served as editor for Our Sports magazine, a periodical focusing on Negro sports issues; contributions to the magazine included an article on golf course segregation by Robinson's old friend Joe Louis. Robinson also openly criticized segregated hotels and restaurants that served the Dodger organization; a number of these establishments integrated as a result, including the five-star Chase Park Hotel in St. Louis.
#### World Championship and retirement (1954–1956)
In 1954, Robinson had 62 runs scored, a .311 batting average, and 7 steals. His best day at the plate was on June 17, when he hit two home runs and two doubles. The following autumn, Robinson won his only championship when the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series. Although the team enjoyed ultimate success, 1955 was the worst year of Robinson's individual career. He hit .256 and stole only 12 bases. The Dodgers tried Robinson in the outfield and as a third baseman, both because of his diminishing abilities and because Gilliam was established at second base. Robinson, then 36 years old, missed 49 games and did not play in Game 7 of the World Series. He missed the game because manager Walter Alston decided to play Gilliam at second and Don Hoak at third base. That season, the Dodgers' Don Newcombe became the first black major league pitcher to win twenty games in a year.
In 1956, Robinson had 61 runs scored, a .275 batting average, and 12 steals. By then, he had begun to exhibit the effects of diabetes and to lose interest in the prospect of playing or managing professional baseball. Robinson ended his major league career when he struck out to end Game 7 of the 1956 World Series. After the season, the Dodgers traded Robinson to the arch-rival New York Giants for Dick Littlefield and \$35,000 cash (equal to \$ today). The trade, however, was never completed; unbeknownst to the Dodgers, Robinson had already agreed with the president of Chock full o'Nuts to quit baseball and become an executive with the company. Since Robinson had sold exclusive rights to any retirement story to Look magazine two years previously, his retirement decision was revealed through the magazine, instead of through the Dodgers organization.
## Legacy
Robinson's major league debut brought an end to approximately sixty years of segregation in professional baseball, known as the baseball color line. After World War II, several other forces were also leading the country toward increased equality for blacks, including their accelerated migration to the North, where their political clout grew, and President Harry Truman's desegregation of the military in 1948. Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line and his professional success symbolized these broader changes and demonstrated that the fight for equality was more than simply a political matter. Civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. said that he was "a legend and a symbol in his own time", and that he "challenged the dark skies of intolerance and frustration." According to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robinson's "efforts were a monumental step in the civil-rights revolution in America ... [His] accomplishments allowed black and white Americans to be more respectful and open to one another and more appreciative of everyone's abilities."
Beginning his major league career at the relatively advanced age of 28, he played only ten seasons from 1947 to 1956, all of them for the Brooklyn Dodgers. During his career, the Dodgers played in six World Series, and Robinson himself played in six All-Star Games. In 1999, he was one of 30 players named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Robinson's career is generally considered to mark the beginning of the post–"long ball" era in baseball, in which a reliance on raw power-hitting gave way to balanced offensive strategies that used footspeed to create runs through aggressive baserunning. Robinson exhibited the combination of hitting ability and speed which exemplified the new era. He scored more than 100 runs in six of his ten seasons (averaging more than 110 runs from 1947 to 1953), had a .311 career batting average, a .409 career on-base percentage, a .474 slugging percentage, and substantially more walks than strikeouts (740 to 291). Robinson was one of only two players during the span of 1947–56 to accumulate at least 125 steals while registering a slugging percentage over .425 (Minnie Miñoso was the other). He accumulated 197 stolen bases in total, including 19 steals of home. None of the latter were double steals (in which a player stealing home is assisted by a player stealing another base at the same time). Robinson has been referred to by author David Falkner as "the father of modern base-stealing".
Historical statistical analysis indicates Robinson was an outstanding fielder throughout his ten years in the major leagues and at virtually every position he played. After playing his rookie season at first base, Robinson spent most of his career as a second baseman. He led the league in fielding among second basemen in 1950 and 1951. Toward the end of his career, he played about 2,000 innings at third base and about 1,175 innings in the outfield, excelling at both.
Assessing himself, Robinson said, "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me ... all I ask is that you respect me as a human being." Regarding Robinson's qualities on the field, Leo Durocher said, "Ya want a guy that comes to play. This guy didn't just come to play. He come to beat ya. He come to stuff the goddamn bat right up your ass."
### Portrayals on stage, film and television
Robinson portrayed himself in the 1950 motion picture The Jackie Robinson Story. Other portrayals include:
- John Lafayette, in the 1978 ABC television special "A Home Run for Love" (broadcast as an ABC Afterschool Special).
- David Alan Grier, in the 1981 Broadway production of the musical The First.
- Michael-David Gordon, in the 1989 Off-Broadway production of the musical Play to Win.
- Sterling Macer Jr. in the 1989 Edward Schmidt play Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting, a fictionalized version of the meeting in which Branch Rickey offered Robinson a major-league contract.
- Andre Braugher, in the 1990 TNT television movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson.
- Blair Underwood, in the 1996 HBO television movie Soul of the Game.
- Antonio Todd in "Colors", a 2005 episode of the CBS television series Cold Case.
- Chadwick Boseman, in the 2013 motion picture 42.
- Robert Hamilton in "Sundown", a 2020 episode of the HBO television series Lovecraft Country.
Robinson was also the subject of a 2016 PBS documentary, Jackie Robinson, which was directed by Ken Burns and features Jamie Foxx doing voice-over as Robinson.
## Post-baseball life
Robinson once told future Hall of Fame inductee Hank Aaron that "the game of baseball is great, but the greatest thing is what you do after your career is over." Robinson retired from baseball at age 37 on January 5, 1957. Later that year, after he complained of numerous physical ailments, he was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that also afflicted his brothers. Although Robinson adopted an insulin injection regimen, the state of medicine at the time could not prevent the continued deterioration of Robinson's physical condition from the disease.
In October 1959, Robinson entered the Greenville Municipal Airport's whites-only waiting room. Airport police asked Robinson to leave, but he refused. At a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) speech in Greenville, South Carolina, Robinson urged "complete freedom" and encouraged black citizens to vote and to protest their second-class citizenship. The following January, approximately 1,000 people marched on New Year's Day to the airport, which was desegregated shortly thereafter.
In his first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson encouraged voters to consider only his on-field qualifications, rather than his cultural impact on the game. He was elected on the first ballot, becoming the first black player inducted into the Cooperstown museum.
In 1965, Robinson served as an analyst for ABC's Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts, the first black person to do so. In 1966, Robinson was hired as general manager for the short-lived Brooklyn Dodgers of the Continental Football League. In 1972, he served as a part-time commentator on Montreal Expos telecasts.
On June 4, 1972, the Dodgers retired his uniform number, 42, alongside those of Roy Campanella (39) and Sandy Koufax (32). From 1957 to 1964, Robinson was the vice president for personnel at Chock full o'Nuts; he was the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American corporation. Robinson always considered his business career as advancing the cause of black people in commerce and industry. He also chaired the NAACP's million-dollar Freedom Fund Drive in 1957, and served on the organization's board until 1967. In 1964, he helped found, with Harlem businessman Dunbar McLaurin, Freedom National Bank—a black-owned and operated commercial bank based in Harlem. He also served as the bank's first chairman of the board. In 1970, Robinson established the Jackie Robinson Construction Company to build housing for low-income families.
Robinson was active in politics throughout his post-baseball life. He identified himself as a political independent, although he held conservative opinions on several issues, including the Vietnam War (he once wrote to Martin Luther King Jr. to defend the Johnson Administration's military policy). After supporting Richard Nixon in his 1960 presidential race against John F. Kennedy, Robinson later praised Kennedy effusively for his stance on civil rights. Robinson was angered by the 1964 presidential election candidacy of conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who had opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He became one of six national directors for Nelson Rockefeller's unsuccessful campaign to be nominated as the Republican candidate for the election. After the party nominated Goldwater instead, Robinson left the party's convention commenting that he now had "a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany". He later became special assistant for community affairs when Rockefeller was re-elected governor of New York in 1966 and in 1971 was appointed to the New York State Athletic Commission by Rockefeller. In 1968, he broke with the Republican party and supported Hubert Humphrey against Nixon in that year's presidential election.
Robinson protested against the major leagues' ongoing lack of minority managers and central office personnel, and he turned down an invitation to appear in an old-timers' game at Yankee Stadium in 1969. He made his final public appearance on October 15, 1972, nine days before his death, throwing the ceremonial first pitch before Game 2 of the World Series at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. He gratefully accepted a plaque honoring the twenty-fifth anniversary of his MLB debut, but also commented, "I'm going to be tremendously more pleased and more proud when I look at that third base coaching line one day and see a black face managing in baseball." This wish was only fulfilled after Robinson's death: following the 1974 season, the Cleveland Indians gave their managerial post to Frank Robinson (no relation to Jackie), a Hall of Fame-bound player who would go on to manage three other teams. Despite the success of these two Robinsons and other black players, the number of African-American players in Major League Baseball has declined since the 1970s.
## Family life and death
After Robinson's retirement from baseball, his wife Rachel Robinson pursued a career in academic nursing. She became an assistant professor at the Yale School of Nursing and director of nursing at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. She also served on the board of the Freedom National Bank until it closed in 1990. She and Jackie had three children: Jackie Robinson Jr. (1946–1971), Sharon Robinson (b. 1950), and David Robinson (b. 1952).
Robinson's eldest son, Jackie Robinson Jr., had emotional trouble during his childhood and entered special education at an early age. He enlisted in the Army in search of a disciplined environment, served in the Vietnam War, and was wounded in action on November 19, 1965. After his discharge, he struggled with drug problems. Robinson Jr. eventually completed the treatment program at Daytop Village in Seymour, Connecticut, and became a counselor at the institution. On June 17, 1971, he was killed in an automobile accident at age 24. The experience with his son's drug addiction turned Robinson Sr. into an avid anti-drug crusader toward the end of his life.
Robinson did not outlive his son by very long. In 1968, he suffered a heart attack. Complications from heart disease and diabetes weakened Robinson and made him almost blind by middle age. On October 24, 1972, Robinson died of a heart attack at his home at 95 Cascade Road in North Stamford, Connecticut; he was 53 years old. Robinson's funeral service on October 27, 1972, at Upper Manhattan's Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, attracted 2,500 mourners. Many of his former teammates, other famous baseball players, and basketball star Bill Russell served as pallbearers, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson gave the eulogy. Tens of thousands of people lined the subsequent procession route to Robinson's interment site at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, where he was buried next to his son Jackie and mother-in-law Zellee Isum. Twenty-five years after Robinson's death, the Interboro Parkway was renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway in his memory. This parkway bisects the cemetery in close proximity to Robinson's gravesite.
After Robinson's death, his widow founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and she remains an officer as of 2021. On April 15, 2008, she announced that in 2010 the foundation would open a museum devoted to Jackie in Lower Manhattan. Robinson's daughter, Sharon, became a midwife, educator, director of educational programming for MLB, and the author of two books about her father. His youngest son, David, who has ten children, is a coffee grower and social activist in Tanzania.
## Awards and recognition
According to a poll conducted in 1947, Robinson was the second most popular man in the country, behind Bing Crosby. In 1999, he was named by Time on its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Robinson was ranked No. 44 on The Sporting News list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players" in 1999. That same year, he was one of 30 players elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 2020, The Athletic ranked Robinson at number 42 on its "Baseball 100" list, complied by sportswriter Joe Posnanski.
Baseball writer Bill James, in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, ranked Robinson as the 32nd greatest player of all time strictly on the basis of his performance on the field, noting that he was one of the top players in the league throughout his career. Robinson was among the 25 charter members of UCLA's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984. In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante included Robinson on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. Robinson has also been honored by the United States Postal Service on three separate postage stamps, in 1982, 1999, and 2000.
The City of Pasadena has recognized Robinson with a baseball diamond and stadium named Jackie Robinson Field in Brookside Park next to the Rose Bowl, and with the Jackie Robinson Center (a community outreach center providing health services). In 1997, a \$325,000 bronze sculpture (equal to \$ today) by artists Ralph Helmick, Stu Schecter, and John Outterbridge depicting oversized nine-foot busts of Robinson and his brother Mack was erected at Garfield Avenue, across from the main entrance of Pasadena City Hall; a granite footprint lists multiple donors to the commission project, which was organized by the Robinson Memorial Foundation and supported by members of the Robinson family.
Major League Baseball has honored Robinson many times since his death. In 1987, both the National and American League Rookie of the Year Awards were renamed the "Jackie Robinson Award" in honor of the first recipient (Robinson's Major League Rookie of the Year Award in 1947 encompassed both leagues). On April 15, 1997, Robinson's jersey number, 42, was retired throughout Major League Baseball, the first time any jersey number had been retired throughout one of the four major American sports leagues. Under the terms of the retirement, a grandfather clause allowed the handful of players who wore number 42 to continue doing so in tribute to Robinson, until such time as they subsequently changed teams or jersey numbers. This affected players such as the Mets' Butch Huskey and Boston's Mo Vaughn. The Yankees' Mariano Rivera, who retired at the end of the 2013 season, was the last player in Major League Baseball to wear jersey number 42 on a regular basis. Since 1997, only Wayne Gretzky's number 99, retired by the NHL in 2000, and Bill Russell's number 6, retired by the NBA in 2022, have been retired league-wide in any of the four major sports. There have also been calls for MLB to retire number 21 league-wide in honor of Roberto Clemente, a sentiment opposed by the Robinson family.
As an exception to the retired-number policy, MLB began honoring Robinson by allowing players to wear number 42 on April 15, Jackie Robinson Day, which is an annual observance that started in 2004. For the 60th anniversary of Robinson's major league debut, MLB invited players to wear the number 42 on Jackie Robinson Day in 2007. The gesture was originally the idea of outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who sought Rachel Robinson's permission to wear the number. After Griffey received her permission, Commissioner Bud Selig not only allowed Griffey to wear the number, but also extended an invitation to all major league teams to do the same. Ultimately, more than 200 players wore number 42, including the entire rosters of the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, and Pittsburgh Pirates. The tribute was continued in 2008, when, during games on April 15, all members of the Mets, Cardinals, Washington Nationals, and Tampa Bay Rays wore Robinson's number 42. On June 25, 2008, MLB installed a new plaque for Robinson at the Baseball Hall of Fame commemorating his off-the-field impact on the game as well as his playing statistics. In 2009, all of MLB's uniformed personnel (including players) wore number 42 on April 15; this tradition has continued every year since on that date.
At the November 2006 groundbreaking for Citi Field, the new ballpark for the New York Mets, it was announced that the main entrance, modeled on the one in Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field, would be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. The rotunda was dedicated at the opening of Citi Field on April 16, 2009. It honors Robinson with large quotations spanning the inner curve of the facade and features a large freestanding statue of his number, 42, which has become an attraction in itself. Mets owner Fred Wilpon announced that the Mets—in conjunction with Citigroup and the Jackie Robinson Foundation—would create the Jackie Robinson Museum and Learning Center, located at the headquarters of the Jackie Robinson Foundation at One Hudson Square, along Canal Street in lower Manhattan. Along with the museum, scholarships will be awarded to "young people who live by and embody Jackie's ideals." The museum opened in 2022. At Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, a statue of Robinson was introduced in 2017. The New York Yankees honor Robinson with a plaque in Monument Park.
Since 2004, the Aflac National High School Baseball Player of the Year has been presented the "Jackie Robinson Award".
Robinson has also been recognized outside of baseball. In December 1956, the NAACP recognized him with the Spingarn Medal, which it awards annually for the highest achievement by an African-American. President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom on March 26, 1984, and on March 2, 2005, President George W. Bush gave Robinson's widow the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award bestowed by Congress; Robinson was only the second baseball player to receive the award, after Roberto Clemente. On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that Robinson was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento.
A number of buildings have been named in Robinson's honor. The UCLA Bruins baseball team plays in Jackie Robinson Stadium, which, because of the efforts of Jackie's brother Mack, features a memorial statue of Robinson by sculptor Richard H. Ellis. The stadium also unveiled a new mural of Robinson by Mike Sullivan on April 14, 2013. City Island Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Florida was renamed Jackie Robinson Ballpark in 1990 and a statue of Robinson with two children stands in front of the ballpark. His wife Rachel was present for the dedication on September 15. 1990. A number of facilities at Pasadena City College (successor to PJC) are named in Robinson's honor, including Robinson Field, a football/soccer/track facility named jointly for Robinson and his brother Mack. The New York Public School system has named a middle school after Robinson, and Dorsey High School plays at a Los Angeles football stadium named after him. His home in Brooklyn, the Jackie Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and Brooklyn residents sought to turn his home into a city landmark. In 1978, Colonial Park in Harlem was renamed after Robinson. Robinson also has an asteroid named after him, 4319 Jackierobinson. In 1997, the United States Mint issued a Jackie Robinson commemorative silver dollar, and five-dollar gold coin. That same year, New York City renamed the Interboro Parkway in his honor. A statue of Robinson at Journal Square Transportation Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, was dedicated in 1998.
In 2011, the U.S. placed a plaque at Robinson's Montreal home to honor the ending of segregation in baseball. The house, at 8232 avenue de Gaspé near Jarry Park, was Robinson's residence when he played for the Montreal Royals during 1946. In a letter read during the ceremony, Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow, wrote: "I remember Montreal and that house very well and have always had warm feeling for that great city. Before Jack and I moved to Montreal, we had just been through some very rough treatment in the racially biased South during spring training in Florida. In the end, Montreal was the perfect place for him to get his start. We never had a threatening or unpleasant experience there. The people were so welcoming and saw Jack as a player and as a man."
On November 22, 2014, UCLA announced that it would officially retire the number 42 across all university sports, effective immediately. While Robinson wore several different numbers during his UCLA career, the school chose 42 because it had become indelibly identified with him. The only sport this did not affect was men's basketball, which had previously retired the number for Walt Hazzard (although Kevin Love was actually the last player in that sport to wear 42, with Hazzard's blessing). In a move paralleling that of MLB when it retired the number, UCLA allowed three athletes (in women's soccer, softball, and football) who were already wearing 42 to continue to do so for the remainder of their UCLA careers. The school also announced it would prominently display the number at all of its athletic venues.
A jersey that Robinson brought home with him after his rookie season ended in 1947 was sold at an auction for \$2.05 million on November 19, 2017. The price was the highest ever paid for a post-World War II jersey.
## See also
- Civil Rights Game (including MLB Beacon Awards)
- DHL Hometown Heroes
- List of African-American firsts
- List of sports desegregation firsts
- List of first black Major League Baseball players
- List of Major League Baseball annual stolen base leaders
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
- List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
- List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle
- List of Major League Baseball retired numbers
- List of NCAA major college football yearly rushing leaders
- List of NCAA major college yearly punt and kickoff return leaders
- List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball
- List of University of California, Los Angeles people
- List of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
- Los Angeles Dodgers award winners and league leaders
|
203,545 |
Nuthatch
| 1,142,851,698 |
Genus, ''Sitta'', of small passerine birds from the Northern Hemisphere
|
[
"Nuthatches",
"Sittidae",
"Taxa named by René Lesson"
] |
The nuthatches (/nʌt.hætʃ/) constitute a genus, Sitta, of small passerine birds belonging to the family Sittidae. Characterised by large heads, short tails, and powerful bills and feet, nuthatches advertise their territory using loud, simple songs. Most species exhibit grey or bluish upperparts and a black eye stripe.
Most nuthatches breed in the temperate or montane woodlands of the Northern Hemisphere, although two species have adapted to rocky habitats in the warmer and drier regions of Eurasia. However, the greatest diversity is in Southern Asia, and similarities between the species have made it difficult to identify distinct species. All members of this genus nest in holes or crevices. Most species are non-migratory and live in their habitat year-round, although the North American red-breasted nuthatch migrates to warmer regions during the winter. A few nuthatch species have restricted ranges and face threats from deforestation.
Nuthatches are omnivorous, eating mostly insects, nuts, and seeds. They forage for insects hidden in or under bark by climbing along tree trunks and branches, sometimes upside-down. They forage within their territories when breeding, but they may join mixed feeding flocks at other times.
Their habit of wedging a large food item in a crevice and then hacking at it with their strong bills gives this group its English name.
## Taxonomy
The nuthatch family, Sittidae, was described by René-Primevère Lesson in 1828.
Sometimes the wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria), which is restricted to the mountains of southern Eurasia, is placed in the same family as the nuthatches, but in a separate subfamily "Tichodromadinae", in which case the nuthatches are classified in the subfamily "Sittinae". However, it is more often placed in a separate family, the Tichodromadidae.
The wallcreeper is intermediate in its morphology between the nuthatches and the treecreepers, but its appearance, the texture of its plumage, and the shape and pattern of its tail suggest that it is closer to the former taxon.
The nuthatch vanga of Madagascar (formerly known as the coral-billed nuthatch) and the sittellas from Australia and New Guinea were once placed in the nuthatch family because of similarities in appearance and lifestyle, but they are not closely related. The resemblances arose via convergent evolution to fill an ecological niche.
The nuthatches' closest relatives, other than the wallcreeper, are the treecreepers, and the two (or three) families are sometimes placed in a larger grouping with the wrens and gnatcatchers. This superfamily, the Certhioidea, is proposed on phylogenetic studies using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, and was created to cover a clade of (four or) five families removed from a larger grouping of passerine birds, the Sylvioidea.
### Genus name
The nuthatches are all in the genus Sitta Linnaeus, 1758, a name derived from : síttē, Ancient Greek for this bird.
The English term nuthatch refers to the propensity of some species to wedge a large insect or seed in a crack and hack at it with their strong bills.
### Species boundaries
Species boundaries in the nuthatches are difficult to define. The red-breasted nuthatch, Corsican nuthatch and Chinese nuthatch have breeding ranges separated by thousands of kilometres, but are similar in habitat preference, appearance and song. They were formerly considered to be one species, but are now normally split into three and comprise a superspecies along with the Krüper's and Algerian nuthatch. Unusually for nuthatches, all five species excavate their own nests.
The Eurasian, chestnut-vented, Kashmir and chestnut-bellied nuthatches form another superspecies and replace each other geographically across Asia. They are currently considered to be four separate species, but the south Asian forms were once believed to be a subspecies of the Eurasian nuthatch. A recent change in this taxonomy is a split of the chestnut-bellied nuthatch into three species, namely the Indian nuthatch, Sitta castanea, found south of the Ganges, the Burmese nuthatch, Sitta neglecta, found in southeast Asia, and the chestnut-bellied nuthatch sensu stricto, S. cinnamoventris, which occurs in the Himalayas. Mitochondrial DNA studies have demonstrated that the white-breasted northern subspecies of Eurasian nuthatch, S. (europea) arctica, is distinctive, and also a possible candidate for full species status. This split has been accepted by the British Ornithologists' Union.
A 2006 review of Asian nuthatches suggested that there are still unresolved problems in nuthatch taxonomy and proposed splitting the genus Sitta. This suggestion would move the red- and yellow-billed south Asian species (velvet-fronted, yellow-billed and sulphur-billed nuthatches) to a new genus, create a third genus for the blue nuthatch, and possibly a fourth for the beautiful nuthatch.
The fossil record for this group appears to be restricted to a foot bone of an early Miocene bird from Bavaria which has been identified as an extinct representative of the climbing Certhioidea, a clade comprising the treecreepers, wallcreeper and nuthatches. It has been described as Certhiops rummeli. Two fossil species have been described in the genus Sitta: S. cuvieri Gervais, 1852 and S. senogalliensis Portis, 1888, but they probably do not belong to nuthatches.
## Description
Nuthatches are compact birds with short legs, compressed wings, and square 12-feathered tails. They have long, sturdy, pointed bills and strong toes with long claws. Nuthatches have blue-grey backs (violet-blue in some Asian species, which also have red or yellow bills) and white underparts, which are variably tinted with buff, orange, rufous or lilac. Although head markings vary between species, a long black eye stripe, with contrasting white supercilium, dark forehead and blackish cap is common. The sexes look similar, but may differ in underpart colouration, especially on the rear flanks and under the tail. Juveniles and first-year birds can be almost indistinguishable from adults.
The sizes of nuthatches vary, from the large giant nuthatch, at 195 mm (7.7 in) and 36–47 g (1.3–1.7 oz), to the small brown-headed nuthatch and the pygmy nuthatch, both around 100 mm (3.9 in) in length and about 10 g (0.35 oz).
Nuthatches are very vocal, using an assortment of whistles, trills and calls. Their breeding songs tend to be simple and often identical to their contact calls but longer in duration. The red-breasted nuthatch, which coexists with the black-capped chickadee throughout much of its range, is able to understand the latter species' calls. The chickadee has subtle call variations that communicate information about the size and risk of potential predators. Many birds recognise the simple alarm calls produced by other species, but the red-breasted nuthatch is able to interpret the chickadees' detailed variations and to respond appropriately.
## Species
The species diversity for Sittidae is greatest in southern Asia (possibly the original home of this family), where about 15 species occur, but it has representatives across much of the Northern Hemisphere. The currently recognised nuthatch species are tabulated below.
## Distribution and habitat
Members of the nuthatch family live in most of North America and Europe and throughout Asia down to the Wallace Line. Nuthatches are sparsely represented in Africa; one species lives in a small area of northeastern Algeria and a population of the Eurasian nuthatch subspecies, S. e. hispaniensis, lives in the mountains of Morocco. Most species are resident year-round. The only significant migrant is the red-breasted nuthatch, which winters widely across North America, deserting the northernmost parts of its breeding range in Canada; it has been recorded as a vagrant in Bermuda, Iceland and England.
Most nuthatches are woodland birds and the majority are found in coniferous or other evergreen forests, although each species has a preference for a particular tree type. The strength of the association varies from the Corsican nuthatch, which is closely linked with Corsican pine, to the catholic habitat of the Eurasian nuthatch, which prefers deciduous or mixed woods but breeds in coniferous forests in the north of its extensive range. However, the two species of rock nuthatches are not strongly tied to woodlands: they breed on rocky slopes or cliffs, although both move into wooded areas when not breeding. In parts of Asia where several species occur in the same geographic region, there is often an altitudinal separation in their preferred habitats.
Nuthatches prefer a fairly temperate climate; northern species live near sea level whereas those further south are found in cooler highland habitats. Eurasian and red-breasted nuthatches are lowland birds in the north of their extensive ranges, but breed in the mountains further south; for example, the Eurasian nuthatch, which breeds where the July temperature range is 16–27 °C (61–81 °F), is found near sea level in Northern Europe, but between 1,750 and 1,850 m (5,740 and 6,070 ft) altitude in Morocco. The velvet-fronted nuthatch is the sole member of the family which prefers tropical lowland forests.
## Behaviour
### Nesting, breeding and survival
All nuthatches nest in cavities; except for the two species of rock nuthatches, all use tree holes, making a simple cup lined with soft materials on which to rest eggs. In some species the lining consists of small woody objects such as bark flakes and seed husks, while in others it includes the moss, grass, hair and feathers typical of passerine birds.
Members of the red-breasted nuthatch superspecies excavate their own tree holes, although most other nuthatches use natural holes or old woodpecker nests. Several species reduce the size of the entrance hole and seal up cracks with mud. The red-breasted nuthatch makes the nest secure by daubing sticky conifer resin globules around the entrance, the male applying the resin outside and the female inside. The resin may deter predators or competitors (the resident birds avoid the resin by diving straight through the entrance hole). The white-breasted nuthatch smears blister beetles around the entrance to its nest, and it has been suggested that the unpleasant smell from the crushed insects deters squirrels, its chief competitor for natural tree cavities.
The western rock nuthatch builds an elaborate flask-shaped nest from mud, dung and hair or feathers, and decorates the nest's exterior and nearby crevices with feathers and insect wings. The nests are located in rock crevices, in caves, under cliff overhangs or on buildings. The eastern rock nuthatch builds a similar but less complex structure across the entrance to a cavity. Its nest can be quite small but may weigh up to 32 kg (70 lb). This species will also nest in river banks or tree holes and will enlarge its nest hole if it the cavity is too small.
Nuthatches are monogamous. The female produces eggs that are white with red or yellow markings; the clutch size varies, tending to be larger for northern species. The eggs are incubated for 12 to 18 days by the female alone, or by both parents, depending on the species. The altricial (naked and helpless) chicks take between 21 and 27 days to fledge. Both parents feed the young, and in the case of two American species, brown-headed and pygmy, helper males from the previous brood may assist the parents in feeding.
For the few species on which data are available, the average nuthatch lifespan in the wild is between 2 and 3.5 years, although ages of up to 10 years have been recorded. The Eurasian nuthatch has an adult annual survival rate of 53% and the male Corsican nuthatch 61.6%. Nuthatches and other small woodland birds share the same predators: accipiters, owls, squirrels and woodpeckers. An American study showed that nuthatch responses to predators may be linked to reproductive strategies. It measured the willingness of males of two species to feed incubating females on the nest when presented with models of a sharp-shinned hawk, which hunts adult nuthatches, or a house wren, which destroys eggs. The white-breasted nuthatch is shorter-lived than the red-breasted nuthatch, but has more young, and was found to respond more strongly to the egg predator, whereas the red-breasted showed greater concern with the hawk. This supports the theory that longer-lived species benefit from adult survival and future breeding opportunities while birds with shorter life spans place more value on the survival of their larger broods.
Cold can be a problem for small birds that do not migrate. Communal roosting in tight huddles can help conserve heat and several nuthatch species employ it—up to 170 pygmy nuthatches have been seen in a single roost. The pygmy nuthatch is able to lower its body temperature when roosting, conserving energy through hypothermia and a lowered metabolic rate.
### Feeding
Nuthatches forage along tree trunks and branches and are members of the same feeding guild as woodpeckers. Unlike woodpeckers and treecreepers, however, they do not use their tails for additional support, relying instead on their strong legs and feet to progress in jerky hops. They are able to descend head-first and hang upside-down beneath twigs and branches. Krüper's nuthatch can even stretch downward from an upside-down position to drink water from leaves without touching the ground. Rock nuthatches forage with a similar technique to the woodland species, but seek food on rock faces and sometimes buildings. When breeding, a pair of nuthatches will only feed within their territory, but at other times will associate with passing tits or join mixed-species feeding flocks.
Insects and other invertebrates are a major portion of the nuthatch diet, especially during the breeding season, when they rely almost exclusively on live prey, but most species also eat seeds during the winter, when invertebrates are less readily available. Larger food items, such as big insects, snails, acorns or seeds may be wedged into cracks and pounded with the bird's strong bill. Unusually for a bird, the brown-headed nuthatch uses a piece of tree bark as a lever to pry up other bark flakes to look for food; the bark tool may then be carried from tree to tree or used to cover a seed cache.
All nuthatches appear to store food, especially seeds, in tree crevices, in the ground, under small stones, or behind bark flakes, and these caches are remembered for as long as 30 days. Similarly, the rock nuthatches wedge snails into suitable crevices for consumption in times of need. European nuthatches have been found to avoid using their caches during benign conditions in order to save them for harsher times.
## Conservation status
Some nuthatches, such as the Eurasian nuthatch and the North American species, have extensive ranges and large populations, and few conservation problems, although locally they may be affected by woodland fragmentation. In contrast, some of the more restricted species face severe pressures.
The endangered white-browed nuthatch is found only in the Mount Victoria area of Burma, where forest up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) above sea level has been almost totally cleared and habitat between 2,000–2,500 m (6,600–8,200 ft) is heavily degraded. Nearly 12,000 people live in the Natma Taung national park which includes Mount Victoria, and their fires and traps add to the pressure on the nuthatch. The population of the white-browed nuthatch, estimated at only a few thousand, is decreasing, and no conservation measures are in place. The Algerian nuthatch is found in only four areas of Algeria, and it is possible that the total population does not exceed 1,000 birds. Fire, erosion, and grazing and disturbance by livestock have reduced the quality of the habitat, despite its location in the Taza National Park.
Deforestation has also caused population declines for the vulnerable Yunnan and yellow-billed nuthatches. The Yunnan nuthatch can cope with some tree loss, since it prefers open pine woodland, but although still locally common, it has disappeared from several of the areas in which it was recorded in the early 20th century. The threat to yellow-billed is particularly acute on Hainan, where more than 70% of the woodland has been lost in the past 50 years due to shifting cultivation and the use of wood for fuel during Chinese government re-settlement programmes.
Krüper's nuthatch is threatened by urbanisation and development in and around mature coniferous forests, particularly in the Mediterranean coastal areas where the species was once numerous. A law promoting tourism came into force in Turkey in 2003, further exacerbating the threats to their habitat. The law reduced bureaucracy and made it easier for developers to build tourism facilities and summer houses in the coastal zone where woodland loss is a growing problem for the nuthatch.
|
12,481,557 |
Enthiran
| 1,173,704,301 |
2010 Indian film directed by S. Shankar
|
[
"2010 films",
"2010 science fiction action films",
"2010s Tamil-language films",
"Android (robot) films",
"Enthiran",
"Film controversies in India",
"Films about artificial intelligence",
"Films directed by S. Shankar",
"Films involved in plagiarism controversies",
"Films scored by A. R. Rahman",
"Films set in Chennai",
"Films set in the 2030s",
"Films shot in Chennai",
"Films shot in Himachal Pradesh",
"Films shot in Peru",
"Films that won the Best Special Effects National Film Award",
"Films whose production designer won the Best Production Design National Film Award",
"Indian intellectual property law",
"Indian science fiction action films",
"Sun Pictures films",
"Works subject to a lawsuit"
] |
Enthiran () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language science fiction action film written and directed by Shankar. It is the first instalment in the Enthiran film series. The film stars Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam and Karunas in supporting roles. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman while the dialogues, cinematography, editing and art direction were handled by Madhan Karky, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony and Sabu Cyril respectively. The story revolves around the struggle of a scientist K. Vaseegaran to control his android humanoid robot named Chitti, after Chitti's software is upgraded to give it the ability to comprehend and exhibit human emotions. The project backfires when Chitti falls in love with Vaseegaran's girlfriend, Sana, and is manipulated by Bohra, Vaseegaran's teacher, into becoming homicidal.
After being stalled in the development phase for nearly a decade, the film's principal photography began in 2008 and lasted two years. The film marked the debut of Legacy Effects studio (which was responsible for the film's prosthetic make-up and animatronics) in Indian cinema. Enthiran was released worldwide on 1 October 2010. Produced by Kalanithi Maran, it was India's most expensive film up to that point.
The film received generally positive reviews upon release. Critics were particularly appreciative of Shankar's direction, storyline, Rajinikanth's performance as Chitti, music, action sequences, production values and the visual effects by V. Srinivas Mohan. Enthiran emerged as the highest-grossing Indian film of 2010. It won two National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards, seven Vijay Awards and two Screen Awards. Enthiran was followed by a standalone sequel, 2.0, which released in late 2018.
## Plot
After a decade of research, scientist Vaseegaran invents a sophisticated android humanoid robot, assisted by Siva and Ravi, intending to commission the robot into the Indian Army. He christens the robot as Chitti upon his mother's advice and introduces it in a robotics conference in Chennai. Vaseegaran's girlfriend Sana, a medical student, seeks Chitti's help to prepare for her forthcoming examinations; it helps her cheat in her examinations and later, rescues her from a group of thugs in an electric locomotive. Vaseegaran's teacher, Bohra, is secretly involved in a project to create similar robots for a terrorist organisation, but so far has been unsuccessful. The dealers of the organisation give an advance payment to Bohra but threaten to murder him if he fails to meet his deadline which causes him to seek the details pertaining to Chitti's neural schema intending to program his robots correctly.
Vaseegaran prepares Chitti for an evaluation at the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development (AIRD) institute, where a committee headed by Bohra would test Chitti and approve its commission into the army. During the evaluation, Bohra commands Chitti to stab Vaseegaran and desists it when it is about to do so proving that it is a liability, can be easily manipulated and thus, cannot be commissioned into the army. Later, Vaseegaran deploys Chitti to rescue people trapped in a burning colony to demonstrate that Chitti is capable of saving people. Chitti saves most of them, including a naked girl who was bathing. Out of shame for being filmed by the media, the girl flees and is fatally hit by a truck. Vaseegaran requests Bohra to give him one month's time to modify Chitti's neural schema that could help it manifest emotions. As he sees no progress as the deadline nears, Vaseegaran humiliates Chitti, which becomes angry certifying that it can exhibit emotions.
Chitti, having read Sana's textbooks, helps Sana's pregnant friend Latha undergo a successful delivery which doctors declared as complicated. Consequently, Bohra lets Chitti pass the evaluation but warns Vaseegaran of impending problems. Sana kisses Chitti on its cheek as a gratitude but it ends up developing romantic feelings for her. Later, at Sana's birthday party, Chitti attempts to kiss her while dancing and is confronted by Vaseegaran and Sana, to whom it confesses that it is in love with her. They try to make Chitti understand that it is a machine and its love for Sana is against nature and how it is established. Broken, though convinced, Chitti leaves but Bohra instigates it against Vaseegaran and assures it that it is capable of giving everything to Sana, creating a conflict between Chitti and Vaseegaran. Later, Chitti deliberately fails in another evaluation being conducted by the Indian Army officials by talking off-topic, subsequently resulting in Vaseegaran chopping Chitti into pieces which are dumped into a landfill site.
Intending to retrieve Chitti, Bohra visits the site and takes it to his lab. Reconstructing Chitti with the help of Siva and Ravi, Bohra embeds in it a "red chip" that functions as a destructive program and transforms Chitti into a ruthless robot. When Siva and Ravi ask why he is doing this, Bohra tells them that he is using Chitti to earn money through his business and that he intends to defame Vaseegaran, scaring Siva and Ravi. Meanwhile, Chitti gatecrashes Sana's and Vaseegaran's wedding, abducts the former, injures Vaseegaran and murders several police officers. It then creates replicas of itself using Bohra's droids, intending to create an army, and kills Bohra. Chitti conquers AIRD, making it its residence, and gathers supplies by destroying a number of shops, including jewelry and clothing for Sana and weapons and petrol for the droids. It tells Sana that it intends to marry her and produce a preprogrammed child of a human and a robot through her. Sana repudiates and falls unconscious while Vaseegaran infiltrates AIRD under guise of a droid and engages Sana to manipulate Chitti but the latter sees a drop of blood in Sana's room, which he deduces to be of Vaseegaran, finds him among the droids and attempts to kill him but police commandos intervene. A battle ensues between Chitti's army and the government personnel resulting in multiple casualties and property destruction. Vaseegaran apprehends Chitti using a magnetic wall and accesses its internal control panel and instructs the other droids to self-destruct. He later terminates the red chip, successfully converting it into its previous form.
In a court hearing, Vaseegaran is sentenced to death for the casualties and destruction, but Chitti explains that Bohra was the culprit, demonstrating a recording of Bohra installing the chip into it. The court accepts the video as evidence and drops all charges on Vaseegaran, but orders Chitti to be dismantled. Left with no option, Vaseegaran instructs Chitti to dismantle itself in his lab. Chitti apologises to Vaseegaran and Sana for all the trouble and dismantles itself.
Several years later, in 2030, Chitti is being exhibited in a museum and fascinates a child, who is on her school trip and asks her guide why it was dismantled. Chitti replies, "Naan sinthikka arambichen" (I started thinking).
## Cast
- Rajinikanth in a dual role as K. Vaseegaran and Chitti
- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Sana (Voice dubbed by Savitha Reddy)
- Danny Denzongpa as Professor Bohra
- Santhanam as Siva
- Karunas as Ravi
- Cochin Haneefa as the traffic police officer
- Kalabhavan Mani as Pachaimuthu
- Delhi Kumar as Vaseegaran's father
- Raaghav as the neighbourhood bully
- Devadarshini as Latha
- Revathi Sankaran as Vaseegaran's mother
- Sabu Cyril as Shah
- Sai Dheena as a thug
- Sugunthan as the police inspector
- Shriya Sharma as the curious student
- Chaams as one of the barbers working at The Park Hotel
- Devadas Kanakala as K. Bhajanlal, a customer at The Park Hotel
## Production
### Development
In 1996, following the release of Indian, S. Shankar approached and pitched three storylines to Rajinikanth to consider for his next venture. This included scripts which would later become Sivaji: The Boss (2007), Enthiran (2010) and I (2015). Rajinikanth was sceptical and refused all three scripts at the time. Following the completion of his first directorial venture in Hindi, Nayak (2001), Shankar announced his next project, Robot, which was to feature Kamal Haasan and Preity Zinta. The film was to be produced by the now-defunct company Media Dreams, a division of Pentamedia Graphics. The film was reported to be a futuristic techno-thriller set in Chennai in around 2200 or 3000. Despite the completion of a photoshoot featuring Haasan and Zinta, the project was shelved as a result of scheduling conflicts with Haasan. Shankar consequently started work on Boys (2003).
After Boys, Shankar began work on his next feature starring Vikram, which was initially reported by Rediff.com to be Robot revived, but was later revealed as Anniyan (2005). One month post the release of Sivaji: The Boss in June 2007, he approached Shah Rukh Khan for the lead in Robot. Shankar had cast Priyanka Chopra in the lead opposite him. Khan was about to produce it under his own banner, Red Chillies Entertainment, but in October the same year the project was officially aborted due to creative differences between him and Shankar.
The project was revived in January 2008 with Eros International and the London-based production company Ayngaran International willing to produce the film. The state government of Tamil Nadu granted tax exemptions for films titled in Tamil, resulting in the new production being renamed Enthiran. While Sujatha was originally assigned to write the dialogue for the film, Madhan Karky took over after Sujatha's death in February 2008. In December 2008, Eros International withdrew from funding the project after financial difficulties caused by the box-office failure of Drona (2008) and Yuvvraaj (2008), with the subsequent departure of Ayngaran International, which struggled with the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The film's production and release rights were sold to Sun Pictures.
### Cast and crew
In January 2008, Rajinikanth accepted the lead role in the film for a salary of ₹450 million (Indian rupees). Shankar rewrote the original script to suit Rajinikanth's acting style. Although Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was Shankar's original choice for the female lead in 2001, she declined it owing to a busy schedule and was replaced by Zinta. When Shankar revived the project with Rajinikanth, contenders for the part included Deepika Padukone, Shriya Saran and Rai, who was ultimately selected and paid ₹60 million. Rai's voice was dubbed by Savitha Reddy.
Several actors were considered for the role of Professor Bohra, including Amitabh Bachchan, J. D. Chakravarthy, Sathyaraj and British actor Ben Kingsley, but it was Danny Denzongpa who eventually received it, making Enthiran his first film in Tamil. Dubbing for Denzongpa was provided by Kadhir. Comedians Santhanam and Karunas were cast to portray Vaseegaran's assistants Siva and Ravi respectively.
The soundtrack album and background score were composed by A. R. Rahman. Vairamuthu, Pa. Vijay and Madhan Karky authored the lyrics for the songs. Manoj Bharathiraja, son of filmmaker Bharathiraja, was signed on to be an assistant director after he approached Shankar. Also working as assistant directors were Atlee, Shree and Karthik G. Krish. Sabu Cyril, in addition to being the film's art director, made a guest appearance as Shah, an interpreter between Bohra and the terrorist organisation.
R. Rathnavelu was hired as the cinematographer after Ravi K. Chandran, Nirav Shah and Tirru were considered. Anthony was the film's editor. Yuen Woo-ping, known for his work in The Matrix trilogy and the Kill Bill films, was selected to be the stunt co-ordinator, while Legacy Effects, a visual effects studio based in the United States, were in charge of the prosthetic make-up and animatronics in the film. Munich-based film technical company, Panther, were responsible for the crane shots. The film's subtitle captioning was done by Rekha Haricharan.
### Costume design
Manish Malhotra and Mary E. Vogt were chosen to design the film's costumes. Fifty-seven costumes were used for Rai, including a "Mexican tribal" look that she sported during the filming of the "Kilimanjaro" segment. According to make-up artist Banu, no prosthetics were used for Rajinikanth to avoid bothering him by withholding his time on set. Additional make-up was by Vance Hartwell, an employee of Legacy Effects.
The visual appearance of Chitti was based on the G.I. Joe action figures. For Chitti's "villain robot" look, its hair was spiked and brown coloured lenses were used for its eyes, whereas for its "good robot" look, green coloured lenses were used. The wig used for Chitti's "villain robot" look had a silver streak in the middle, made out of Yak hair, while its leather jacket was designed by Vogt. To make Vaseegaran look mature, the team made Rajinikanth sport an Oakley beard. Suits made of copper were used for Chitti's costumes.
### Principal photography
For Sabu Cyril's sets, Shankar required approximately twice as much studio floor space as for his previous film. After rejecting Ramoji Film City for technical reasons, Enthiran's producer, Kalanithi Maran, took six months to set up three air-conditioned studio floors on land in Perungudi owned by Sun TV Network. Filming began on 15 February 2008 at AVM Studios in Chennai. After the initial stages of filming, Shankar and Rathnavelu toured the world for three weeks, scouting for exotic filming locations. They visited Austria, Germany, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, looking for a backdrop to shoot the "Kilimanjaro" and "Kadhal Anukkal" segments, eventually deciding on Peru and Brazil. "Kilimanjaro" was filmed at the ruins of the Incan city of Machu Picchu in Peru, with some 100 Brazilian extras. It was choreographed by Raju Sundaram and supervised by Fernando Astete, director of the Machu Picchu archaeological park. "Kadhal Anukkal" was filmed in Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in northeastern Brazil.
The filming for Chitti's introduction to the international robotics conference was completed in December 2008 at Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering and Vellore Institute of Technology, where more than 400 students were used as extras. Further footage was shot over five days at the Ennore Port on the Mitsui O.S.K. Lines car carrier, Neptune Ace. An action sequence where Chitti saves Sana from thugs was filmed in Lonavla, under the supervision of the action choreographer Peter Hein. Scenes featuring Rajinikanth as Chitti were captured over five days at the Perungudi Dump Yard in Chennai. Sabu Cyril told Uma Kannan of The New Indian Express that the sets for the climax sequence, which was filmed at Mayajaal, consisted of a tar road and glass buildings which rose to 65 feet (20 m), and that aluminium composite panels, reported to have cost ₹50 million, were also used to design the sets.
The set for "Arima Arima", a sequence choreographed by Prabhu Deva, was designed and constructed by Cyril at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. Filming of the number took place over 22 days in April 2009. Junior artists were employed by Rathnavelu to wear masks of Rajinikanth. For the sequence entitled "Irumbile Oru Irudhaiyam", choreographed by Remo D'Souza and featuring Rai and Rajinikanth as Chitti, three different sets were used: one of copper, one of gold and one in silver. The musical number, which was filmed in AVM Studios for eight days, was the last portion of the film's principal photography. D'Souza incorporated the popping style of street dances, but encountered difficulties in performing the dance movements in tandem with the robot, and with the restrictions created by the rigid costumes. Principal photography ended on 7 July 2010.
### Visual effects
Impressed with the film's script, V. Srinivas Mohan became the visual effects supervisor in December 2007. He asked Shankar to increase the filming schedules by six months to include pre-production requirements. Both Mohan and Shankar visited several visual effects companies, including the New Zealand-based Weta Digital and the United States-based Industrial Light & Magic, Cafe FX and Tippett Studio before partnering with Legacy Effects. The original Eros-Ayngaran visual effects budget was ₹700 million, but after Sun Pictures took over production, it was significantly reduced to ₹200 million. As a result, the visual effects team had to omit and alter some sequences, making Chitti wear sunglasses for most of the film to reduce the cost and difficulty of animating his eyes.
After a series of previsualisation tests, including a scene in which Chitti jumps on a train to save Sana, Mohan eventually decided to use the technique in 40 out of the 60 visual effects scenes featured in the film, consisting of 2,000 takes. Further previsualisation supervision was conducted by P. C. Sanath of Firefly Creative Studios, a visual effects company based in Hyderabad. 3D storyboards were constructed using 3D animation programs for every scene in the film and were shot from different angles. In an interview with Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu, Mohan said all the pre-production work took one-and-a-half years to complete.
Rathnavelu used the 435 Xtreme camera and also wrote a 1,600-page manual, in which he listed all the possible angles from where he could film the characters Rajinikanth played. Legacy Effects and the Hong Kong-based visual effects companies Kinomotive Studios and Menfond Electronics took responsibility for the film's CGI work. To create the robots with Rajinikanth's appearance, a complete scan of his face in 3D digital format in all possible lighting conditions was conducted using the Doom Light Stage, so that his face could be replicated on the mannequins. The technique, according to Shankar, was previously used in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). The robot Chitti featured in the film was a mannequin made by a Legacy Effects team of 100 technicians in Los Angeles. For every robotic mannequin used, six puppeteers were employed to control the mannequin's movements.
## Themes and influences
Enthiran focuses on the battle between man and machine. Despite Shankar's claim that Enthiran was a purely original idea, it has been compared to Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, owing to the similar personae of Chitti and Frankenstein's monster, both of whom turn against their respective creators. K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake, in their book Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas, noted the similarity between the two works, arguing that Chitti was "manipulated by Bohra to become a Frankenstein-like figure". Writing for The A.V. Club, Genevieve Koski observed, "The plot of Enthiran is essentially Frankenstein via [Isaac] Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics."
Director and film critic Sudhish Kamath called Enthiran "a superhero film, a sci-fi adventure, a triangular love story with a hint of the Ramayana", while remarking that Enthiran's similarities to The Terminator (1984) were "more than obvious. Not just visually—where we see the Superstar with one human eye and one scarred metallic eye but also intentionally spelt out when the bad robot announces that he has created Terminators." Kamath compared two of the film's robots to C-3PO and R2-D2, droids from the Star Wars film series, which was referenced in Enthiran when Vaseegaran refers to one of his creations as "R2". The film was noted to have similarities with the 2002 Kannada film Hollywood which had its lead actor playing three roles – one of which was a scientist and another was a humanoid robot invented by that scientist which falls in love with the girlfriend of his creator.
Although Shankar initially claimed that Enthiran would be made for all audiences, including those lacking computer literacy, the film is influenced by and makes references to many scientific principles relating to the fields of engineering, computer science and robotics, including terabytes and Asimov's laws of robotics. Visual references are made to the science books A Briefer History of Time (2005) and Freakonomics (2005). In his book Visual Perception and Cultural Memory: Typecast and Typecast(e)ing in Malayalam Cinema, Sujith Kumar Parayil notes the similarities between Kalabhavan Mani's role in the film to the one Mani played in the Malayalam film Sallapam (1996).
## Music
For Enthiran's soundtrack and score, A. R. Rahman made use of the Continuum Fingerboard, an instrument he had experimented with previously in the song "Rehna Tu" from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's drama film Delhi-6 (2009). The film also marked the debut of Rahman's daughter Khatija as a playback singer.
The soundtrack album to Enthiran was released on 31 July 2010 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The original Tamil and dubbed Telugu versions were released by Think Music, while the dubbed Hindi version was released by Venus Music. Think Music purchased the release rights of the original Tamil and dubbed Telugu versions of the album for ₹70 million. The album of the film's dubbed Telugu version, Robo, was released on 6 August 2010, while its dubbed Hindi version, Robot, was released on 14 August 2010. After the second day of release, the album's original Tamil version reached the number one position in the Top 10 World Albums chart on iTunes, making it the first Tamil album to do so.
The Tamil album was officially released on 31 July 2010, which coincided with a promotional event held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Co-hosted by Vivek and Punnagai Poo Gheetha, the event was attended by most of the film's cast and crew members, including Kalanithi Maran, S. Shankar, Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, A. R. Rahman, Santhanam, Karunas, Vairamuthu, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony, Sabu Cyril, and Yogi B. Other invited guests were Dayanidhi Maran, Radha Ravi, Vadivelu, Shriya Saran, Jayam Ravi, Ramya Krishnan, S. A. Chandrasekhar, Aishwarya and Soundarya Rajinikanth, Krish, and Sangeetha Arvind. Furthermore, Silambarasan, Vijayalakshmi, and Poorna were part of stage performances. The release event of the Telugu version, titled Robo, was held in Hyderabad on 6 August 2010, which was attended by Chiranjeevi, D. Ramanaidu, Mohan Babu, Srinu Vaitla, Kajal Aggarwal, and Kamna Jethmalani. The Hindi version, titled Robot, was released by Venus on 14 August 2010, in a function held in Mumbai. The event was attended by Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, along with the crew of the film.
## Release
Enthiran was released on 1 October 2010. The film was dubbed and released in Hindi as Robot and in Telugu as Robo and later in Kannada as Bombat Robo. The film was released in 2,250 theatres worldwide, including 500 theatres in Tamil Nadu, 350 theatres in Andhra Pradesh, 128 theatres in Kerala, 23 theatres in Karnataka, and 750 theatres in North India. With an estimated budget of ₹1.32—1.62 billion, Enthiran was India's most expensive film up to that point, surpassing the Hindi film Blue (2009), which was filmed on a budget of ₹750 million.
Enthiran became the first Tamil film to be released at the Colosseum kino, a Norwegian theatre complex in Oslo, and it was screened at the 21st Bath Film Festival, held in the United Kingdom in 2011. Additionally, a version of the film, edited to a running length of two hours, was released in Japan in May 2012, and later screened at the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival, where it won a special award under the section "Winds of Asia–Middle East". By public demand, the original, unedited version was later released in that country.
### Marketing and distribution
The first poster for Enthiran was released on 8 September 2008. The film's trailer was released on 11 September 2010, at the Sathyam Cinemas theatre complex in Chennai. To promote Enthiran, AGS Entertainment organised a festival from 25 September 2010 until its release date, in which they screened popular films of Rajinikanth at the company's theatre in Villivakkam. In Coimbatore, the Department of Posts printed 100,000 post cards advertising the film. Sun Pictures invested a total of ₹500 million on promotional activities.
Advance bookings for the film began two weeks before the release date in the United States. In the Jackson Heights neighbourhood in New York, tickets were sold out within ten minutes of going on sale. In Kerala the distribution rights were sold for ₹50 million, while in Karnataka they were sold for ₹100 million. The distribution rights in Mumbai were sold to Shringar Films. In the United Kingdom, Enthiran was released by Ayngaran International, while Robot was released by B4U Network. DVD marketing in India was handled by Moser Baer; Ayngaran International released the two-DVD set of the film in early 2011.
### Plagiarism allegations
The novelist Aarur Thamizhnadan made a complaint with the Chennai Metropolitan Police against the filmmakers in November 2010, stating that the producers plagiarised his 1996 novel Jugiba. Thamizhnadan demanded ₹10 million from the director and producers for damages and filed a case against Kalanithi Maran. In June 2011, the Madras High Court dismissed the case after a petition filed by Maran denying the allegation was approved. The case was dismissed by courts in 2023.
## Reception
### Box office
The daily newspaper Business Line reported that Enthiran grossed ₹580 million from all versions in the opening weekend, and The Economic Times stated it netted ₹1.17 billion by the end of its opening week. According to a February 2015 report by Hindustan Times, the film has grossed ₹2.56 billion worldwide in its lifetime. Indo-Asian News Service stated in July 2015 that the film grossed ₹2.90 billion from both its original and its dubbed versions. Enthiran became the top-earning Indian film of 2010 ahead of My Name Is Khan and Dabangg and became the highest-grossing Tamil film at that point. It is currently one of the highest-grossing Tamil films worldwide.
Box Office India estimated that Enthiran netted ₹1.95 billion across India with the Tamil version netting ₹1.20 billion, the Telugu version netting ₹530 million and the Hindi version netting ₹220 million. The website estimated the overseas earnings of the film (including its dubbed versions) at approximately \$12 million as of November 2010 with the Tamil version grossing \$11 million and the remaining \$1 million coming in from the Telugu and Hindi versions. Enthiran collected ₹1.05 billion in Tamil Nadu alone, a record it held for seven years before being surpassed by Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), which grossed ₹1.526 billion.
In Japan, the film grossed \$407,438, including \$370,697 for the Hindi version and \$36,741 for the Tamil version.
### Critical response
Enthiran has received a rating of 67% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on twelve reviews, with a rating of 5.6/10.
#### India
Enthiran received positive reviews from critics in India, with praise particularly directed at Rathnavelu's cinematography, Cyril's art direction, Srinivas Mohan's visual effects and Rajinikanth's performance as Chitti. Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis gave the film a rating of four out of five stars and believed it had the "best special effects ever seen in a Tamil film" and that it was "one of the most entertaining Tamil films—across all languages—ever made." Both Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India and Kaveree Bamzai of India Today rated the film four out of five stars. Kazmi called it "the perfect getaway film". Bamzai praised Rajinikanth's acting in the film and said, "Rajni tells us why robot sapiens are superior to homo sapiens".
Both Anupama Chopra of NDTV and Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com gave Enthiran a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of five. Chopra criticised the film's portions in the second half, describing them as "needlessly stretched and cacophonous", but concluded her review by saying, "Robot rides on Rajinikanth's shoulders and he never stoops under the burden. Aided by snazzy clothes, make-up and special effects, he makes Chitti endearing." Srinivasan, however, said that Shankar "strikes the balance between science fiction and masala quotient." She concluded that, "Whichever way you look at it, Endhiran [sic] is one of those rare films that give you just enough material to pull you in, and enjoy yourself." Rajeev Masand of News18 gave a rating of three out of five stars and said, "In the end, it's the fantastic special effects and an inspired performance from Rajnikant [sic] that keeps the film fresh."
Mayank Shekhar, writing for Hindustan Times, rated it three stars and said, "Leave aside jokes running on the Internet. This film, just a few feet too long, is fine entertainment by itself." Malini Mannath of The New Indian Express noted Enthiran for having "An engaging script, brilliant special effects, and a debonair hero who still carries his charisma effortlessly." Karthik Subramanian of The Hindu observed that actors "tend to get lost in special effects movies." He believed it was not the case in Enthiran: "Rajinikanth and [Aishwarya Rai] carry the movie on their shoulders, and considering the fact that much of the acting must have been in front of green screens, one has to say that nothing looks artificial right through." In contrast, Gautaman Bhaskaran of Hindustan Times rated it two out of five stars, writing that "Shankar's work slips into a loud, overdramatic and exaggerated mess".
#### International
Lisa Tsering from The Hollywood Reporter said, "Rajinikanth is such a badass that Chuck Norris is afraid of him." She praised the filming locations, especially the "Kilimanjaro" song sequence, but criticised the length of the film's climax portions. Genevieve Koski from The A. V. Club believed that Enthiran was "pretty good" and concluded that "if you prefer elaborate costumes and dance music mixed in with your killer-robot action, expect to enjoy up to an hour of Enthiran." Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle called Enthiran "the best apocalyptic sci-fi-romcom-melodrama-dance-off date movie of the year."
Roger Moore, writing for the Orlando Sentinel, gave a mixed review, evaluating it as a "melodramatic kitschy Indian musical about a robot built for national defense but who discovers his human side." Following the film's screening at the Mumbai International Film Festival, American film director Oliver Stone praised Enthiran's originality. Conversely, Joe Leydon of Variety believed that Shankar "riffs on everything" from Frankenstein to The Terminator, but suggested that the film was an "overwhelming mash-up of American-style, f/x-driven sci-fi spectacle and a Bollywood musical."
### Accolades
At the 58th National Film Awards, Enthiran won for Best Special Effects and Best Production Design. It won in three categories at the 58th Filmfare Awards South for Best Cinematographer, Best Art Director and Best Costume Design. At the 5th Vijay Awards, it was nominated in fourteen categories and won in seven, including Best Villain and Favourite Hero for Rajinikanth, Favourite Film and Favourite Director. At the 17th Screen Awards, the film won awards under the Best Special Effects and Spectacular Cutting Edge Technology categories. However, the film missed out on being the official Indian submission for the Academy Awards since the jury noted out that it had sequences lifted from four American films.
## Legacy
In a personal appreciation letter to Shankar following the film's release, the director K. Balachander described Shankar as India's James Cameron, Enthiran as India's Avatar (2009) and Sun Pictures as India's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Enthiran was the only Tamil film featured on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) list of the 50 best films of 2010. The film was also included as a case study in a postgraduate elective course of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, "Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective".
Scenes from Enthiran, particularly one known as the "Black Sheep" scene, have been parodied in subsequent films, including Mankatha (2011), Osthe (2011), Singam II (2013), Ya Ya (2013), I (2015) with the same director, as well as in the Telugu films Dookudu (2011) and Nuvva Nena (2011). In the film, Chitti often introduces himself by stating the clock rate of his central processing unit, which is 1 terahertz (10<sup>12</sup> hertz), and his random-access memory limit, which is 1 zettabyte (10<sup>21</sup> bytes). This introduction dialogue, which is spoken by Chitti as "Hi, I'm Chitti, speed 1 terahertz, memory 1 zettabyte" became popular. Rajinikanth featured in a cameo role as Chitti in the science-fiction film Ra.One (2011).
On Rajinikanth's 64th birthday, an agency named Minimal Kollywood Posters designed posters of Rajinikanth's films, in which the Minion characters from the Despicable Me franchise are dressed as Rajinikanth. The digital art was hand drawn on a digital pad by Gautham Raj. One of the posters depicted a mutated Minion, reminiscent of Chitti's "villain robot" look in Enthiran. In March 2015, Kamath, in his review of the science fiction film Chappie, compared its eponymous lead character to Chitti in terms of learning human emotions. While promoting Avengers: Endgame in India director Joe Russo, said that the sequence in Enthiran where numerous clones of Chitti come together to form a giant python inspired a similar scene in Avengers: Infinity War's predecessor Age of Ultron (2015) where the titular antagonist, Ultron and his clones come together to form a gigantic version of himself, but that the scene was cut from the final version of the film to accommodate its runtime.
## Standalone sequel
In September 2015, writer B. Jeyamohan announced that the pre-production stage of a standalone sequel to Enthiran was "going on in full swing" and that principal photography would commence once Rajinikanth finished filming for Kabali, by the end of that year. Nirav Shah would be the cinematographer and A. R. Rahman would return as music director, while Muthuraj would handle the art direction. The sequel would be shot in 3D, unlike its predecessor which was shot in 2D and converted to 3D in post-production. Titled 2.0, the film entered production in December 2015 and was released worldwide on 29 November 2018 in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi languages. Rajinikanth reprised his roles as Vaseegaran and Chitti, with the additional cast played by Akshay Kumar and Amy Jackson.
## See also
- En Iniya Iyanthira
- Meendum Jeano
- Science fiction films in India
|
63,444,083 |
1940 Mandatory Palestine v Lebanon football match
| 1,163,084,483 |
International association football match
|
[
"1939–40 in Lebanese football",
"1939–40 in Mandatory Palestine football",
"1940 in association football",
"1940s in Tel Aviv",
"April 1940 sports events",
"International association football matches",
"Israel national football team matches",
"Lebanon national football team matches"
] |
The 1940 association football match between the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon was the latter's first official international match, and the former's last before they became the Israel national team after 1948. The match took place on 27 April 1940 at the Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv. Officiated by John Blackwell of the British Army, the game was watched by 10,000 spectators and ended in a 5–1 victory for the home side.
Mandatory Palestine scored in the second minute of the game, doubling their lead 10 minutes later with a penalty kick. Two more goals by the home side meant the first half ended 4–0. Mandatory Palestine's forced substitution at half-time due to injury hampered their control of the game and in the fifth minute of the second half, Lebanese forward Camille Cordahi scored to become Lebanon's first official international goalscorer. Werner Kaspi scored his second goal of the game in the 60th minute, with the match ending 5–1.
Lebanon's next official games were all friendlies against Syria, one in 1942 and two in 1947. In 1948 the Mandatory Palestine national team formally became the Israel national team, with the establishment of the State of Israel. They played their next official game in a friendly against Cyprus in 1949. Out of Lebanon's 11 players, six went on to play at least one more international game. Shalom Shalomzon was the only Mandatory Palestine player to make another international appearance.
## Background
During the 1930s, Lebanon was a regular destination for friendly tours by football clubs in Mandatory Palestine. Teams such as Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Petah Tikva, and Maccabi Haifa regularly played teams from Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon. At the end of 1939, Lebanese Football Association (LFA) chairman Jamil Sawaya visited family in Jerusalem and Jaffa. Sawaya had friendly relations with several presidents of Palestinian football clubs, especially with the president of the Palestine Football Association (PFA). During his visit to Jerusalem, Sawaya met with the PFA president where they arranged a friendly match between the national teams of Lebanon and Mandatory Palestine in Tel Aviv.
Plans were announced in late March 1940 for a four-team football tournament with the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon, and teams from the British Army in Palestine and the French Army in Lebanon. However, with the two armies put on alert in mid-April in anticipation of the Battle of France, the tournament was called off and only the match between Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon went ahead.
The game was set for 27 April 1940 at the Maccabiah Stadium, located on the banks of the Yarkon River estuary in Tel Aviv. On the eve of the game, the Mandatory Palestine players, mostly Jewish, were invited to tea and cake at a café on Rothschild Boulevard. They were told that each player had to go to the locker room at the stadium on their own. The players did not train for the game and, in the small dressing room, 14 received the light-blue-and-white kit.
Arthur Baar, an Austrian football coach, was in charge of selecting the Mandatory Palestine team, sending out the call-ups to the players. Baar became the de facto coach as Egon Pollak, the team's coach at that point, was spending time in Australia. On the day of the match, Baar invited Armin Weiss, Maccabi Tel Aviv's coach, to serve as the acting coach of the game. Weiss accepted the task, giving the Palestinian players a pre-match talk, and instructing them from the sidelines during the match.
## Match
The match was Lebanon's first official international game, and proved to be Mandatory Palestine's last. Mandatory Palestine had previously played and lost four official games, all FIFA World Cup qualifiers (two in 1934 and two in 1938). Lebanon, on the other hand, had only played a few unofficial games prior, against clubs from Romania (CA Timișoara and Unirea Tricolor București) and Austria (Admira Vienna). The stadium was decorated with the flags of both nations, and around 10,000 spectators came to watch, many of whom were British. The referee was John Blackwell of the British Army.
### Summary
In the first half, Mandatory Palestine played against the wind. In the second minute of the game, Mandatory Palestine right winger Herbert Meitner scored against Lebanese goalkeeper Nazem Sayad. This was followed by a penalty kick by Avraham Schneiderovitz in the 11th minute, doubling the advantage for the home side. Although the Lebanese team began to respond offensively, they failed to score against goalkeeper Binyamin Mizrahi, who made several saves. Mizrahi was especially cheered by the crowd for his two saves in the 18th and 23rd minute. Mandatory Palestine regained control of the game later in the first half and in the 31st minute Gaul Machlis scored Mandatory Palestine's third goal. He was assisted from the left wing and ran around the defence to score into an empty goal. In the 40th minute Werner Kaspi, the Mandatory Palestine captain, scored a solo effort, with the first half ending 4–0. Mizrahi saved eight shots from Lebanon in the first half, several drawing "wonder from the crowd", whereas goalkeeper Sayad was described as having "had much work".
The second half was more balanced; Lebanon played against the wind. Mandatory Palestine centre-half Zvi Fuchs was replaced at halftime by left-back Lonia Dvorin following an injury, and left-back Yaacov Breir moved up to centre-half. The change hindered Mandatory Palestine's control of the game. Lebanese forward Camille Cordahi scored against Mizrahi in the 50th minute, with Muhieddine Jaroudi providing the assist; Cordahi was Lebanon's first official international goalscorer. A few moments after the goal, Jaroudi crossed the ball to the center, with Mizrahi getting low and comfortably collecting the ball. Lebanon tried to attack twice more, before the offensive momentum passed to Palestine. In the 60th minute Kaspi scored his second goal of the game. After the goal, the Lebanese coach asked Mandatory Palestine coach Arthur Baar to go easy. Baar later stated that the Lebanese coach had sought to maintain good relations between the two countries, and asked not to defeat them in a harsh manner. The home side began to pass the ball back and forth, and won by a final score of 5–1.
The match was Lebanon's first international, and their first defeat. Mandatory Palestine's win was their first (and only) in a match before they became the Israel national team after 1948.
### Details
## Post-match
The Palestine Post described the match as "rather one-sided" and stated it had not lived up to expectations, with the home side both physically and technically superior. In general, it wrote, the Mandatory Palestine team played efficiently throughout the whole game; exceptions being the two full-backs (Shalomzon and Dvorin), who were not deemed up to par in the second half. Despite the scoreline, Mandatory Palestine goalkeeper Mizrahi had been kept busy. With his two goals, captain Werner Kaspi became the first player of the Israel national team (Mandatory Palestine's successor) to score a brace. Following the game, commentators expressed surprise regarding coach Arthur Baar's decision to exclude Peri Neufeld from the match, given that he was one of "Palestine's most prominent players at the time".
Although the Palestinian forwards scored five goals between them, Lebanese goalkeeper Sayad made many saves, several "brilliantly", and played very well; "[t]he goals that did get past him would have beaten any custodian", the Post wrote. HaBoker added: "The Lebanese goalkeeper doesn't bear any responsibility for the five goals and he's not to blame for them". Lebanon's front line was their "weakest link", the Post continued, with centre-forward Cordahi and outside-right Jaroudi being the only two "up to international standard". Although Lebanon's midfield was not "very effective", their back line played particularly well, especially Yeghishe Darian at right-back.
After the game, Palestinian fans enthusiastically waited outside the locker room to greet the players. The last two players to come out of the stadium were Dvorin, who supported his injured teammate Fuchs. Both walked to the Hadassah Hospital for Fuchs to receive treatment. The two coaches agreed for another friendly match, to be held in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1941. However, the match never came to fruition.
Lebanon's next official matches were all friendlies against Syria—one in 1942 and two in 1947—losing all three games. Israel did not play their first official match under their new identity until 1949, in a friendly against Cyprus, although they played an unofficial match against the United States Olympic team in 1948.
Regarding Palestine's 12 players involved, the match was the only appearance for eight (Mizrahi, Breir, Fuchs, Meitner, Erlich, Kaspi, Schneiderovitz, Dvorin), and the last cap for three (Friedmann, Reich, Machlis). Shalomzon, who debuted in the game, would become the only player of the match to go on to make an appearance for the Israel national team—albeit unofficial—playing in the 1948 friendly against the United States. As for the two unused substitutes, Neufeld's only two international caps were in the 1938 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, where he scored once, whereas Asi Asher would ultimately never be capped at international level, neither for Mandatory Palestine nor for Israel.
The game was the only cap for five of Lebanon's eleven players (Sayad, Guiragos, Barbir, Nercesse, Ourfalian). Three players went on to play another game against Syria: Sakr and Falah on 19 April 1942, and Darian on 4 May 1947. The remaining three players played two more friendlies, all against Syria: Cordahi on 19 April 1942 and 4 May 1947, Jaroudi on 19 April 1942 and 18 May 1947, and Ajemian on 4 May 1947 and 18 May 1947.
## See also
- List of first association football internationals per country: 1940–1962
- Lebanon national football team results
- Israel–Lebanon relations
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Taiko
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Taiko (太鼓) are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term taiko refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble taiko drumming more specifically called . The process of constructing taiko varies between manufacturers, and the preparation of both the drum body and skin can take several years depending on the method.
Taiko have a mythological origin in Japanese folklore, but historical records suggest that taiko were introduced to Japan through Chinese and Korean cultural influence as early as the 6th century CE; pottery from the Haniwa period depicting taiko drums has also been found. Some taiko are similar to instruments originating from India. Archaeological evidence also supports the view that taiko were present in Japan during the 6th century in the Kofun period. Their function has varied throughout history, ranging from communication, military action, theatrical accompaniment, religious ceremony and concert performances. In modern times, taiko have also played a central role in social movements for minorities both within and outside Japan.
Kumi-daiko performance, characterized by an ensemble playing on different drums, was developed in 1951 through the work of Daihachi Oguchi and later in 1961 by the Ondekoza, and taiko was made later popular with many other groups copying the format of Ondekoza such as Kodo, Yamato, Tao, Taikoza, Fuun No Kai, Sukeroku Taiko, etc. Other performance styles, such as hachijō-daiko, have also emerged from specific communities in Japan. Kumi-daiko performance groups are active not only in Japan, but also in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Taiwan, and Brazil. Taiko performance consists of many components in technical rhythm, form, stick grip, clothing, and the particular instrumentation. Ensembles typically use different types of barrel-shaped nagadō-daiko as well as smaller shime-daiko. Many groups accompany the drums with vocals, strings, and woodwind instruments.
## History
### Origin
The origin of the taiko and its variants is unclear, though there have been many suggestions. Historical accounts, of which the earliest date from 588 CE, note that young Japanese men traveled to Korea to study the kakko, a drum that originated in South China. This study and appropriation of Chinese instruments may have influenced the emergence of taiko. Certain court music styles, especially gigaku and gagaku, arrived in Japan through both China and Korea. In both traditions, dancers were accompanied by several instruments that included drums similar to taiko. Certain percussive patterns and terminology in togaku, an early dance and music style in Japan, in addition to physical features of the kakko, also reflect influence from both China and India on drum use in gagaku performance.
Archaeological evidence shows that taiko were used in Japan as early as the 6th century CE, during the latter part of the Kofun period, and were likely used for communication, in festivals, and in other rituals. This evidence was substantiated by the discovery of haniwa statues in the Sawa District of Gunma Prefecture. Two of these figures are depicted playing drums; one of them, wearing skins, is equipped with a barrel-shaped drum hung from his shoulder and uses a stick to play the drum at hip height. This statue is titled "Man Beating the Taiko" and is considered the oldest evidence of taiko performance in Japan. Similarities between the playing style demonstrated by this haniwa and known music traditions in China and Korea further suggest influences from these regions.
The Nihon Shoki, the second-oldest book of Japanese classical history, contains a mythological story describing the origin of taiko. The myth tells how Amaterasu, who had sealed herself inside a cave in anger, was beckoned out by an elder goddess Ame-no-Uzume when others had failed. Ame-no-Uzume accomplished this by emptying out a barrel of sake and dancing furiously on top of it. Historians regard her performance as the mythological creation of taiko music.
### Use in warfare
In feudal Japan, taiko were often used to motivate troops, call out orders or announcements, and set a marching pace; marches were usually set to six paces per beat of the drum. During the 16th-century Warring States period, specific drum calls were used to communicate orders for retreating and advancing. Other rhythms and techniques were detailed in period texts. According to the war chronicle Gunji Yoshū, nine sets of five beats would summon an ally to battle, while nine sets of three beats, sped up three or four times, was the call to advance and pursue an enemy. Folklore from the 16th century on the legendary 6th-century Emperor Keitai offers a story that he obtained a large drum from China, which he named . The Emperor was thought to have used it to both encourage his own army and intimidate his enemies.
### In traditional settings
Taiko have been incorporated in Japanese theatre for rhythmic needs, general atmosphere, and in certain settings decoration. In the kabuki play The Tale of Shiroishi and the Taihei Chronicles, scenes in the pleasure quarters are accompanied by taiko to create dramatic tension. Noh theatre also features taiko music, where performance consists of highly specific rhythmic patterns. The Konparu (金春流) school of drumming, for example, contains 65 basic patterns in addition to 25 special patterns; these patterns are categorized in several classes. Differences between these patterns include changes in tempo, accent, dynamics, pitch, and function in the theatrical performance. Patterns are also often connected together in progressions.
Taiko continue to be used in gagaku, a classical music tradition typically performed at the Tokyo Imperial Palace in addition to local temples and shrines. In gagaku, one component of the art form is traditional dance, which is guided in part by the rhythm set by the taiko.
Taiko have played an important role in many local festivals across Japan. They are also used to accompany religious ritual music. In kagura, a category of music and dances stemming from Shinto practices, taiko frequently appear alongside other performers during local festivals. In Buddhist traditions, taiko are used for ritual dances as part of the Bon Festival. Taiko, along with other instruments, are featured atop towers that are adorned with red-and-white cloth and serve to provide rhythms for the dancers who are encircled around the performers.
### Kumi-daiko
In addition to the instruments, the term taiko also refers to the performance itself, and commonly to one style called kumi-daiko, or ensemble-style playing (as opposed to festival performances, rituals, or theatrical use of the drums). Kumi-daiko was developed by Daihachi Oguchi in 1951. He is considered a master performer and helped transform taiko performance from its roots in traditional settings in festivals and shrines. Oguchi was trained as a jazz musician in Nagano, and at one point, a relative gave him an old piece of written taiko music. Unable to read the traditional and esoteric notation, Oguchi found help to transcribe the piece, and on his own added rhythms and transformed the work to accommodate multiple taiko players on different-sized instruments. Each instrument served a specific purpose that established present-day conventions in kumi-daiko performance.
Oguchi's ensemble, Osuwa Daiko, incorporated these alterations and other drums into their performances. They also devised novel pieces that were intended for non-religious performances. Several other groups emerged in Japan through the 1950s and 1960s. Oedo Sukeroku Daiko was formed in Tokyo in 1959 under Seidō Kobayashi, and has been referred to as the first taiko group who toured professionally. Globally, kumi-daiko performance became more visible during the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, when it was featured during the Festival of Arts event.
Kumi-daiko was also developed through the leadership of Den Tagayasu (田耕), who gathered young men who were willing to devote their entire lifestyle to taiko playing and took them to Sado Island for training where Den and his family had settled in 1968. Den chose the island based on a desire to reinvigorate the folk arts in Japan, particularly taiko; he became inspired by a drumming tradition unique to Sado called that required considerable strength to play well. Den called the group "Za Ondekoza" or Ondekoza for short, and implemented a rigorous set of exercises for its members including long-distance running. In 1975, Ondekoza was the first taiko group to tour in the United States. Their first performance occurred just after the group finished running the Boston Marathon while wearing their traditional uniforms. In 1981, some members of Ondekoza split from Den and formed another group called Kodo under the leadership of Eitetsu Hayashi. Kodo continued to use Sado Island for rigorous training and communal living, and went on to popularize taiko through frequent touring and collaborations with other musical performers. Kodo is one of the most recognized taiko groups both in Japan and worldwide.
Estimates of the number of taiko groups in Japan vary to up to 5,000 active groups in Japan, but more conservative assessments place the number closer to 800 based on membership in the Nippon Taiko Foundation, the largest national organization of taiko groups. Some pieces that have emerged from early kumi-daiko groups that continue to be performed include Yatai-bayashi from Ondekoza, Isami-goma (勇み駒, lit. "galloping horse") from Osuwa Daiko, and Zoku (族, lit. "tribe") from Kodo.
## Categorization
Taiko have been developed into a broad range of percussion instruments that are used in both Japanese folk and classical musical traditions. An early classification system based on shape and tension was advanced by Francis Taylor Piggott in 1909. Taiko are generally classified based on the construction process, or the specific context in which the drum is used, but some are not classified, such as the toy den-den daiko.
With few exceptions, taiko have a drum shell with heads on both sides of the body, and a sealed resonating cavity. The head may be fastened to the shell using a number of different systems, such as using ropes. Taiko may be either tunable or non-tunable depending on the system used.
Taiko are categorized into three types based on construction process. Byō-uchi-daiko are constructed with the drumhead nailed to the body. Shime-daiko are classically constructed with the skin placed over iron or steel rings, which are then tightened with ropes. Contemporary shime-daiko are tensioned using bolts or turnbuckles systems attached to the drum body. Tsuzumi are also rope-tensioned drums, but have a distinct hourglass shape and their skins are made using deerskin.
Byō-uchi-daiko were historically made only using a single piece of wood; they continue to be made in this manner, but are also constructed from staves of wood. Larger drums can be made using a single piece of wood, but at a much greater cost due to the difficulty in finding appropriate trees. The preferred wood is the Japanese zelkova or keyaki, but a number of other woods, and even wine barrels, have been used to create taiko. Byō-uchi-daiko cannot be tuned.
The typical byō-uchi-daiko is the nagadō-daiko, an elongated drum that is roughly shaped like a wine barrel. Nagadō-daiko are available in a variety of sizes, and their head diameter is traditionally measured in shaku (units of roughly 30 cm). Head diameters range from 1 to 6 shaku (30 to 182 cm; 12 to 72 in). are the smallest of these drums and are usually about 1 shaku (30 cm; 12 in) in diameter. The is a medium-sized nagadō-daiko ranging from 1.6 to 2.8 shaku (48 to 85 cm; 19 to 33 in), and weighing about 27 kilograms (60 lb). vary in size, and are often as large as 6 shaku (180 cm; 72 in) in diameter. Some ō-daiko are difficult to move due to their size, and therefore permanently remain inside the performance space, such as temple or shrine. Ō-daiko means "large drum" and for a given ensemble, the term refers to their largest drum. The other type of byō-uchi-daiko is called a and can be any drum constructed such that the head diameter is greater than the length of the body.
Shime-daiko are a set of smaller, roughly snare drum-sized instrument that are tunable. The tensioning system usually consists of hemp cords or rope, but bolt or turnbuckle systems have been used as well. , sometimes referred to as "taiko" in the context of theater, have thinner heads than other kinds of shime-daiko. The head includes a patch of deerskin placed in the center, and in performance, drum strokes are generally restricted to this area. The is a heavier type of shime-daiko. They are available in sizes 1–5, and are named according to their number: namitsuke (1), nichō-gakke (2), sanchō-gakke (3), yonchō-gakke (4), and gochō-gakke (5). The namitsuke has the thinnest skins and the shortest body in terms of height; thickness and tension of skins, as well as body height, increase toward the gochō-gakke. The head diameters of all shime-daiko sizes are around 27 cm (10.6 in).
Uchiwa-daiko (団扇太鼓, literally, fan drum) is a type of racket-shaped Japanese drum. It is the only Japanese traditional drum without a sound box and only one skin. It is played with a drumstick while hanging it with the other hand.
Okedō-daiko or simply okedō, are a type of shime-daiko that are stave-constructed using narrower strips of wood, have a tube-shaped frame. Like other shime-daiko, drum heads are attached by metal hoops and fastened by rope or cords. Okedō can be played using the same drumsticks (called bachi) as shime-daiko, but can also be hand-played. Okedō come in short- and long-bodied types.
Tsuzumi are a class of hourglass-shaped drums. The drum body is shaped on a spool and the inner body carved by hand. Their skins can be made from cowhide, horsehide, or deerskin. While the ō-tsuzumi skins are made from cowhide, ko-tsuzumi are made from horsehide. While some classify tsuzumi as a type of taiko, others have described them as a drum entirely separate from taiko.
Taiko can also be categorized by the context in which they are used. The miya-daiko, for instance, is constructed in the same manner as other byō-uchi-daiko, but is distinguished by an ornamental stand and is used for ceremonial purposes at Buddhist temples. The (a ko-daiko) and (a nagadō-daiko with a cigar-shaped body) are used in sumo and festivals respectively.
Several drums, categorized as gagakki, are used in the Japanese theatrical form, gagaku. The lead instrument of the ensemble is the kakko, which is a smaller shime-daiko with heads made of deerskin, and is placed horizontally on a stand during performance. A tsuzumi, called the san-no-tsuzumi is another small drum in gagaku that is placed horizontally and struck with a thin stick. are the largest drums of the ensemble, and have heads that are about 127 cm (50 in) in diameter. During performance, the drum is placed on a tall pedestals and surrounded by a rim decoratively painted with flames and adorned with mystical figures such as wyverns. Dadaiko are played while standing, and are usually only played on the downbeat of the music. The is a smaller drum that produces a lower sound, its head measuring about 55 cm (22 in) in diameter. It is used in ensembles that accompany bugaku, a traditional dance performed at the Tokyo Imperial Palace and in religious contexts. Tsuri-daiko are suspended on a small stand, and are played sitting down. Tsuri-daiko performers typically use shorter mallets covered in leather knobs instead of bachi. They can be played simultaneously by two performers; while one performer plays on the head, another performer uses bachi on the body of the drum.
The larger ō-tsuzumi and smaller ko-tsuzumi are used in the opening and dances of Noh theater. Both drums are struck using the fingers; players can also adjust pitch by manually applying pressure to the ropes on the drum. The color of the cords of these drums also indicates the skill of the musician: Orange and red for amateur players, light blue for performers with expertise, and lilac for masters of the instrument. Nagauta-shime daiko or uta daiko are also featured in Noh performance.
Many taiko in Noh are also featured in kabuki performance and are used in a similar manner. In addition to the ō-tsuzumi, ko-tsuzumi, and nagauta-shime daiko, Kabuki performances make use of the larger ō-daiko offstage to help set the atmosphere for different scenes.
## Construction
### Process
Taiko construction has several stages, including making and shaping of the drum body (or shell), preparing the drum skin, and tuning the skin to the drumhead. Variations in the construction process often occur in the latter two parts of this process. Historically, byō-uchi-daiko were crafted from trunks of the Japanese zelkova tree that were dried out over years, using techniques to prevent splitting. A master carpenter then carved out the rough shape of the drum body with a chisel; the texture of the wood after carving softened the tone of the drum. In contemporary times, taiko are carved out on a large lathe using wood staves or logs that can be shaped to fit drum bodies of various sizes. Drumheads can be left to air-dry over a period of years, but some companies use large, smoke-filled warehouses to hasten the drying process. After drying is complete, the inside of the drum is worked with a deep-grooved chisel and sanded. Lastly, handles are placed onto the drum. These are used to carry smaller drums and they serve an ornamental purpose for larger drums.
The skins or heads of taiko are generally made from cowhide from Holstein cows aged about three or four years. Skins also come from horses, and bull skin is preferred for larger drums. Thinner skins are preferred for smaller taiko, and thicker skins are used for larger ones. On some drumheads, a patch of deer skin placed in the center serves as the target for many strokes during performance. Before fitting it to the drum body the hair is removed from the hide by soaking it in a river or stream for about a month; winter months are preferred as colder temperatures better facilitate hair removal. To stretch the skin over the drum properly, one process requires the body to be held on a platform with several hydraulic jacks underneath it. The edges of the cowhide are secured to an apparatus below the jacks, and the jacks stretch the skin incrementally to precisely apply tension across the drumhead. Other forms of stretching use rope or cords with wooden dowels or an iron wheel to create appropriate tension. Small tension adjustments can be made during this process using small pieces of bamboo that twist around the ropes. Particularly large drumheads are sometimes stretched by having several workers, clad in stockings, hop rhythmically atop it, forming a circle along the edge. After the skin has dried, tacks, called byō, are added to the appropriate drums to secure it; chū-daiko require about 300 of them for each side. After the body and skin have been finished, excess hide is cut off and the drum can be stained as needed.
### Drum makers
Several companies specialize in the production of taiko. One such company that created drums exclusively for the Emperor of Japan, Miyamoto Unosuke Shoten in Tokyo, has been making taiko since 1861. The Asano Taiko Corporation is another major taiko-producing organization, and has been producing taiko for over 400 years. The family-owned business started in Mattō, Ishikawa, and, aside from military equipment, made taiko for Noh theater and later expanded to creating instruments for festivals during the Meiji period. Asano currently maintains an entire complex of large buildings referred to as Asano Taiko Village, and the company reports producing up to 8000 drums each year. As of 2012, there is approximately one major taiko production company in each prefecture of Japan, with some regions having several companies. Of the manufacturers in Naniwa, Taikoya Matabē is one of the most successful and is thought to have brought considerable recognition to the community and attracted many drum makers there. Umetsu Daiko, a company that operates in Hakata, has been producing taiko since 1821.
## Performance
Taiko performance styles vary widely across groups in terms of the number of performers, repertoire, instrument choices, and stage techniques. Nevertheless, a number of early groups have had broad influence on the tradition. For instance, many pieces developed by Ondekoza and Kodo are considered standard in many taiko groups.
### Form
Kata is the posture and movement associated with taiko performance. The notion is similar to that of kata in martial arts: for example, both traditions include the idea that the hara is the center of being. Author Shawn Bender argues that kata is the primary feature that distinguishes different taiko groups from one another and is a key factor in judging the quality of performance. For this reason, many practice rooms intended for taiko contain mirrors to provide visual feedback to players. An important part of kata in taiko is keeping the body stabilized while performing and can be accomplished by keeping a wide, low stance with the legs, with the left knee bent over the toes and keeping the right leg straight. It is important that the hips face the drum and the shoulders are relaxed. Some teachers note a tendency to rely on the upper body while playing and emphasize the importance of the holistic use of the body during performance.
Some groups in Japan, particularly those active in Tokyo, also emphasize the importance of the lively and spirited iki aesthetic. In taiko, it refers to very specific kinds of movement while performing that evoke the sophistication stemming from the mercantile and artisan classes active during the Edo period (1603–1868).
The sticks for playing taiko are called bachi, and are made in various sizes and from different kinds of wood such as white oak, bamboo, and Japanese magnolia. Bachi are also held in a number of different styles. In kumi-daiko, it is common for a player to hold their sticks in a relaxed manner between the V-shape of the index finger and thumb, which points to the player. There are other grips that allow performers to play much more technically difficult rhythms, such as the shime grip, which is similar to a matched grip: the bachi are gripped at the back end, and the fulcrum rests between the performer's index finger and thumb, while the other fingers remain relaxed and slightly curled around the stick.
Performance in some groups is also guided by principles based on Zen Buddhism. For instance, among other concepts, the San Francisco Taiko Dojo is guided by emphasizing communication, respect, and harmony. The way the bachi are held can also be significant; for some groups, bachi represent a spiritual link between the body and the sky. Some physical parts of taiko, like the drum body, its skin, and the tacks also hold symbolic significance in Buddhism.
### Instrumentation
Kumi-daiko groups consist primarily of percussive instruments where each of the drums plays a specific role. Of the different kinds of taiko, the most common in groups is the nagadō-daiko. Chū-daiko are common in taiko groups and represent the main rhythm of the group, whereas shime-daiko set and change tempo. A shime-daiko often plays the Jiuchi, a base rhythm holding together the ensemble. Ō-daiko provide a steady, underlying pulse and serve as a counter-rhythm to the other parts. It is common for performances to begin with a single stroke roll called an '. The player starts slowly, leaving considerable space between strikes, gradually shortening the interval between hits, until the drummer is playing a rapid roll of hits. Oroshi are also played as a part of theatrical performance, such as in Noh theater.
Drums are not the only instruments played in the ensemble; other Japanese instruments are also used. Other kinds of percussion instruments include the , a hand-sized gong played with a small mallet. In kabuki, the shamisen, a plucked string instrument, often accompanies taiko during the theatrical performance. Kumi-daiko performances can also feature woodwinds such as the shakuhachi and the shinobue.
Voiced calls or shouts called kakegoe and kiai are also common in taiko performance. They are used as encouragement to other players or cues for transition or change in dynamics such as an increase in tempo. In contrast, the philosophical concept of ma, or the space between drum strikes, is also important in shaping rhythmic phrases and creating appropriate contrast.
### Clothing
There is a wide variety of traditional clothing that players wear during taiko performance. Common in many kumi-daiko groups is the use of the happi, a decorative, thin-fabric coat, and traditional headbands called hachimaki. Tabi, , and are also typical. During his time with the group Ondekoza, Eitetsu Hayashi suggested that a loincloth called a fundoshi be worn when performing for French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, who saw Ondekoza perform for him in 1975. The Japanese group Kodo has sometimes worn fundoshi for its performances.
## Education
Taiko performance is generally taught orally and through demonstration. Historically, general patterns for taiko were written down, such as in the 1512 encyclopedia called the Taigensho, but written scores for taiko pieces are generally unavailable. One reason for the adherence to an oral tradition is that, from group to group, the rhythmic patterns in a given piece are often performed differently. Furthermore, ethnomusicologist William P. Malm observed that Japanese players within a group could not usefully predict one another using written notation, and instead did so through listening. In Japan, printed parts are not used during lessons.
Orally, patterns of onomatopoeia called kuchi shōga are taught from teacher to student that convey the rhythm and timbre of drum strikes for a particular piece. For example, represents a single strike to the center of the drum, where as represents two successive strikes, first by the right and then the left, and lasts the same amount of time as one don strike. Some taiko pieces, such as Yatai-bayashi, include patterns that are difficult to represent in Western musical notation. The exact words used can also differ from region to region.
More recently, Japanese publications have emerged in an attempt to standardize taiko performance. The Nippon Taiko Foundation was formed in 1979; its primary goals were to foster good relations among taiko groups in Japan and to both publicize and teach how to perform taiko. Daihachi Oguchi, the leader of the Foundation, wrote Japan Taiko with other teachers in 1994 out of concern that correct form in performance would degrade over time. The instructional publication described the different drums used in kumi-daiko performance, methods of gripping, correct form, and suggestions on instrumentation. The book also contains practice exercises and transcribed pieces from Oguchi's group, Osuwa Daiko. While there were similar textbooks published before 1994, this publication had much more visibility due to the Foundation's scope.
The system of fundamentals Japan Taiko put forward was not widely adopted because taiko performance varied substantially across Japan. An updated 2001 publication from the Foundation, called the , describes regional variations that depart from the main techniques taught in the textbook. The creators of the text maintained that mastering a set of prescribed basics should be compatible with learning local traditions.
## Regional styles
Aside from kumi-daiko performance, a number of folk traditions that use taiko have been recognized in different regions in Japan. Some of these include from Sado Island, ' from the town of Kokura, and '' from Iwate Prefecture.
### Eisa
A variety of folk dances originating from Okinawa, known collectively as eisa, often make use of the taiko. Some performers use drums while dancing, and generally speaking, perform in one of two styles: groups on the Yokatsu Peninsula and on Hamahiga Island use small, single-sided drums called whereas groups near the city of Okinawa generally use shime-daiko. Use of shime-daiko over pāranku has spread throughout the island, and is considered the dominant style. Small nagadō-daiko, referred to as ō-daiko within the tradition, are also used and are worn in front of the performer. These drum dances are not limited to Okinawa and have appeared in places containing Okinawan communities such as in São Paulo, Hawaii, and large cities on the Japanese mainland.
### Hachijō-daiko
`is a taiko tradition originating on the island of Hachijō-jima. Two styles of Hachijō-daiko emerged and have been popularized among residents: an older tradition based on a historical account, and a newer tradition influenced by mainland groups and practiced by the majority of the islanders.`
The Hachijō-daiko tradition was documented as early as 1849 based on a journal kept by an exile named Kakuso Kizan. He mentioned some of its unique features, such as "a taiko is suspended from a tree while women and children gathered around", and observed that a player used either side of the drum while performing. Illustrations from Kizan's journal show features of Hachijō-daiko. These illustrations also featured women performing, which is unusual as taiko performance elsewhere during this period was typically reserved for men. Teachers of the tradition have noted that the majority of its performers were women; one estimate asserts that female performers outnumbered males by three to one.
The first style of Hachijō-daiko is thought to descend directly from the style reported by Kizan. This style is called Kumaoji-daiko, named after its creator Okuyama Kumaoji, a central performer of the style. Kumaoji-daiko has two players on a single drum, one of whom, called the , provides the underlying beat. The other player, called the , builds on this rhythmical foundation with unique and typically improvised rhythms. While there are specific types of underlying rhythms, the accompanying player is free to express an original musical beat. Kumaoji-daiko also features an unusual positioning for taiko: the drums are sometimes suspended from ropes, and historically, sometimes drums were suspended from trees.
The contemporary style of Hachijō-daiko is called , which differs from Kumaoji-daiko in multiple ways. For instance, while the lead and accompanying roles are still present, shin-daiko performances use larger drums exclusively on stands. Shin-daiko emphasizes a more powerful sound, and consequently, performers use larger bachi made out of stronger wood. Looser clothing is worn by shin-daiko performers compared to kimono worn by Kumaoji-daiko performers; the looser clothing in shin-daiko allow performers to adopt more open stances and larger movements with the legs and arms. Rhythms used for the accompanying shita-byōshi role can also differ. One type of rhythm, called yūkichi, consists of the following:
This rhythm is found in both styles, but is always played faster in shin-daiko. Another type of rhythm, called honbadaki, is unique to shin-daiko and also contains a song which is performed in standard Japanese.
### Miyake-daiko
`is a style that has spread amongst groups through Kodo, and is formally known as . The word miyake comes from Miyake-jima, part of the Izu Islands, and the word Kamitsuki refers to the village where the tradition came from. Miyake-style taiko came out of performances for — a traditional festival held annually in July on Miyake Island since 1820 honoring the deity Gozu Tennō. In this festival, players perform on taiko while portable shrines are carried around town. The style itself is characterized in a number of ways. A nagadō-daiko is typically set low to the ground and played by two performers, one on each side; instead of sitting, performers stand and hold a stance that is also very low to the ground, almost to the point of kneeling.`
## Outside Japan
### Australia
Taiko groups in Australia began forming in the 1990s. The first group, called Ataru Taru Taiko, was formed in 1995 by Paulene Thomas, Harold Gent, and Kaomori Kamei. TaikOz was later formed by percussionist Ian Cleworth and Riley Lee, a former Ondekoza member, and has been performing in Australia since 1997. They are known for their work in generating interest in performing taiko among Australian audiences, such as by developing a complete education program with both formal and informal classes, and have a strong fan base. Cleworth and other members of the group have developed several original pieces.
### Brazil
The introduction of kumi-daiko performance in Brazil can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s in São Paulo. Tangue Setsuko founded an eponymous taiko dojo and was Brazil's first taiko group; Setsuo Kinoshita later formed the group Wadaiko Sho. Brazilian groups have combined native and African drumming techniques with taiko performance. One such piece developed by Kinoshita is called Taiko de Samba, which emphasizes both Brazilian and Japanese aesthetics in percussion traditions. Taiko was also popularized in Brazil from 2002 through the work of Yukihisa Oda, a Japanese native who visited Brazil several times through the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The Brazilian Association of Taiko (ABT) suggests that there are about 150 taiko groups in Brazil and that about 10–15% of players are non-Japanese; Izumo Honda, coordinator of a large annual festival in São Paulo, estimated that about 60% of all taiko performers in Brazil are women.
### North America
Taiko emerged in the United States in the late 1960s. The first group, San Francisco Taiko Dojo, was formed in 1968 by Seiichi Tanaka, a postwar immigrant who studied taiko in Japan and brought the styles and teachings to the US. A year later, a few members of Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles led by its minister Masao Kodani initiated another group called Kinnara Taiko. San Jose Taiko later formed in 1973 in Japantown, San Jose, under Roy and PJ Hirabayashi. Taiko started to branch out to the eastern US in the late 1970s. This included formation of Denver Taiko in 1976, and Soh Daiko in New York City in 1979. Many of these early groups lacked the resources to equip each member with a drum and resorted to makeshift percussion materials such as rubber tires or creating taiko out of wine barrels.
Japanese-Canadian taiko began in 1979 with Katari Taiko, and was inspired by the San Jose Taiko group. Its early membership was predominantly female. Katari Taiko and future groups were thought to represent an opportunity for younger, third-generation Japanese Canadians to explore their roots, redevelop a sense of ethnic community, and expand taiko into other musical traditions.
There are no official counts or estimates of the number of active taiko groups in the United States or Canada, as there is no governing body for taiko groups in either country. Unofficial estimates have been made. In 1989, there were as many as 30 groups in the US and Canada, seven of which were in California. One estimate suggested that around 120 groups were active in the US and Canada as of 2001, many of which could be traced to the San Francisco Taiko Dojo; later estimates in 2005 and 2006 suggested there were about 200 groups in the United States alone.
The Cirque du Soleil shows Mystère in Las Vegas and Dralion have featured taiko performance. Taiko performance has also been featured in commercial productions such as the 2005 Mitsubishi Eclipse ad campaign, and in events such as the 2009 Academy Awards and 2011 Grammy Awards.
From 2005 to 2006, the Japanese American National Museum held an exhibition called Big Drum: Taiko in the United States. The exhibition covered several topics related to taiko in the United States, such as the formation of performance groups, their construction using available materials, and social movements. Visitors were able to play smaller drums.
North America hosts the North American Taiko Conference (NATC) which has been ongoing since its inaugural conference in Los Angeles in 1997. In 2013, the Taiko Community Alliance (TCA) formed as virtual nonprofit 501(c)3 organization with a mission to empower the people and advance the art of taiko. The Taiko Community Alliance has been responsible for helping organize the NATC conferences to help further its mission of educating and raising awareness of taiko through the taiko community.
### Italy
The first group, called Quelli del Taiko, was formed in 2000 by Pietro Notarnicola. They played in World Premiere - 2017 - "On Western Terror 8" - Concerto for Taiko Ensemble and Orchestra of the Italian composed Luigi Morleo
## Related cultural and social movements
Certain peoples have used taiko to advance social or cultural movements, both within Japan and elsewhere in the world.
### Gender conventions
Taiko performance has frequently been viewed as an art form dominated by men. Historians of taiko argue that its performance comes from masculine traditions. Those who developed ensemble-style taiko in Japan were men, and through the influence of Ondekoza, the ideal taiko player was epitomized in images of the masculine peasant class, particularly through the character Muhōmatsu in the 1958 film Rickshaw Man. Masculine roots have also been attributed to perceived capacity for "spectacular bodily performance" where women's bodies are sometimes judged as unable to meet the physical demands of playing.
Before the 1980s, it was uncommon for Japanese women to perform on traditional instruments, including taiko, as their participation had been systematically restricted; an exception was the San Francisco Taiko Dojo under the guidance of Grand master Seiichi Tanaka, who was the first to admit females to the art form. In Ondekoza and in the early performances of Kodo, women performed only dance routines either during or between taiko performances. Thereafter, female participation in kumi-daiko started to rise dramatically, and by the 1990s, women equaled and possibly exceeded representation by men. While the proportion of women in taiko has become substantial, some have expressed concern that women still do not perform in the same roles as their male counterparts and that taiko performance continues to be a male-dominated profession. For instance, a member of Kodo was informed by the director of the group's apprentice program that women were permitted to play, but could only play "as women". Other women in the apprentice program recognized a gender disparity in performance roles, such as what pieces they were allowed to perform, or in physical terms based on a male standard.
Female taiko performance has also served as a response to gendered stereotypes of Japanese women as being quiet, subservient, or a femme fatale. Through performance, some groups believe they are helping to redefine not only the role of women in taiko, but how women are perceived more generally.
### Burakumin
Those involved in the construction of taiko are usually considered part of the burakumin, a marginalized minority class in Japanese society, particularly those working with leather or animal skins. Prejudice against this class dates back to the Tokugawa period in terms of legal discrimination and treatment as social outcasts. Although official discrimination ended with the Tokugawa era, the burakumin have continued to face social discrimination, such as scrutiny by employers or in marriage arrangements. Drum makers have used their trade and success as a means to advocate for an end to discriminatory practices against their class.
The , representing the contributions of burakumin, is found in Naniwa Ward in Osaka, home to a large proportion of burakumin. Among other features, the road contains taiko-shaped benches representing their traditions in taiko manufacturing and leatherworking, and their influence on national culture. The road ends at the Osaka Human Rights Museum, which exhibits the history of systematic discrimination against the burakumin. The road and museum were developed in part due an advocacy campaign led by the Buraku Liberation League and a taiko group of younger performers called .
### North American sansei
Taiko performance was an important part of cultural development by third-generation Japanese residents in North America, who are called sansei. During World War II, second-generation Japanese residents, called nisei faced internment in the United States and in Canada on the basis of their race. During and after the war, Japanese residents were discouraged from activities such as speaking Japanese or forming ethnic communities. Subsequently, sansei could not engage in Japanese culture and instead were raised to assimilate into more normative activities. There were also prevailing stereotypes of Japanese people, which sansei sought to escape or subvert. During the 1960s in the United States, the civil rights movement influenced sansei to reexamine their heritage by engaging in Japanese culture in their communities; one such approach was through taiko performance. Groups such as San Jose Taiko were organized to fulfill a need for solidarity and to have a medium to express their experiences as Japanese-Americans. Later generations have adopted taiko in programs or workshops established by sansei; social scientist Hideyo Konagaya remarks that this attraction to taiko among other Japanese art forms may be due to its accessibility and energetic nature. Konagaya has also argued that the resurgence of taiko in the United States and Japan are differently motivated: in Japan, performance was meant to represent the need to recapture sacred traditions, while in the United States it was meant to be an explicit representation of masculinity and power in Japanese-American men.
## Notable performers and groups
A number of performers and groups, including several early leaders, have been recognized for their contributions to taiko performance. Daihachi Oguchi was best known for developing kumi-daiko performance. Oguchi founded the first kumi-daiko group called Osuwa Daiko in 1951, and facilitated the popularization of taiko performance groups in Japan.
Seidō Kobayashi is the leader of the Tokyo-based taiko group Oedo Sukeroku Taiko as of December 2014. Kobayashi founded the group in 1959 and was the first group to tour professionally. Kobayashi is considered a master performer of taiko. He is also known for asserting intellectual control of the group's performance style, which has influenced performance for many groups, particularly in North America.
In 1968, Seiichi Tanaka founded the San Francisco Taiko Dojo and is regarded as the Grandfather of Taiko and primary developer of taiko performance in the United States. He was a recipient of a 2001 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts and since 2013 is the only taiko professional presented with the Order of the Rising Sun 5th Order: Gold and Silver Rays by Emperor Akihito of Japan, in recognition of Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka's contributions to the fostering of US-Japan relations as well as the promotion of Japanese cultural understanding in the United States.
In 1969, founded Ondekoza, a group well known for making taiko performance internationally visible and for its artistic contributions to the tradition. Den was also known for developing a communal living and training facility for Ondekoza on Sado Island in Japan, which had a reputation for its intensity and broad education programs in folklore and music.
Performers and groups beyond the early practitioners have also been noted. Eitetsu Hayashi is best known for his solo performance work. When he was 19, Hayashi joined Ondekoza, a group later expanded and re-founded as Kodo, one of the best known and most influential taiko performance groups in the world. Hayashi soon left the group to begin a solo career and has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall in 1984, the first featured taiko performer there. He was awarded the 47th Education Minister's Art Encouragement Prize, a national award, in 1997 as well as the 8th Award for the Promotion of Traditional Japanese Culture from the Japan Arts Foundation in 2001.
## Glossary
## See also
- Kuchi shōga, a spoken rhythmic system for taiko and other Japanese instruments.
- Music of Japan
- Taiko: Drum Master and Taiko no Tatsujin'', rhythm video games involving taiko performance.
|
51,474,991 |
Illinois Centennial half dollar
| 1,138,524,226 |
American commemorative coin
|
[
"1918 establishments in the United States",
"Abraham Lincoln in art",
"Currencies introduced in 1918",
"Eagles on coins",
"Early United States commemorative coins",
"Fifty-cent coins",
"Monuments and memorials to Abraham Lincoln in the United States",
"Sculptures of presidents of the United States",
"Sun on coins",
"Symbols of Illinois"
] |
The Illinois Centennial half dollar is a commemorative 50-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1918. The obverse, depicting Abraham Lincoln, was designed by Chief Engraver George T. Morgan; the reverse, based on the Seal of Illinois, was by his assistant and successor, John R. Sinnock. Morgan's obverse is based on the statue by Andrew O'Connor.
A commemorative was wanted by the State of Illinois to mark the centennial of its 1818 admission to the Union, and in 1918, legislation was introduced into Congress to accomplish this. It met no opposition, though several amendments were made during the legislative process. After it passed, the two engravers produced designs, but Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo required changes, not all of which were made.
The coins were minted in August 1918, and were sold to the public for \$1 each. All sold, though many were held by a bank until 1933, and the profits used to defray the cost of local centennial celebrations or to help those in need because of World War I. Later writers have generally admired the coin, considering it one of the more handsome American commemoratives. The coin is valued in the hundreds of dollars today, though exceptional specimens may trade for more.
## Legislation
The State of Illinois wanted a commemorative coin to be issued for the centennial of its 1818 admission to the Union. A bill that would accomplish this, H.R. 8764, was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives on January 16, 1918 by that state's Loren E. Wheeler. It was referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, which held hearings on March 5. Wheeler told the committee (of which he was not a member) that the coins were desired for distribution during the celebrations in Illinois. He had been to see Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo and Mint Director Raymond T. Baker. Neither had any objection to the legislation, though McAdoo had explained that the problem with commemorative coins was that they did not sell as well as expected, and many were returned to the Mint for melting. After telling of his meeting with the officials, Wheeler explained to the committee that the coins would be purchased by the State Treasurer of Illinois and so there would be no returns. James L. Slayden of Texas asked what the cost to the federal government would be, but Wheeler did not know. Slayden asked what had been the cost for the 1916–1917 McKinley Birthplace Memorial dollar, and Ohio's William A. Ashbrook, the chairman of the committee, said that the cost of the dies had been borne by the group purchasing the coins from the government; Ashbrook proposed amending the bill to make this clear this would be an expense to be paid by Illinois. Wheeler had no objection, and stated that to avoid returns, it might be best if the issue was limited to 100,000 coins rather than the 200,000 in the original bill. Ashbrook then asked if the coins were to be sold at a premium by the centennial committee, and Wheeler denied this, indicating that they were to be circulated like any other half dollar. This concluded the public hearing on the bill, with the committee to take further action in executive session.
On March 12, Ashbrook submitted a report on behalf of his committee recommending passage of the bill once it had been amended to reduce the authorized mintage from 200,000 to 100,000 and to add a statement that the United States government would not be responsible for the cost of the dies.
Wheeler presented the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives on April 6, 1918. He was quizzed by North Carolina's Claude Kitchin, who asked whether there had been a unanimous recommendation by the committee, whether McAdoo and Baker had approved the bill, and whether there was precedent for a half dollar in honor of a state's centennial (there was not). Wheeler reassured Kitchin as to the unanimity of the committee, and the approval by the officials, but did not answer the centennial question definitively, instead citing instances of prior commemorative issues (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition dollar and the Panama-Pacific commemorative coins). Ashbrook intervened, assuring Kitchin that his committee had unanimously approved it. Kitchin had no more questions, and the House approved the bill without a recorded vote.
H. R. 8742 was transmitted to the Senate, where it was referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency. That committee's chairman, Oklahoma's Robert L. Owen, reported it back with an amendment to the full Senate, where the bill was considered on May 21, 1918. The House-passed bill had said the laws relating to the minor coinage of the United States (the cent and nickel) would apply to the coin; this was changed to state that the laws relating to the subsidiary silver coinage (which the half dollar was) would apply. The bill was passed as amended without objection. Later in the day, Illinois Senator James Hamilton Lewis made a statement which was inserted in the Congressional Record at this point, applauding the passage of the honor to his home state, and noting that "more than a hundred thousand of her sons" were then being deployed to the battlefields of World War I.
Since the versions the two houses had passed were not identical, the bill returned to the House of Representatives, where on May 25, Arizona's Carl Hayden successfully moved that the House agree to the Senate amendment. The Speaker, Champ Clark, felt that the title of the bill might have to be changed for reasons he did not explain, but Hayden disagreed and Clark did not press his point. The bill passed the House, and was enacted by the signature of President Woodrow Wilson on June 1, 1918.
## Preparation and design
The designs were prepared internally in the Engraving Department at the Philadelphia Mint. The obverse design, depicting Abraham Lincoln, was created by Chief Engraver George T. Morgan. The Chief Engraver worked from a photograph of a statue of Lincoln designed by Andrew O'Connor and unveiled in Springfield (the city where Lincoln lived for much of his adult life) in August 1918. Lincoln is shown beardless, as he was when living in Illinois before he was elected president in 1860. He was chosen to be on the coin as Illinois' most famous resident. The obverse also contains the mottoes LIBERTY and IN GOD WE TRUST, as well as an inscription noting the centennial.
The reverse was designed by the assistant engraver who would succeed Morgan on his death in 1925, John R. Sinnock. It is an adaptation of the Seal of Illinois, an eagle perched on a rock mound, with the rising Sun beyond it. The bird holds in its beak a scroll with the Illinois state motto, STATE SOVEREIGNTY, NATIONAL UNION and it clutches the Federal shield. An olive branch is seen, but without any arrows representing war, even though these symbols are often paired on U.S. coins. Anthony Swiatek and Walter Breen suggested "their presence on a coin designed during the concluding months of World War I might have been considered just a bit raw". The reverse also bears the legends, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM (the national motto, meaning "out of many, one") and HALF DOLLAR.
Secretary McAdoo had originally rejected the submissions. Acting Mint Director Mary M. O'Reilly wrote to Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Adam M. Joyce on June 24, 1918, relaying the Treasury Secretary's concerns. McAdoo "specifically direct[ed]" that the Illinois state motto be deleted from the scroll in the eagle's beak on the reverse, to be replaced with the national one. Joyce was told to follow the provisions of the Coinage Act of 1873 requiring that on one side there be the word LIBERTY, a design emblematic of it, and the year of striking, with the other side an eagle with the name of the country and the denomination of the coin. Despite McAdoo's order, the Illinois inscription was retained on the scroll. Don Taxay, in his book on commemoratives, speculated it might have been the Illinois Centennial Commission that had insisted on this.
Later commentators have praised the coin. Taxay deemed the obverse "undoubtedly the finest work Morgan ever did in his forty-eight years with the Mint. The head is not merely well drawn, there is in it a depth of feeling, and introspective mood that almost makes the observer feel he is intruding on the great man." Writers on commemorative coins, including Arlie Slabaugh and David M. Bullowa, also admired the Illinois piece. Q. David Bowers deemed Sinnock's reverse "the finest work he ever did for a legal tender coin", not excluding the Roosevelt dime (1946) and Franklin half dollar (1948, posthumous). Bowers noted that the border of both sides of the coin consists of beads and pellets, "an attractive substitute for denticles".
Art historian Cornelius Vermeule, in his 1971 book on the artistry of American coins and medals, wrote that "Morgan's interpretation has captured the restless plasticity of [O'Connor's] bust, yet another indication of the benefits for coin design of good monumental models in sculpture". He noted of Sinnock's reverse, "the little burst of sun at the right is almost a bow to the Roty–Saint-Gaudens–Weinman developments outside the Philadelphia Mint in American numismatic taste and iconography in the generation following 1900. Sinnock's composition can be called conventional, but the entire aura of the coin reflects American art after the Civil War, and this is perhaps truly appropriate for the only [pre-1954] commemorative coin to honor Abraham Lincoln."
## Production, distribution, and collecting
A total of 100,058 Illinois Centennial half dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint during August 1918, with the excess over the round number reserved for inspection and testing at the 1919 meeting of the annual Assay Commission. There was no official packaging; a few were used in badges for the Illinois Centennial Commission. The coins were not publicized much outside Illinois. The centennial commission distributed them, at face value, to its county affiliates in proportion to their share of Illinois' population, on condition they be sold at a premium to help pay for local celebrations, and if one had already been held, for war relief.
The coins were also sold by the Springfield Chamber of Commerce at \$1 each, though some were eventually vended for less: Texas coin dealer B. Max Mehl purchased several thousand at just over face value. A local bank held 30,000 of them for 15 years, and sold them during the 1933 Bank Holiday for a slight advance on par. This temporarily flooded the market, but they were absorbed during the first commemorative coin boom in 1936, though the price did not then rise from the \$1.25 they had sold for since about 1925. At the height of the second commemorative coin boom in 1980, uncirculated specimens sold for about \$300. The edition of R. S. Yeoman's A Guide Book of United States Coins published in 2017 lists the coin for between \$130 and \$685, depending on condition. An exceptional specimen sold at auction in 2014 for \$7,040.
|
24,769,513 |
Mary Bell (aviator)
| 1,107,013,384 |
20th-century Australian aviator
|
[
"1903 births",
"1979 deaths",
"20th-century Australian women",
"Australian women aviators",
"People from Launceston, Tasmania",
"Royal Australian Air Force officers",
"Royal Australian Air Force personnel of World War II",
"Women in the Australian military"
] |
Mary Teston Luis Bell (3 December 1903 – 6 February 1979) was an Australian aviator and founding leader of the Women's Air Training Corps (WATC), a volunteer organisation that provided support to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. She later helped establish the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), the country's first and largest women's wartime service, which grew to more than 18,000 members by 1944.
Born Mary Fernandes in Tasmania, Bell married a RAAF officer in 1923 and obtained her pilot's licence in 1927. Given temporary command of the WAAAF on its formation in 1941, she was passed over as its inaugural director in favour of corporate executive Clare Stevenson. Bell refused the post of deputy director and resigned, but subsequently rejoined and served until the final months of the war. She and her husband later became farmers. Nicknamed "Paddy", Bell died in 1979, aged seventy-five.
## Early life and WATC
Mary Teston Luis Bell was born on 3 December 1903 in Launceston, Tasmania. She was the daughter of Rowland Walker Luis Fernandes, an English-born clerk, and his Australian wife, Emma Dagmar, née Mahony. Her maternal great-great grandfather was shipwright Jonathan Griffiths. Mary attended Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Launceston, and St Margaret's School, Devonport, before commencing work in a solicitor's office aged fourteen. She married John Bell (1889–1973), a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) officer and World War I veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and the Australian Flying Corps, at St Andrew's Anglican Church in Brighton, Victoria, on 19 March 1923. They had a daughter in 1926.
From 1925 until early 1928, the Bells lived in England while John attended RAF Staff College, Andover, and served as RAAF liaison officer to the Royal Air Force (RAF). Interested in aviation since her teens, Mary learnt to fly in England and in April 1927 qualified for a Grade A private pilot's licence. Returning to Australia, on 20 March 1928 she became the first female to gain a pilot's licence in Victoria, and the sixth in Australia. The following year, she became the first Australian woman to qualify as a ground engineer.
The Bells moved to Brisbane in 1939. John was employed as Queensland manager for Airlines of Australia Ltd, having left the RAAF in 1929. Mary became leader of forty or so members of the Women's National Emergency Legion Air Wing who had volunteered to assist with aircraft maintenance during times of war. Determining that their objectives would not be met in their existing organisation, on 17 July they formed a new volunteer paramilitary group, the Women's Air Training Corps (WATC), and elected Bell its commander. She soon expanded the WATC into a national organisation, with commandants leading each state's chapter, and herself as Australian Commandant. WATC members trained as drivers, clerks and telegraphists. They wore a uniform of field grey coat and skirt, and navy blue tie and glengarry. Active membership had grown to 2,000 by October 1940.
Bell wrote to Air Vice-Marshal Richard Williams, with whom she was acquainted via her husband and through aviation circles, advocating the establishment of a women's branch of the RAAF similar to the RAF's Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Among other things, she called attention to the female volunteers who had already been supporting the Air Force in transport, nursing and clerical duties. The WATC was one of several women's voluntary organisations whose members were keen to support the military, arguing that their personnel provided a ready-made pool of skilled staff for auxiliary services, saving the government time and money training unskilled labour.
## World War II and WAAAF
Australia having declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the RAAF Air Board met in November to discuss Bell's letter, but postponed taking action. She continued to lobby, as did several other women's groups seeking to support the war effort and free male staff for overseas postings.
In July 1940, the new Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett, invited Bell to produce a proposal for a women's auxiliary under the supervision of her husband John, who had rejoined the Air Force at the war's outbreak and was now a wing commander in the Directorate of Organisation at RAAF Headquarters, Melbourne. Mary recommended forming the new service under the Air Force Act to permit women to enlist for the duration of the war under conditions similar to RAAF members, rather than enrolling on a short-term contractual basis, a radical idea at the time that would not be put in place until 1943. She also suggested a volunteer reserve or citizen force to augment the enlisted women, effectively the existing WATC, though this was seen as placing too much emphasis on her personal command.
Some senior Air Force officers, including the recently promoted Air Marshal Williams, and the Director of Personal Services, Group Captain Joe Hewitt, opposed a women's service. Burnett, an RAF member who appreciated how the WAAF proved its worth during the Battle of Britain, championed its establishment as the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF).
Bell was appointed to the RAAF's Personnel Branch as Staff Officer (Administrative) with the probationary rank of section officer (acting flight officer) on 24 February 1941, to lay the groundwork for the new organisation. She was succeeded as Australian Commandant of the WATC by the Countess of Bective, previously the State Commandant of South Australia. Formally established on 25 March, the WAAAF was the first uniformed women's branch of an armed service in Australia, predating similar organisations in the Army and Navy. Bell led the WAAAF for the first three months of its existence, recruiting approximately two hundred women by June; of the first six officers she appointed, five were former members of the WATC.
On 21 May 1941, Berlei corporate executive Clare Stevenson was appointed Director WAAAF with Bell as her deputy director, effective from 9 June. The Air Member for Personnel, Air Vice-Marshal Henry Wrigley, chose Stevenson on the basis of her management background and because she was not a "socialite". Notwithstanding her aviation experience and familiarity with the RAAF, he considered Bell to be "tangled up with the WATC", where she "waved the flag and obtained a great deal of publicity for herself". Bell may also have alienated Burnett by not including his daughter Sybil-Jean, a founding member of the WAAF, among the initial intake of staff.
Bell chose to resign on learning of Stevenson's appointment, rather than stay on and report to someone from outside the service fraternity; she later rejoined at Wrigley's request, but stipulated that she would accept no promotion higher than flight officer. Two of her original officer appointees also resigned when Bell was passed over, later describing her as "a thorough and effective organiser" and the "obvious choice" as director. Returning to the WAAAF on 5 October 1942, Bell served at RAAF Headquarters in several directorates, mainly that of Medical Services.
Despite Bell's recommendation in July 1940 that women be enlisted into the WAAAF as permanent staff, they were at first enrolled only for renewable twelve-month contracts. They did not become part of the Permanent Air Force, with the benefits that entailed, until the Air Force (Women's Services) Regulations were enacted on 24 March 1943; that day, Bell's commission as a section officer, and her temporary rank of flight officer with effect from 1 October 1942, was promulgated in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Pay in the WAAAF was only ever two-thirds that of male equivalents. The organisation nevertheless grew rapidly, peaking in strength at over 18,600 members in October 1944, or twelve per cent of all RAAF personnel. By the end of the war 27,000 women had served in the WAAAF, at one stage comprising over thirty-one per cent of ground staff and filling sixty-one trades, all previously occupied by men.
## Later life
Ranked flight officer, Mary Bell was discharged from the WAAAF at her own request on 11 April 1945. Her husband John was an acting air commodore when he left the RAAF on 15 October. The WAAAF, Australia's largest wartime women's service, was disbanded on 30 September 1946. It was succeeded in 1950 by the Women's Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF), which had a separate charter to the RAAF; members achieved a pay scale equal to the male service in 1972, and five years later were integrated with the RAAF.
After leaving the military, the Bells became farmers, first in Victoria and then in Tasmania. They retired in 1968. Survived by her daughter, Bell died in Ulverstone, Tasmania, on 6 February 1979, and was buried beside her husband, who predeceased her in 1973, at Mersey Vale Memorial Park cemetery in Spreyton.
|
10,854,545 |
Trait du Nord
| 1,112,436,895 |
Breed of heavy draft horse from Belgium and France
|
[
"Hainaut (province)",
"Horse breeds",
"Horse breeds originating in Belgium",
"Horse breeds originating in France"
] |
The Trait du Nord, previously also known as Ardennais du Nord or Ardennais de type Nord, is a breed of heavy draft horse developed and bred in the area of Hainaut in western Belgium and in northeastern France. Originally considered a subtype of the Ardennes, it was recognized as an individual breed with the opening of a studbook in 1903. Developed in the fertile Flemish grasslands, it was bred for size and pulling power for agricultural work. By 1855, the horses bred near Hainaut were considered by some veterinarians to be superior to other Flemish draft breeds. The Trait du Nord was used extensively in mining from the late 19th century through 1920, with lesser use continuing through the 1960s.
The Trait du Nord continued to be used extensively for agriculture through World War II, but after the war this usage, and the breed population, declined significantly as farming became increasingly mechanized. During the mid-20th century, the breed was in demand for the production of horse meat, and due to this was bred to be larger and heavier. In the early 1970s, the market for horse meat began to decline, and the Trait du Nord, like many European draft breeds, was in danger of extinction. It was not until the 1990s that the breed experienced a slight revival through an increased interest in recreational riding and driving.
The Trait du Nord is large, with stallions weighing upwards of 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb), and is bred for traction ability and pulling power. The breed is found in many solid colors, although bay and roan are the most common, and is known to be gentle and easy to handle. Two slightly different types of Trait du Nord are found – a larger type used for heavier pulling and a lighter type used for faster work. The breed is considered to be endangered by the French government, with fewer than 100 new foal births a year. The national breed registry in France is working with local groups in an attempt to promote this breed and bring population numbers back up. The breed currently has a high risk of inbreeding, due to the low number of breeding stallions, and is at risk of extinction.
## Naming and registration
According to the French National Stud, the current official name of the breed is Trait du Nord. The name has changed several times during its history. In the mid-19th century it is mentioned as the "large horse of Hainaut", but before 1903 it was not considered a separate breed and was often thought to be the same as the Ardennes. Beginning in 1913, it was known as the Trait Ardennes North, and from 1945 to 1965 was known as the Northern Ardennes Draft. The name of Trait du Nord became commonly used around 1961.
Until August 5, 1903, the Trait du Nord's studbook was merged with that of the Ardennes, with the former being considered a subtype of the latter and called the Northern type Ardennes. The studbook was under the responsibility of the combined group "Studbook of Northern Workhorses". In 1913, the name of Trait du Nord was used for the first time and French mares began to be registered as their own breed, although Belgian horses continued to be used for breeding, with the resulting progeny able to be registered as Trait du Nords. In 1919, the northern type was separated from the Ardennes, although the studbooks remained tied, and the horse was given the name "Northern Ardennes". A centralized breeding union for the Northern Ardennes was created in 1945.
In France, the Syndicat d'élevage du cheval de trait du Nord (Union of Trait du Nord Horse Breeders) is the national breed association recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Its mission is to promote the breed and assist in its recovery, as well as creating and executing a policy of genetic improvement through selective breeding. The association works with the French National Stud and the Center for Genetic Resources to develop breeding programs and represents the Trait du Nord on French breed committees. It also organizes and contributes to contests and events that help to promote and develop the breed.
## Breed characteristics
In the early 1930s, the breed reached the peak of its physical structure. It was then described as a born laborer, built for traction and with a conformation that allowed it to move huge weights over short distances. Although some breeds of draft horses have declined in weight in modern times, the Trait du Nord has remained relatively large. The average size in the breed is for mares and for stallions, weighing 1,800 to 2,000 pounds (800 to 900 kg) for mares and 1,870 to 2,200 pounds (850 to 1,000 kg) for stallions. Foals of 30 months who are candidates to become registered must be at least . Bay and roan are the most frequent colors seen in the breed. Chestnut (including liver chestnut, although this color is quite rare) is also allowed, as are black, brown and gray, although the latter is extremely rare.
In France, the National Stud regulates the physical standards of the Trait du Nord and eight other French breeds. The eligibility criteria have changed several times since the opening of the studbook in 1913, and now describe the ideal Trait du Nord as large, well built, short and powerful, with a large frame and well-developed muscles, energetic, with easygoing and beautiful gaits. Members of the breed are described by the breed association as courageous and observant, as well as gentle and easy to handle. The head is generally small in proportion to the mass of the horse, and often snub, with a flat profile (neither concave nor convex). The neck is of medium length and strong, often slightly arched. The withers are prominent and the shoulder long and slightly oblique. The back is short and straight and the body compact, solid and very muscular. The chest is deep, with a broad, muscular breast. The croup is wide and powerfully muscled. The hooves are hard and strong.
There are two main types of Trait du Nord. One is a heavier type bred for pulling heavy loads, while the other is a lighter type bred for slightly faster work, generally at the trot. Auxois, Ardennes, Brabant and some Dutch draft breeds may be admitted to the Trait du Nord studbook after being inspected and approved by a review panel. Registered horses are marked with a stylized "N" brand on the left side of the neck, signifying conformity to the breed standard.
## History
The ancestors of the breed lived in the northern river valleys of the Sambre and the Scheldt, near Valenciennes. Although it is a popular myth that many French draft breeds, including the Trait du Nord, are descendants of the prehistoric horses found at Solutré, this is not true. Two or possibly three subspecies of now-extinct equines have been found at Solutré, but there is no evidence that they migrated to the area that later produced the Trait du Nord. Like Dutch and Belgian draft breeds such as the Brabant, the origin of the Trait du Nord is found in the large, fertile Flemish grasslands that cover the southern portion of the Netherlands, northern France and all of Belgium. The Hainaut region is the true birthplace of the breed in France. The Belgian draft breeds, the Ardennes and the Trait du Nord share the same ancestry, and the Trait du Nord has a history that is very similar to the Ardennes, due to the influence of the latter breed on the former. The Ardennes, Belgian, Dutch Heavy Draft, Trait du Nord and Auxois are all considered to come from the same group of breeds, due to their heritage, physical characteristics and selection for draft work. Until relatively recently, the breeds were not differentiated, and were frequently crossbred.
The region of Flanders is particularly conducive to agriculture, and in the 19th century the draining of the swamps and improved farming techniques led to a major expansion in cultivated areas and farm sizes. As there were no existing horses in the area that were suitable for plowing, the farmers found it necessary to create a breed of draft horse specifically for their use. From the 1850s on, farmers selected horses that eventually became the Trait du Nord. The farmers combined large Belgian breeds adapted to swampy ground with the Ardennes and Dutch breeds for size, weight and strength. The result was a muscular, powerful, and tough breed with long legs that facilitated movement. The Trait du Nord was unique in being selected specifically for farming, as many draft breeds were also bred for use in transport.
The Trait du Nord proved a successful breed for the farmers that developed it, and quickly spread throughout the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France. It was given different names depending on the country, and was often confused with and crossbred with draft breeds from the Netherlands, Brabants and the Ardennes. Breed associations began to organize in the late 19th century, and at this point blood from the Boulonnais was introduced to bring more elegance to the breed. The Trait du Nord gradually began to differ from the Ardennes as they gained size and volume and improved their gaits, and the breed became popular in the north and east of France. In 1855, even before the breed had been differentiated from the Ardennes, veterinarians described the heavy horses bred near Hainaut as superior to Flemish breeds.
### 20th century
During World War I, Trait du Nord horses were among those confiscated by Germans from Belgium and France for use in the war. In 1919, these horses were returned to their homeland, allowing the reconstruction of the breed. During World War II, the armed forces used all stocks of fuel, and the draft horse was used to continue agricultural production in France. After the war, farmers quickly equipped themselves with mechanized equipment. The decline in the breeding of the Trait du Nord became noticeable in the early 1950s, and by 1960 breed numbers had collapsed completely. By the early 1970s, breeding had slowed so much that the Trait du Nord, along with other French draft breeds, was in danger of extinction.
As horses were replaced by tractors, the production of horse meat became the main viable market for the Trait du Nord and other French breeds. As the horses were sought for meat, the larger, heavier animals became more in demand, and these horses lost much of their power and pulling ability. A French decree on August 24, 1976, published in the Official Journal, encouraged farmers to select the biggest, heaviest stallions for breeding. The French National Stud backed this decree, and encouraged the breeding of foals that would fatten rapidly, to be butchered at the age of eighteen months. Between the mid-20th century and the 1980s, the average weight of the Trait du Nord increased from between 800 and 900 kilograms (1,800 and 2,000 lb) to over 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb). Since the early 1970s, the use of the Trait du Nord for meat has declined, contributing to a further reduction in breeding.
In the early 1990s, recreational riding experienced a revival, and the consumption of horse meat continued to decrease. On March 11, 1994, the Trait du Nord was officially declared to be a workhorse again, and in 1996 another decree prohibited docking of tails in horses. Members of the breed are occasionally exported from France, with some going to Italy, Belgium and Germany, mainly for work in logging and pulling brewery wagons. A few are sent to Sicily and Guadeloupe, but this is quite rare.
## Uses
The Trait du Nord was originally used mainly for agriculture and mining. They also towed barges on waterways, although this use ended quickly with the increased use of the engine at the beginning of the 20th century.
The peak use of the breed for agriculture was quite short, running from 1880 to around 1960 (ending due to increased use of mechanized equipment), but it allowed significant progress in agriculture in northern France. The stamina and energy of the breed allows them to perform well in the heavy and compact soils in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and recover quickly after exercise. The nature of soils in Hainaut required a horse weighing more than 1,800 pounds (800 kg) for effective plowing. Since the 1950s, the Trait du Nord has been the preferred breed for farmers who practiced intensive cropping of cereals and beets in the Northern Great Plains of France.
The pulling power of the Trait du Nord made it popular for use during the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century in heavy industry, including mining. In mines, steam engines and internal combustion engines could not be used due to the possibility of a gas explosion. The first horses were used in the mines in 1821 and the Trait du Nord quickly became a favorite for hauling carts in the mines and operating the pulleys used to lift coal to the surface. Breeders worked to adapt the breed to mining requirements, and the breed became larger as more power was needed to pull heavier loads. Good horses were able to pull 16.8 metric tons (16.5 long tons; 18.5 short tons), usually around twelve cars worth, along a railway. As early as 1920, the usage of horses in mines began to decline as electric locomotives came into use, and in 1969 the last horse was removed from the mines.
### 1990s and today
Today, the breed is used mainly for meat and logging forested areas inaccessible to machinery. Since the mid-1990s, colts not intended for breeding, recreational riding, or harness work are heavily fed and sent out to slaughter before the age of eighteen months. Fillies are generally used for breeding. The breed association and its breeders are trying to secure the future of the Trait du Nord by finding new markets, especially in the areas of recreational riding, agricultural work, recreational and competitive driving. The breed is involved in several reenactments and folk villages which attract good crowds. The breed is promoted for its use in logging in forests and fragile areas, with professional foresters using them to preserve the value and biodiversity of forested areas.
The revival of team driving has prompted farmers who use the Trait du Nord to attend competitions and improve the quality of their horses. The qualities of the breed make it a popular horse for leaders in the areas of recreational and competition team driving, and the breed has the advantage of being able to be immediately returned to work even after a period of inactivity for several months. When being driven, a traditional "Flemish collar" is generally used. The horses are trained to be driven with only one rein, leaving the driver's hands free for other work. When shown in hand, Trait du Nord horses are often presented in groups, generally between four and eight to a string.
Each year, the Trait du Nord is honored at an agricultural show and horse show in Paris. In 1995, the breed won the International Workhorse Trophy at the Paris show and in 2010, a Trait du Nord took the first place prize for weight pulling at the show. Trait du Nord teams participate in the Route du Poisson, a relay race commemorating the route that teams took to bring fresh fish from Boulogne to Paris until the 19th century. The race takes place every two or three years and is the biggest equine relay race in Europe.
## Breed preservation
The Trait du Nord is an endangered breed; the Haras de Compiègne (Compiegne Stud), a national stud in France, had a major influence in saving the breed, until it was closed in October 2009. The national breed registry for the Trait du Nord is supported by other local initiatives. However, breed numbers were already low when these initiatives began to be implemented, and media attention on the Trait du Nord is insufficient to maintain economically viable interest. The breed is bred mainly by enthusiasts returning to family farms, but even the number of farms has been decreasing as many young farmers prefer more to breed cattle, which are more lucrative.
Although breed associations and the French National Stud are making efforts to protect the breed, very low numbers persist, and these organizations consider the breed very close to extinction. It is one of the most threatened French horse breeds. The production of horse meat has declined due to a decrease in consumption, and most male foals are neither selected for reproduction nor work. One author says that more alternatives to slaughter are needed and that the steady decline in breed numbers is proof that the breed is slowly disappearing. Beginning in 2011, the Trait du Nord association is working with the North Pas-de-Calais regional council and other groups to increase the number of births by 20 percent by December 2014, and double the number by 2020.
The main breeding areas are located around the former Compiegne Stud and include the departments of Nord, the Pas-de-Calais, the Oise, the Aisne and Somme. A few are found in the central region of Normandy and the Paris area. This breed is found mainly in France and is rarely exported abroad, or only very sporadically with related Belgian and Dutch breeds. A survey of mares in 2008 gave 121 mares in the region of North Pas-de-Calais, 46 in Picardy, 6 in Normandy and one to three mares in the other regions.
Despite efforts to revive interest in the breed, numbers steadily declined in the years before 1988. In 1995, there were 33 stallions in service; in 1996 this number remained the same and by 1998 it had declined to 30. In 2004, there were 111 breeders and 119 Trait du Nord foals were registered. By 2007 and 2008 there were only 17 stallions registered, a number which is exposing the breed to a dangerous increase in inbreeding. To combat this danger, farmers are cross breeding the Trait du Nord with approved Belgian and Dutch horses. The number of farmers breeding the Trait du Nord decreased from 150 to 125 in 2002, then to 92 in 2007 and 86 in 2008. After birth rates remained relatively steady in the 1990s, they began to drop in the 2000s, declining from 176 in 2000 to 100 in 2005 and just 75 in 2007.
|
2,649,002 |
Lionel Palairet
| 1,151,474,661 |
English cricketer
|
[
"1870 births",
"1933 deaths",
"Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford",
"C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers",
"England Test cricketers",
"English cricketers",
"Gentlemen cricketers",
"Gentlemen of the South cricketers",
"Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers",
"Oxford University cricketers",
"People from Grange-over-Sands",
"Somerset County Cricket Club presidents",
"Somerset cricket captains",
"West of England cricketers",
"Wisden Cricketers of the Year"
] |
Lionel Charles Hamilton Palairet (27 May 1870 – 27 March 1933) was an English amateur cricketer who played for Somerset and Oxford University. A graceful right-handed batsman, he was selected to play Test cricket for England twice in 1902. Contemporaries judged Palairet to have one of the most attractive batting styles of the period. His obituary in The Times described him as "the most beautiful batsman of all time". An unwillingness to tour during the English winter limited Palairet's Test appearances; contemporaries believed he deserved more Test caps.
Palairet was educated at Repton School. He played in the school cricket team for four years, as captain in the latter two, before going to Oriel College, Oxford. He achieved his cricketing Blue in each of his four years at Oxford, and captained the side in 1892 and 1893. For Somerset, he frequently opened the batting with Herbie Hewett. In 1892, they shared a partnership of 346 for the first wicket, an opening stand that set a record for the County Championship and remains Somerset's highest first-wicket partnership. In that season, Palairet was named as one of the "Five Batsmen of the Year" by Wisden.
Over the following decade, he was one of the leading amateur batsmen in England. He passed 1,000 first-class runs in a season on seven occasions, and struck two double centuries. His highest score, 292 runs against Hampshire in 1895, remained a record for a Somerset batsman until 1948. His only Test matches were the fourth and fifth Tests against Australia in 1902: Australia won the fourth Test by three runs, and England won the fifth Test by one wicket. After 1904, he appeared infrequently for Somerset, though he played a full season in 1907 when he was chosen to captain the county. He retired from first-class cricket in 1909, having scored over 15,000 runs.
## Early life
Lionel Palairet was born in Grange-over-Sands, a popular seaside resort in Lancashire, on 27 May 1870. He was the oldest of five children born to Henry Hamilton Palairet and Elizabeth Anne Bigg. His father, of Huguenot ancestry, was five times archery champion of England, and a keen cricketer who made two first-class appearances for the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in the late 1860s. Palairet was educated first at the Reverend S. Cornish's School in Clevedon, Somerset, where he once took seven wickets in seven successive deliveries, and then at Repton School. At Repton he developed a reputation as an all-round sportsman: he broke the school's running records in the two-mile, mile and half-mile distances, and played cricket in the school's first eleven from 1886 to 1889, captaining the team in his final two years. In 1889, he was adjudged the school's second best sportsman, behind only C. B. Fry. During his final year at Repton, he had a batting average of over 29, and took 56 wickets at an average of under 13.
Some of Palairet's early success can be attributed to his father, who paid the professionals Frederick Martin and William Attewell, both later Wisden Cricketers of the Year, to bowl at his two sons during the Easter holidays, to help them prepare for the upcoming cricket season. During the later part of the 1889 season, Palairet made his first appearances for Somerset County Cricket Club. At the time, Somerset were a second-class county, and their fixture list that summer was against a variety of first- and second-class opposition. Although a Lancastrian by birth, Palairet's family home was at Cattistock in Dorset, and it was in the south west that he chose to play his cricket. On completion of his studies at Repton, he attended Oriel College, Oxford.
## Cricket career
### University and county cricketer
Palairet was selected for the university cricket team during his first year at Oxford, and made his first-class debut against the touring Australians in May 1890. Palairet scored six and nought and took one wicket in the match which Australia won by an innings. In his next match, Palairet improved, top-scoring for Oxford in their first innings against the Gentlemen with his first half-century in first-class cricket, 54 runs batting at number eight. He only passed 50 runs in one other innings for Oxford that summer, a score of 72 against the MCC, and in all matches for the university that season scored 285 runs at an average of 19.00. Batting averages in 1890 were lower than usual due to the poor weather, and Palairet's average placed him fourth among Oxford's team; his 285-run total was the team's second highest aggregate. Palairet won his Blue—the awarding of the Oxford "colours" to sportsmen—by appearing in the 1890 University match against Cambridge, a game in which he had little success. Somerset played thirteen matches in the season, won twelve of them and tied the other. Palairet played in ten of these games, and on his first appearance scored a century against Leicestershire. Somerset's achievements led to their admission to first-class cricket for 1891.
Oxford's batting was described by the Oxford cricket historian Geoffrey Bolton as "unreliable" during 1891, Palairet's second year at the university. Palairet's batting average of 15.78 placed him fifth amongst his peers, and he once again struggled in the university match, scoring two and eleven. Although he generally batted as part of the middle order for Oxford, he invariably opened the innings for Somerset alongside his captain, Herbie Hewett. In this role he thrived for Somerset; his average for the county in ten matches was 31.11, placing him among the top ten batsmen in the County Championship. He scored his debut century in first-class cricket that year, with 100 runs against Gloucestershire. Palairet had agreed to tour North America with Lord Hawke's party, but he demurred late, and was replaced by Somerset teammate Sammy Woods.
In 1892 Palairet was elected captain of the Oxford team, and according to Wisden, "had a most brilliant season." Palairet used himself heavily as a bowler for the university; only George Berkeley bowled more deliveries. He took five wickets in an innings for the first of two occasions during his career in the first innings of Oxford's match against the Gentlemen, and followed it up with four wickets in each innings against Lancashire, a match in which he also scored a half-century. He recorded the best bowling figures of his first-class career in the return match against Lancashire, taking six wickets for 84 runs at Old Trafford, and in the following game against Sussex, Bolton says, "Palairet played two beautiful innings and bowled to some effect". Facing Cambridge in the university match, he was out without scoring in the first innings, but centuries from Malcolm Jardine and Vernon Hill took Oxford to 365. Cambridge were dismissed for 160, and were forced to follow on, whereupon they reached 388, leaving Oxford requiring 184 runs to win. Palairet, who had injured himself while fielding, opted not to open the batting, promoting Frank Phillips in his place. Oxford started poorly, falling to 17 for two, but coming in at number five, Palairet batted for an hour and a half to score 71 runs and help his side to victory. He topped the batting averages for Oxford in 1892, scoring 509 runs at 36.35, and his 28 wickets came at 22.28.
Palairet's university performances were good enough to earn him selection for the Gentlemen against the Players in the prestigious matches at Lord's and The Oval. Returning to Somerset, he struck a century against Gloucestershire in early July, In late August, playing Yorkshire, Palairet scored 132 out of a partnership of 346 with Hewett, establishing a record for the first wicket in first-class cricket, surpassing W. G. Grace and Bransby Cooper's 1869 total of 283. Although their record has since been beaten in first-class cricket, it remains Somerset's record partnership for the first wicket. Their partnership was described as "Pure grace at one end, sheer force at the other", in H.S. Altham and E. W. Swanton's A History of Cricket. At the time, The Daily Telegraph reported that the pair remained together for three and a half hours, during which Palairet scored one six and nineteen fours. At the end of the season, he was selected in two representative sides: appearing for the West against the East, and once again for the Gentlemen against the Players, on this occasion at Hastings. In all first-class matches that year, he scored 1,343 runs, the third most of any cricketer. He was named as one of the Five Batsmen of the Year by the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1893, which noted that "there can be little doubt that even greater distinction awaits him in the cricket world."
In contrast to the previous year, 1893 was an unsuccessful one for Oxford. The university side failed to win a single match, and despite favourable batting conditions, none of the batsmen scored a century. Palairet was second in the batting averages, scoring 276 runs at 21.23. Bolton questioned the team selections that year under Palairet's captaincy, particularly for the university match, in which he believed a stronger team could have been chosen. Cambridge had a powerful team, containing eight of their players from the previous year, and adding Arthur Jones and K. S. Ranjitsinhji. Oxford lost the match by 266 runs, with only Palairet and Fry scoring more than 12 runs for the side.
In his four years at Oxford, Palairet appeared for the university 31 times in first-class cricket and accrued 1,291 runs at an average of 23.05. He scored nine half-centuries, with a top-score of 75 not out. He claimed 52 wickets at 25.03—significantly lower than his career average—and took the only five-wicket hauls of his career. While at Oxford, he also gained a Blue in athletics, running in the three-mile race against Cambridge in 1892. The same year, he played association football for Corinthians, and there were also appearances for Combined Universities and London. An injury prevented Palairet from playing against Cambridge, and thus earning his Blue in football.
### Leading amateur batsman
Over the following seasons, Palairet moved to "the front rank of amateur batsmen," according to W. G. Grace. He played for Arthur Shrewsbury's England XI against Australia in 1893, and scored 71 runs as the English side won by an innings and 153 runs. He scored five half-centuries for Somerset that summer, and his batting average of 28.94 in the County Championship was bettered only by Hewett among his teammates. The next year, Palairet made a big score against his former university. Facing a team that included his brother, Richard Palairet, and was captained by Fry, he made 181 runs in Somerset's second innings, the highest first-class score of his career to that point. He also scored a century against Nottinghamshire, making 119 runs before being out leg before wicket to his old trainer Attewell. He fell just short of 1,000 first-class runs in 1894; though two half-centuries scored against the touring South Africans in matches not considered first-class would have taken him over the milestone.
In 1895, Palairet was fourth in the national batting averages, having scored 1,313 runs at 46.89. The three batsmen above him, Archie MacLaren, Grace and Ranjitsinhji all appeared for England that year. Palairet scored three centuries during the season; two against Middlesex, on the latter occasion batting undefeated through the whole Somerset innings, and one against Yorkshire, when he struck 165. He passed a thousand runs again the following year, maintaining a batting average in excess of 40. A fourth-innings score of 83 not out that season drew praise from Ranjitsinhji; on a difficult pitch, Palairet farmed the strike and rescued a draw for his side. Just over a month later, he reached his highest total in first-class cricket, scoring 292 runs against Hampshire. It was his first double century, and the highest score by any Somerset batsman in first-class cricket at that time. One newspaper in Australia, reporting on his innings, declared that; "should he retain his form he will certainly be worthy of a place ... in the final Test match at the Oval." Either side of that match against Hampshire, he appeared for the Gentlemen against the Players at The Oval and Lord's, but made little impact on either game. He returned to form against Sussex on their visit to Taunton, sharing a 249-run partnership with his brother, and scoring 154 runs himself. The match was played shortly before the final Test match against Australia, but despite the comments in the Australian press, Palairet was not selected for the match. He did appear twice against the tourists that summer, for Somerset he scored six across two innings, and chosen to play for Charles Thornton's XI during the Scarborough Festival, he scored 71 runs in an innings victory.
In 1897 Palairet made fewer first-class appearances, playing in only 12 matches. He scored 593 runs at an average just below 30, the only time between 1895 and 1906 that his average was below that value. Despite this relatively quiet season, Somerset still relied heavily on him; he led the county batting averages in the 1897 County Championship. In 1898, Palairet topped 1,000 first-class runs for the third season out of four. He struck 179 not out against Gloucestershire in Bristol, and late in the season, also against Gloucestershire, he captained Somerset for the first time, leading them to victory by an innings and 169 runs. He played in two matches during the Scarborough Festival, in which he scored 54, his highest innings for the Gentlemen against the Players, and also appeared for Thornton's "England XI" against that season's county champions, Yorkshire.
Palairet missed all of the 1899 season through appendicitis; Baily's Magazine of Sports & Pastimes suggested that but for this he might have appeared for England against Australia that summer. He returned in 1900, scoring 947 runs at an average of 35.07. His only century came against Hampshire, when he scored 161 runs, and shared a partnership of 262 with Charles Bernard.
The subsequent 1901 season was, statistically, his best. He trailed only Fry and Ranjitsinhji in the national batting averages, and drew particular acclaim for his innings of 173 against Yorkshire. The all-conquering Yorkshire were reigning County Champions, unbeaten in 1900; the match against Somerset at Headingley was the only one they lost in 1901. Somerset were dismissed for 87 in their first innings, and Yorkshire reached 325 to lead by 238 runs on first innings. Palairet and his fellow opener Len Braund—both of whom had been out without scoring in the first innings—then scored 222 runs together in 140 minutes at the start of Somerset's second innings, each scoring a century. After the dismissal of Braund for 107, Palairet continued, eventually being caught and bowled for 173. Frank Phillips added a third century (122), and Somerset reached a total of 630. Yorkshire were bowled out on a wearing pitch for 113, with Braund and Beaumont Cranfield each taking four wickets, and Somerset won by 279 runs. The Yorkshire captain, Lord Hawke, declared that it was "one of the best matches I ever lost." In the same year, Palairet scored 182 against Lancashire and 194 against Sussex. Altogether he scored five centuries and eleven half-centuries in 1901, averaging 57.75 for his 1,906 runs—the highest season's total of his career.
### England recognition
The English summer of 1902 was badly affected by rain, making batting more difficult. Through the whole season, Palairet did not score a first-class century, though he did score over 1,000 runs. He was once again instrumental in inflicting defeat on Yorkshire: on what Sir Home Gordon described as a "rain-ruined wicket", Palairet scored 25 and 24 during a match in which only Braund also reached double-figure scores in both innings. Wisden described the pair's batting as "admirable", and it helped secure a Somerset victory by 34 runs; for the second successive year, Somerset were the only side to beat Yorkshire in the County Championship.
Palairet was selected to appear for the Marylebone Cricket Club against the touring Australians in the week prior to the first Test of the series. He scored 39 and 44 in a drawn match. He was not chosen to play in any of the first three Tests, but was called up for the fourth match, at Old Trafford. Palairet, Ranjitsinhji and Fred Tate replaced Fry, George Hirst and Gilbert Jessop; the Wisden match report indicates that dropping Fry was a necessary decision, but that Hirst and Jessop should both have played. In A History of Cricket, Altham is more direct in claiming that Palairet should not have been chosen: "The selectors, it is now agreed, made a questionable choice in preferring Lionel Palairet to an all-rounder such as Hirst." On his Test debut, Palairet opened the batting and scored six runs in the first innings, one of five victims to fall to Jack Saunders and Hugh Trumble in the first 45 minutes of England's innings. In the second innings, Palairet once again opened, though with a different partner: MacLaren replaced Bobby Abel. The pair made scored 44 runs together, though Wisden noted that "the difficulty they experienced in playing the bowling made one apprehensive". Palairet was bowled by Saunders, and England were eventually dismissed for 120, four runs short of victory.
For the next Test match—the fifth and final of the series—Palairet retained his place, with Hirst and Jessop restored to the side. The Australians batted throughout the first day for a total of 324 runs. Overnight rain then made batting difficult, and England totalled 183 on the second day. Palairet was dismissed for 20 by Trumble, whose bowling Altham praised as magnificent. Australia also struggled in their second innings, and England required 263 runs to win the match. Palairet was dismissed for six, the third batsman to be bowled by Trumble in the innings, at which point England's score was 10 for 3 wickets. Lower order runs from the recalled Jessop and Hirst recovered the innings, and England won by one wicket. In Palairet's only other match against Australia that summer, for Somerset, he scored 44 and 90 in a drawn game at Taunton. He made no further Test appearances, and completed his brief Test career with 49 runs at an average of 12.25, against an Australian side that has been described as among the best Test teams prior to the Second World War.
### Later county career
In 1903, Palairet played eleven first-class matches. His only century of the season came against Surrey, when he scored 114 in the second innings, having struck a half-century in the first. He passed 50 on three other occasions, and finished the year with 637 runs at 35.38. He appeared more frequently the following year, in which he scored 1,000 first-class runs in a season for the final time of his career. He opened the season with a century against Gloucestershire, scoring 166 runs. During the Bath cricket festival, he scored 111, and shared an opening partnership of 161 with Braund during a ten-wicket loss to Lancashire. Against Worcestershire later that month, he scored the second, and final, first-class double century of his career. Opening the batting for Somerset, he reached 203; more than Worcestershire had managed in their first innings, before being dismissed. Somerset won the match by an innings and 114 runs. The cricket historian David Foot describes 1904 and the subsequent few seasons as undistinguished for Somerset; between then and the First World War, the club never finished higher than tenth in the County Championship. Palairet missed most of the cricket in 1905 and 1906, to concentrate on his work as a land agent for the Earl of Devon. He played three times in 1905; against the touring Australians, Kent and Warwickshire, while in 1906 he played one match, against Yorkshire. At the end of 1906, Woods, who had captained Somerset since 1894, retired. Despite his limited appearances over the previous couple of years, Palairet was appointed as Woods' replacement for 1907.
During the 1907 season, Palairet played in all of Somerset's County Championship matches, and also appeared for the county against the touring South African side. The club struggled to find eleven eligible players for some of their matches, and at one stage were forced to recall Ted Tyler to the side – Tyler had not played for Somerset for four years, and had only played five matches since 1900. Palairet himself had a disappointing year; his batting average of 21.33 was the lowest in any season in which he played ten or more matches. He passed 50 in an innings on only three occasions, one of these being 116 runs against Kent at Tonbridge, the final century of his first-class career. At the end of the season, in which Somerset finished fourteenth of sixteen teams in the County Championship, Palairet resigned the captaincy. At the club's annual general meeting, in an uncharacteristic outburst he criticised the lack of talent and team spirit . After 1907, made only eight further appearances in first-class cricket, his final match being in 1909 for Somerset against Kent at Taunton, where he scored one run in the first innings and three in the second. Palairet invariably wore a Harlequins cricket cap during matches, and was considered aloof by his colleagues. In his complete first-class career he scored 15,777 runs at an average of 33.63, including 27 centuries, and took 143 wickets at a bowling average of 33.91
## Style and technique
Often considered by commentators to be the benchmark against which other batsmen are compared for attractive, graceful batting, Palairet won many plaudits for his style. In his book, The Jubilee Book of Cricket, Ranjitsinhji includes a number of staged photographs of Palairet playing his shots, and describes his methods in places, using them as the model which young players should adopt. He played predominantly off the front foot, and tended to be less effective on soft pitches. He favoured shots on the off side, particularly the off drive and cover drive. During Palairet's career, bowlers favoured a tactic, known as off theory, of bowling the ball just outside the off stump. The strength of Palairet's off side strokes helped him to score effectively against this tactic. Fry suggests that the early practice that Palairet gained against Attewell and Martin, who bowled accurately at the stumps, was a key factor in limiting his range of leg side shots. He favoured lofted shots which were often compared to golf strokes.
For a time early in his career, he attempted to play more powerfully, but then returned to his forward style. Despite this, he remained capable of hitting the ball out of the County Ground in Taunton and into the River Tone at one end or the churchyard at the other. Although considered a stylish batsman, Palairet was described by Foot as having "the minimum of extrovert flourish" and "no quaint mannerisms", both factors he considered relevant in Palairet's limited Test appearances. Throughout his career, Palairet shunned improvisation, and played well-established, orthodox cricket shots. He remained absolutely still at the crease while preparing to play a shot, a feature later seen in Viv Richards' batting.
## Personal life
Palairet married Caroline Mabel Laverton, the daughter of William Henry Laverton, a prominent cricket patron in Wiltshire, in 1894. The pair had two children: Evelyn Mabel Hamilton, born in 1895, and Henry Edward Hamilton the following year. Palairet's brother, Richard, played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1891 and 1902, albeit without as much success as Lionel. In addition to cricket, Palairet maintained an interest in a range of other sports; a 1901 profile of him in Baily's Magazine records that foxhunting was his primary sporting interest. After his retirement from cricket, Palairet became a prominent golfer in the south-west. He was the first chairman of the Devon County Golf Union upon its formation in 1911, captained Devon at golf either side of the First World War, from 1914 through until 1926, and was also president of the Union from 1923 until 1932. He developed the idea of an inter-club team championship within Devon, and donated the prize, which remains named the Palairet Trophy. During the First World War, he had command of a Remount Depot at Powderham, the seat of the Earl of Devon. He died in Exmouth on 27 March 1933, aged 62.
|
4,621,259 |
State Route 343 (New York−Connecticut)
| 1,148,822,110 |
Highway in New York and Connecticut
|
[
"State highways in Connecticut",
"State highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Dutchess County, New York",
"Transportation in Litchfield County, Connecticut"
] |
New York State Route 343 (NY 343) is a state highway located entirely within central Dutchess County, in the Hudson Valley region of the U.S. state of New York. It runs east–west from the intersection of NY 82 in the village of Millbrook to the town of Amenia, where it crosses the Connecticut state line and continues eastward as Route 343, a Connecticut state highway located entirely within the town of Sharon. Along the way, it has a 7.3-mile (11.7 km) concurrency with NY 22 from vicinity of the hamlet of Dover Plains to the hamlet of Amenia.
The entirety of modern Route 343 was originally the Dover branch of the Dutchess Turnpike. The turnpike, which was in operation from the early to the mid-19th century, was a major transportation route at the time, connecting several local communities to Litchfield County, Connecticut, and the city of Poughkeepsie. NY 343 was designated in 1930, connecting the hamlet of Amenia to the state line, but was relocated a few years later onto the portion of New York State Route 200 from South Millbrook to the hamlet of Dover Plains. The NY 200 designation was rerouted east of Millbrook on NY 343's original alignment. NY 343 absorbed NY 200 in the early 1940s, creating an overlap with NY 22 between Dover Plains and Amenia. The Connecticut portion of the highway was originally designated as part of Route 4; it was renumbered to Route 343 in 1932.
Several landmarks along the way include the Silo Ridge Country Club in the hamlet of Wassaic, Beekman Park in the hamlet of Amenia, and the Troutbeck Conference Center in the hamlet of Leedsville. When NY 343 crosses the state line, it becomes Connecticut's Route 343 and passes through more rural and residential areas. Route 343 stretches for 1.50 miles (2.41 km) into the town of Sharon, Connecticut, where it terminates at a junction with Route 4 and Route 41.
## Route description
### NY 343
NY 343 begins at an intersection with NY 82 (cosigned as U.S. Route 44 or US 44 until 2008) in the hamlet of South Millbrook, located within the village of Millbrook. The road heads eastward into the town of Washington, intersecting an old alignment of NY 82 and passing to the south of Millbrook Golf and Tennis Club. NY 343 continues past fields, residential homes, and farms. The highway passes south of the creek, Mill Brook, entering the hamlet of Littlerest, where it turns to the southeast at an intersection with County Route 99 (CR 99). At the intersection with CR 23, NY 343 again changes direction, this time to the northeast, and soon crosses Stone Church Brook in the hamlet of Mutton Hollow. Here, NY 343 changes directions a third time, traveling to the southeast once again towards the hamlet of Dover Plains.
Northwest of Dover Plains, NY 343 turns to the northeast and passes into the town of Amenia. As it does so, it intersects reference route NY 980G, which is signed to service NY 22 southbound. Just east of the town line, NY 343 intersects NY 22. NY 343 turns north onto NY 22, and the joined routes pass to the west of a series of moderately-sized mountains as they head through regions of rural farms, fields and homes. The roads parallel the Tenmile River and soon intersect with CR 81 (a former routing of NY 22) south of the hamlet of Wassaic. After passing through Wassaic, the roads cross Wassaic Creek and enter a small valley, soon passing the Wassaic Train Station and continuing northward towards the hamlet of Amenia.
CR 81 merges with NY 22 and NY 343 as the main roads pass by Beekman Park and Silo Ridge Country Club in the hamlet of Amenia. The roads pass a pond and split at the intersection with US 44. US 44 and NY 22 continue to the north, and NY 343 continues eastward towards the state line. The road passes south of the Amenia Cemetery, changing directions several times. NY 343 soon intersects with CR 2 and turns to the northeast, passing over the Webatuck Creek. About 2 miles (3.2 km) later, NY 343 crosses the state line and enters Connecticut.
NY 343 is classified as a rural major collector road between Millbrook and Dover Plains and carries an average of about 3,100 vehicles per day (as of 2006), 5% of which is classified as truck traffic. The portion concurrent with NY 22 is a rural principal arterial road with average traffic of 5,600 per day (with 7% classified as truck traffic). East of NY 22, NY 343 is a rural minor arterial road carrying about 4,100 vehicles per day (with 6% classified as truck traffic).
### Route 343
When NY 343 crosses the state line into the town of Sharon, it enters a moderately rural area where a large factory is located. Route 343, known as Amenia Road, heads northeast towards the town center, passing through patches of forests and intersecting with Sharon Valley Road, a connector to Route 361. After passing north of Sharon Country Club, the highway turns east as it enters the town center, where the surroundings of the highway begin to become populated. Route 343 ends 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the state line at an intersection with Route 4 (which also terminates at this intersection) and Route 41 south of the town green.
## History
### Old roads
The alignment used by modern NY 343 was a major transportation route that passed through the colonial settlements of Wassaic and Amenia. The highway helped General George Washington's troops during the American Revolutionary War and was also the main supply route to the hamlets of Payne's Corners (now Amenia), Washiac (now Wassaic) and Dover Plains. Stone statues that marked the way to different places including New York City, Fishkill and Boston were put up along the road during the Revolution, helping suppliers of salt from Boston. This highway grew significantly over the years, with settlements growing along the highway during the early 19th century. There were also a few factories along the route, including a Borden Food Corporation factory that produced condensed milk in the 1860s.
NY 343 from the NY 22 / US 44 intersection in Amenia to the Connecticut state line was part of the main line of the Dutchess Turnpike, which ran from Poughkeepsie to the state line at Amenia, mostly along modern US 44. Prior to the building of the turnpike, the section of modern NY 343 east of Amenia to the state line was a swamp and did not connect Amenia to the state line. The turnpike corporation was established by law in April 1802 and finished grading the highway in 1805. In May 1803, the continuation of the Dutchess Turnpike into Connecticut, the Goshen and Sharon Turnpike, was also chartered. When the road was completed a few years later, it established a continuous, improved road between Poughkeepsie and Hartford. In 1806, a branch route, splitting off from the mainline at South Millbrook, was established to connect the hamlet of Dover Plains to Poughkeepsie. The southern branch used modern NY 343 from its western end at US 44 in South Millbrook to NY 22 in Dover Plains. The state took over maintenance of the turnpikes at the beginning of the 20th century.
### Designation
In 1924, the main line of the Dutchess Turnpike was designated as NY 21, connecting the city of Poughkeepsie to the Connecticut state line as the original turnpike did. The road continued into Connecticut as Route 4, a highway that was part of the New England road marking system. In the 1930 state highway renumbering, old NY 21 was broken up into several state routes. The portion between NY 82A west of the hamlet of Amenia and the Connecticut state line in the town of Sharon was renumbered as NY 343. In 1932, the continuation of NY 343 in Connecticut was renumbered from Route 4 to Route 343 to match the New York route number.
As part of the 1930 renumbering, the Dover branch of the Dutchess Turnpike between modern NY 82 in the village of Millbrook and NY 22 north of the hamlet of Dover Plains was designated as part of NY 200, which began in the city of Poughkeepsie and went via Millbrook to the vicinity of Dover Plains. In 1934, NY 200 was rerouted replacing NY 343 from Milbrook through Amenia to Connecticut, while NY 343 was reassigned to the old route of NY 200 between the village of Millbrook and the hamlet of Dover Plains. US 44 was assigned in April 1935, resulting in the reconfiguration of several state routes in Dutchess County. One of the routes affected was NY 200, which was truncated. The section of NY 200 west of Amenia became part of the new US 44
The NY 200 designation was removed from the Amenia–Sharon road in the early 1940s and NY 343 was redesignated along that section. The two segments of NY 343 were connected via an overlap with NY 22, which remains to this day.
## Major intersections
## See also
|
448,716 |
William D. Leahy
| 1,173,343,971 |
US Navy admiral, ambassador (1875–1959)
|
[
"1875 births",
"1959 deaths",
"Ambassadors of the United States to France",
"American five-star officers",
"American military personnel of the Banana Wars",
"American military personnel of the Boxer Rebellion",
"American military personnel of the Philippine–American War",
"American military personnel of the Spanish–American War",
"American people of Irish descent",
"Burials at Arlington National Cemetery",
"Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff",
"Chiefs of Naval Operations",
"Governors of Puerto Rico",
"Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath",
"Military aides to the President of the United States",
"Military personnel from Iowa",
"People from Hampton, Iowa",
"Recipients of the Navy Cross (United States)",
"Recipients of the Navy Distinguished Service Medal",
"United States Naval Academy alumni",
"United States Navy World War II admirals",
"United States Navy admirals",
"United States Navy personnel of World War I",
"Writers from Iowa"
] |
William Daniel Leahy (/ˈleɪhiˌ ˈleɪ.i/) (May 6, 1875 – July 20, 1959) was an American naval officer. The most senior United States military officer on active duty during World War II, he held several titles and exercised considerable influence over foreign and military policy. As a fleet admiral, he was the first flag officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces.
An 1897 graduate of Annapolis, Leahy saw active service in the Spanish–American War, the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China, the Banana Wars in Central America, and World War I. He was the first member of his cadet class to reach flag rank, as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance from 1927 to 1931. He subsequently served as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation from 1933 to 1936, and commanded the Battle Fleet from 1936 to 1937. As Chief of Naval Operations from 1937 to 1939, he was the senior officer in the United States Navy, overseeing the expansion of the fleet and preparations for war.
After retiring from the Navy, Leahy was appointed the governor of Puerto Rico in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his most controversial role, he served as the Ambassador to France from 1940 to 1942. American policy was aimed at keeping the government of Vichy France free of German control, but Leahy had limited success. He came to believe that the United States was backing the wrong side, and asked to be recalled after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war.
Leahy was recalled to active duty as the Chief of Staff to the President in 1942 and served in that position for the rest of the war. He was the highest-ranking active-duty member of the military. As the de facto first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he oversaw all of the American armed forces. He also presided over the American delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He was a major decision-maker during the war and was second only to the President in authority and influence. Leahy was promoted to five-star rank in December 1944. He served Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, helping shape postwar foreign policy until he retired in 1949. Although he did not oppose the use of the nuclear weapons during the war, in the post-war period he rejected war plans that placed too much emphasis on the first use of nuclear weapons.
## Early life and education
William Daniel Leahy was born in Hampton, Iowa, on May 6, 1875, the first of seven children of Michael Anthony Leahy, a lawyer and American Civil War veteran, who was elected to the Iowa Legislature in 1872, and his wife Rose Mary née Hamilton. Both parents were born in the United States but his grandparents were immigrants from Ireland. He had five brothers and a sister. His father was re-elected in 1874, but moved to Wausau, Wisconsin in 1882. In 1889, the family moved again, this time to Ashland, Wisconsin, where Leahy attended high school. His nose was broken in an American football match and his family lacked the money to get it fixed, so it remained crooked for the rest of his life.
Leahy wanted to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, but this required an Congressional appointment, and Leahy was unable to secure one. His local Congressman, Thomas Lynch, offered Leahy an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, which was much less popular among boys in the landlocked Midwestern United States. Leahy passed the entrance examinations and was admitted as a naval cadet in May 1893.
Leahy learned how to sail on the USS Constellation on a summer cruise to Europe, although the vessel only made it as far as the Azores before breaking down. He graduated 35th out of 47 in the class of 1897. His class was the most successful ever: five of its members would reach four-star rank while on active duty: Leahy, Thomas C. Hart, Arthur J. Hepburn, Orin G. Murfin and Harry E. Yarnell. As of 2022, no other class had had more than four.
## Naval service
### Spanish-American War
Until 1912 naval cadets graduating from Annapolis had to complete two years' duty at sea and pass examinations before they could be commissioned as ensigns. Leahy was assigned to the battleship USS Oregon, which was then at Vancouver, British Columbia for celebrations of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He was on board when she made a dash through the Strait of Magellan, and around South America in the spring of 1898 to participate in the Spanish–American War. The Oregon took part in the blockade and bombardment of Santiago and shelled the small town of Guantánamo, which Leahy felt was "unnecessary and cruel". In the Battle of Santiago on July 3, Leahy was in command of the ship's forward turret. This was the only naval battle Leahy witnessed in person.
Seeking further action, Leahy volunteered to serve on the gunboat USS Castine, which was bound for the war in the Pacific, traveling via the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal, but he got only as far as Ceylon when he received orders to report to Annapolis for his final ensign's examinations. He was therefore left behind, and had to return to the United States on the USS Buffalo. He reached Annapolis in June 1899. He passed his examinations, and was commissioned as an ensign on July 1, 1899. After few weeks' leave, spent with his parents in Wisconsin, and a few months' service on the cruiser USS Philadelphia at the Mare Island Navy Yard, he joined the monitor USS Nevada on October 12, 1899. A week later it set sail for the Philippines. It arrived in Manila on November 24, and Leahy rejoined the crew of the Castine five days later.
### China and Philippine–American Wars
On December 17, 1899, Castine sailed for Nagasaki, but it developed engine trouble on February 12 and stopped in Shanghai to make repairs. While it was there the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China, and it was retained in Shanghai to help British, French and Japanese forces guard the city, although Leahy did not like their chances if the 4,500 Chinese troops in the vicinity joined the uprising, as they had in the Battle of Tientsin. On August 28, the Castine was ordered to Amoy help protect American interests there against the possibility of a Japanese coup. After the threat had passed, the Castine returned to the Philippines, arriving back in Manila on September 16, 1900.
The Philippine–American War was still ongoing, and the Castine supported American operations on Marinduque and Iloilo. Leahy was appalled by American brutality and the widespread use of torture. Still an ensign, he was given his first command, the gunboat USS Mariveles, a refitted ex-Spanish vessel. It had a crew of 23. His period in command ended when the Mariveles lost one of its propellers and had to be laid up for repairs. He was then reassigned to the USS Glacier, a stores ship which was engaged in bringing supplies from Australia to the Philippines. While in the Philippines he passed the examinations required for promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, and was promoted to that rank on July 1, 1902. He made his final trip to the Philippines in September 1902,and returned to the United States later that year.
Sea duty alternated with duty ashore. Leahy was assigned to the training ship USS Pensacola in San Francisco, where he was promoted to lieutenant on December 31, 1903. He met and courted Louise Tennent Harrington. Leahy married Louise on February 3, 1904. Louise subsequently convinced him to convert to Episcopalianism.
Leahy helped commission the cruiser USS Tacoma but swapped assignments with an officer on the USS Boston so that he could remain in San Francisco with Louise, who was pregnant. Over the next two years the Boston cruised back and forth between San Francisco and Panama, where the Panama Canal was under construction. He was in Acapulco when their son and only child, William Harrington Leahy, was born on October 27, 1904, and did not see his son until five months later. He was present for the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. His family had to leave their house in the face of the resulting fires. It survived undamaged, although they had to live in a hotel for several months before they could return.
On February 22, 1907, Leahy returned to Annapolis as instructor in the department of physics and chemistry. He also coached the academy rifle team. After two years ashore, he received orders on August 14, 1909, to return to San Francisco and sea duty as navigator of the armored cruiser USS California, commanded by Captain Henry T. Mayo, in whom Leahy found a patron and a role model. In September, the California was one of eight ships that paid an official visit to Japan, where Leahy saw Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō. Mayo switched Leahy's assignment from navigator to gunnery officer.
Leahy was promoted to lieutenant commander on September 15, 1909, and in January 1911, the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet, Rear Admiral Chauncey Thomas Jr., chose him as his fleet gunnery officer. In October, the California returned to San Francisco for a fleet review in honor of President William Howard Taft, and Leahy served as Taft's temporary naval aide for four days.
### Banana Wars
Rear Admiral William H. H. Southerland succeeded Thomas as commander of the Pacific Fleet on April 21, 1912. The California sailed to Manila and then to Japan before returning to San Francisco on August 15. A few weeks later, Southerland received orders to proceed to Nicaragua and be prepared to deploy a landing force for the United States occupation of Nicaragua. Along with his duties as gunnery officer, Leahy became the chief of staff of the expeditionary force and the commander of the small garrison at Corinto, Nicaragua. He came under fire while repeatedly escorting reinforcements and supplies over the railroad line to León. Privately, he thought that the United States was backing the wrong side, propping up a conservative elite who were exploiting the Nicaraguan people.
In October 1912, Leahy came ashore in Washington, D.C., as assistant director of gunnery exercises and engineering competitions. Then, in 1913, Mayo had him assigned to the Bureau of Navigation as a detail officer. Mayo and then his replacement, Rear Admiral William Fullam, were reassigned, leaving Leahy as the acting chief of the bureau. It was one of the Navy's most sensitive offices, as it controlled officer assignments. Leahy's wife Louise enjoyed the social milieu of Washington, and socialized with Addie Daniels, the wife of Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy. Leahy established a close friendship with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
As Leahy's three-year tour of shore duty approached its end in 1915, he hoped to command the new destroyer tender USS Melville but Daniels had the assignment changed to command of the Secretary of the Navy's dispatch gunboat, the USS Dolphin. Leahy assumed command of the Dolphin on September 18, 1915. The ship took part in the United States occupation of Haiti, where Leahy again acted as chief of staff, this time to Rear Admiral William B. Caperton. In May 1916, Dolphin participated in the occupation of the Dominican Republic too. During the summer, Roosevelt used it as his family yacht, cruising down the Hudson River from the Roosevelt family estate in Hyde Park, New York, and along the coast to his holiday house on Campobello Island. Leahy was promoted to commander on August 29, 1916.
### World War I
Following the United States entry into World War I In April 1917, Dolphin was sent to the United States Virgin Islands to assert America's control there. There was a rumor that a Danish-flagged freighter in the vicinity, the Nordskov, was a German merchant raider in disguise, and Dolphin was sent to investigate. If it had been, Leahy would have been outgunned, but an inspection determined that the rumors were false. In July 1917, Leahy became the executive officer of USS Nevada. It was the Navy's newest battleship, but it was not sent to Europe due to teething troubles with its new design and a shortage of fuel oil in Britain.
In April 1918 Leahy assumed command of a troop transport, the USS Princess Matoika. Shortly before it was due to depart for France, Leahy was summoned to Washington, D.C., by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral William S. Benson, who offered him the position of the Navy's director of gunnery. Leahy told him that he wanted to remain on the Princess Matoika. A compromise was reached; Leahy was permitted to cross the Atlantic once before becoming director of gunnery. Traveling in convoy, the Princess Matoika reached Brest on May 23, 1918, and disembarked its troops. Leahy was awarded the Navy Cross "for distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the USS Princess Matoika, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies to European ports through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines during World War I."
Leahy returned to the United States, where he was promoted to captain on July 1, 1918, and soon after was on his way back to Europe to confer with representatives of the Royal Navy and discuss their gunnery practices. He reached London later that month, where he reported to the U.S. Navy commander in Europe, Vice Admiral William S. Sims, who had been a critic of the Navy's gunnery in the Spanish-American War. Leahy met with his British counterpart, Captain Frederic Dreyer, and the chief gunnery officer of the Anglo-American Grand Fleet, Captain Ernle Chatfield.
Leahy was attached to the staff of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, the commander of the American division of the Grand Fleet, and was able to view a gunnery exercise from the British battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth. On the way home he visited Paris, where he was appalled at the German use of a long-range gun to bombard the city, which he considered an indiscriminate targeting of civilians and militarily useless. He embarked for home on the SS Leviathan at Brest on August 12, 1918.
### Sea duty between the wars
In February 1921, Leahy sailed for Europe, where he assumed command of the cruiser USS Chattanooga on April 2. In May he was ordered to take command of the cruiser USS St. Louis, the flagship of the naval detachment in Turkish waters during the Greco-Turkish War. He was able to spend a couple of weeks in the French countryside with Louise, who spoke fluent French, before taking the Orient Express to Constantinople, where he reported to the American commander there, Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, on May 30. Leahy had the role of safeguarding American interests in Turkey. He had to play the diplomat, attending parties and receptions, and organizing American events. He reveled in this assignment.
The next step in a successful naval career would normally have been to attend the Naval War College. Leahy submitted repeated requests but was never sent. At the end of 1921, he was given command of the minelayer USS Shawmut and concurrent command of Mine Squadron One. He then returned to Washington, D.C., where he served as director of Officer Personnel in the Bureau of Navigation from 1923 to 1926. After three years of shore duty, he was given command of the battleship USS New Mexico. In biennial competitions in gunnery, engineering and battle efficiency, the New Mexico won all three in 1927–1928.
### Flag officer
On October 14, 1927, he reached flag rank, the first member of his cadet class to do so, and returned to Washington as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. The following year he bought a town house on Florida Avenue near Dupont Circle for \$20,000 (). He also had assets that he had acquired through his marriage to Louise: stocks in the Colusa County Bank and agricultural land in the Sacramento Valley in California. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, President Herbert Hoover determined to effect cuts in the Navy's budget, and his representative, Rear Admiral William V. Pratt, negotiated the London Naval Treaty that limited naval construction. The list of canceled ships included two aircraft carriers, three cruisers, a destroyer and six submarines. Leahy was in charge of implementing these cuts, and he was appalled at the human toll; some 5,000 workers lost their jobs, many of them highly skilled shipyard workers who faced long-term unemployment during the Great Depression.
Admiral Charles F. Hughes elected to retire rather than enforce the cuts, and he was replaced by Pratt. Pratt and Leahy soon clashed over cuts to shipbuilding, and Pratt attempted to have Leahy reassigned as chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet. Leahy had the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation block this, but decided that it would be in his best interest to get away from Pratt, and he secured command of the destroyers of the Scouting Force on the West Coast in 1931. Leahy's dislike of Hoover was intensified by his dire personal circumstances. He could not find a tenant for the Florida Avenue property at a rent that would pay for its upkeep; the price of food had fallen so much that his land in the Sacramento Valley could not generate a profit, and was seized by the government to recover unpaid taxes; and a run on the bank in January 1933 caused the Colusa County Bank to close its doors, taking with it Leahy's life savings, and leaving him with a large debt that he would not pay off until 1941.
Roosevelt was inaugurated as president on March 2, 1933, and he nominated Leahy as the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. On May 6, 1933, Leahy and Louise boarded a train back to Washington, D.C.. As bureau chief, Leahy handled personnel matters with care and consideration. When his successor as the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, Rear Admiral Edgar B. Larimer, suffered a mental breakdown and was hospitalized, Leahy ensured that he was kept on the active list until he reached retirement age, thereby safeguarding his pension. When two midshipmen at Annapolis, John Hyland and Victor Krulak, faced expulsion for failing to reach the required minimum height of 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm), Leahy waived the regulations to permit them to graduate with the class of 1934, and both went on to have distinguished careers.
Leahy formed a good working relationship with the new Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Henry L. Roosevelt, an Annapolis graduate and distant cousin of the President whom Leahy considered a close personal friend, but he clashed with the new CNO, Admiral William H. Standley, who sought to assert the power of the CNO over the bureau chiefs. In this he was opposed by Leahy and the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Rear Admiral Ernest J. King, who enlisted the aid of Henry Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy, Claude A. Swanson, to block it. In 1936, the commander-in-chief United States Fleet (CINCUS), Admiral Joseph M. Reeves recommended Leahy for the position of Commander Battleships Battle Force, with the rank of vice admiral. Standley was opposed to this, but was unable to persuade Swanson or the President, who invited Leahy to a private chat at the White House before proceeding to take up his new posting.
Leahy assumed his new command on July 13, 1935. In October Roosevelt came out to California for the California Pacific International Exposition. Leahy treated him to the largest fleet maneuver the U.S. Navy had ever carried out, with 129 warships, including 12 battleships, participating, which the President observed from the deck of the cruiser USS Houston. On March 30, 1936, Leahy was promoted to the temporary rank of admiral and hoisted his four-star flag on the battleship USS California as Commander Battle Force. One of his last acts in this post was a symbolic one: he transferred his flag to the aircraft carrier USS Ranger as a sign of his conviction that aircraft were now an integral part of sea power.
### Chief of Naval Operations
In December 1935, Swanson told Leahy in confidence that he would be appointed the next CNO if Roosevelt won the 1936 presidential election. Roosevelt won the election with a landslide victory, and on November 10, 1936, it was announced that Leahy would succeed Standley as CNO on January 1, 1937. As CNO, Leahy was content to let the bureau chiefs function as they always had, acting as a primus inter pares. Swanson was chronically ill, and Henry Roosevelt died on February 22, 1936. Charles Edison became the new assistant secretary, but he lacked experience in naval affairs.
Leahy began representing the Navy in cabinet meetings. He met with the President frequently; during his tenure as CNO, Roosevelt had 52 meetings with Leahy, compared with twelve with his Army counterpart, General Malin Craig, and none the meetings with Craig were private lunches. Meetings between Leahy and Roosevelt were sometimes on matters unrelated to the Navy, and they frequently went on for hours. At one private lunch on April 15, 1937, Leahy and Roosevelt debated whether new battleships should have 16-inch (410 mm) or (cheaper) 14-inch (360 mm) guns. Leahy ultimately persuaded the President that the new North Carolina-class battleships should have 16-inch guns. On May 22, Leahy accompanied the President and dignitaries including John Nance Garner, Harry Hopkins, James F. Byrnes, Morris Sheppard, Edwin C. Johnson, Claude Pepper and Sam Rayburn on a cruise on the presidential yacht USS Potomac to watch a baseball game between congressmen and the press.
The most important issue confronting the administration was how to respond to the Japanese invasion of China. The commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Harry Yarnell, asked for four more cruisers to help evacuate American citizens from the Shanghai International Settlement, but the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, thought this would be too provocative. Leahy went to Hyde Park to take the matter up with Roosevelt. The request was turned down: American isolationist sentiment was too strong to countenance the risk of being drawn into the conflict; Yarnell could use merchant ships, if he could find them. Leahy accepted this presidential decision, as he always did, even when he strongly disagreed. Leahy wrote in his diary that a Japanese threat to bomb the civilian population in China was "evidence, and a conclusive one, that the old accepted rules of warfare are no longer in effect."
On December 12, Leahy was informed of the USS Panay incident, in which an American gunboat on the Yangtze River had been sunk by Japanese aircraft. He met with Hull to craft a response, and discussed the matter with Roosevelt on December 14. Leahy saw the Panay incident as a test of American resolve. He wanted to answer it with a show of force, economic sanctions and a naval blockade of Japan. But among Roosevelt's advisors, he was the only one willing to countenance such a drastic step. Roosevelt agreed with him, but in an election year he felt he could not afford to antagonize the pacifists and isolationists. The Japanese apology therefore was accepted.
The Panay incident did prompt Roosevelt and Leahy to press ahead with plans for an ambitious shipbuilding program. On January 5, Roosevelt, Leahy and Edison met with Congressman Carl Vinson to draw up a strategy for obtaining Congressional approval for a 20 percent increase in all classes of warships. The resulting Second Vinson Act was approved in May 1938, and provided for four more Iowa-class battleships. Leahy had not thought it worthwhile to build more aircraft carriers, but five were added to what became the Two-Ocean Navy Act, together with five Montana-class battleships. Leahy pushed for the construction of 24 Cimarron class oilers, which would be needed to project American sea power across the Pacific. Leahy joined Louise when she sponsored the first of these, the USS Cimarron, which was commissioned on March 20, 1939.
Roosevelt threw a surprise party for Leahy on July 28, 1939, during which he presented him with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. According to Leahy, Roosevelt said: "Bill, if we have a war, you're going to be right back here helping me run it." To make this easier, legislation was expedited to keep Leahy on the active list for another two years. On August 1, 1939, Admiral Harold Stark replaced Leahy as CNO.
## Government service
### Governor of Puerto Rico
From September 1939 to November 1940, Leahy served as Governor of Puerto Rico after Roosevelt removed Blanton Winship for his role in the Ponce massacre. Winship had aligned himself with the Coalición, a pro-American electoral alliance that represented the interests of the island's wealthy elite and American sugar corporations. Roosevelt gave Leahy the objectives of developing and upgrading base installations, and of alleviating the extreme poverty and inequality. Leahy was given an \$10 million (equivalent to \$ million in ) in addition to funds already earmarked for the island and extraordinary latitude in spending it. He was also named as the head of the Puerto Rican office of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which gave him control over New Deal funding. In October 1939, he also became the head of the Puerto Rico Cement Corporation to help it secure a \$700,000 loan () from the Federal government's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), and in December he became the head of the Puerto Rican branch of the RFC. His power was enhanced by his direct access to the President and the Secretary of the interior, Harold L. Ickes.
Although given the unflattering sobriquet Almirante Lija ("Admiral Sandpaper") by locals, based on his surname, Luis Muñoz Marín came to regard Leahy as "by far the best governor that has been sent to Puerto Rico since the beginning of the American Regime." Leahy took an open stance of not intervening directly in the politics of Puerto Rico, although he remained involved in Federal politics, doing what he could to support Roosevelt's 1940 reelection. He attempted to understand and respect local customs, and initiated major public works projects. Although his priority was developing Puerto Rico as a military base, over half the WPA funds were spent on public works such as roads and improving sanitation. He regulated prices and production in the coffee industry, and had ships traveling between the United States and the Panama Canal, where major upgrade works were being undertaken, stop over in Puerto Rico when they needed repairs or supplies. In December 1939 he met with Roosevelt and secured another \$100 million in WPA funding (equivalent to \$ million in ) for public works, which allowed him to hire another 20,000 workers. By awarding lucrative government contracts and appointing officials based on Roosevelt's preferences rather than those of the local elite, he soon earned the enmity of the Coalición.
Leahy oversaw the development of military bases and stations across the island. At the time of his appointment as governor, the only naval installations were a radio station and a hydrographic office. On October 30, 1939, a fixed-price contract was awarded for construction of the Naval Air Station Isla Grande. The scope was widened to include the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station; construction work there commenced in 1941 under another fixed-price contract and the base was commissioned on July 15, 1943.
Between January 1 and November 1, 1940, Leahy met with Roosevelt six times. One of the most important was a lunch on October 6, 1940. Admiral James O. Richardson, the CINCUS, had been ordered to keep the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor to act as a deterrent to the Japanese. Richardson protested that Pearl Harbor was unsuitable as a base and was too vulnerable to a surprise attack. Leahy agreed, but knew better than to press the matter with Roosevelt when his mind was made up. On February 1, 1941, Richardson was recalled.
### Ambassador to France
Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy described the Fall of France in June 1940 as "the most shocking single event of the war". American security had been underwritten by Britain and France, allowing the United States to have comparatively low defense spending. Planning was based on the assumption that France would be a bulwark against Germany, as it had been in World War I, and the United States would have ample time to mobilize industry and create armies. Now, with France gone, Germany could directly threaten the United States. On November 18, 1940, Leahy was appointed United States Ambassador to France. In his message asking Leahy to accept the position, Roosevelt explained:
> We are confronting [the message said] an increasingly serious situation in France because of the possibility that one element in the present French Government may persuade Marshal Petain to enter into agreements with Germany which will facilitate the efforts of the Axis powers against Great Britain. There is even the possibility that France may actually engage in the war against Great Britain and in particular that the French fleet maybe utilized under the control of Germany.We need in France at this time an Ambassador who can gain the confidence of Marshal Petain who at the present moment is the one powerful element in the French Government who is standing firm against selling out to Germany. I feel that you are the best man available for this mission. You can talk to Marshal Petain in language which he would understand and the position which you have held in our own Navy would undoubtedly give you great influence with the higher officers of the French Navy who are now hostile to Great Britain.
"My major task", Leahy later recalled "was to keep the French on our side in so far as possible". He hoped to convince Pétain and the Commander-in-Chief of the French Navy, Admiral François Darlan, that it was in France's best interest that Germany be defeated. He departed Norfolk, Virginia, on the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa on December 17, 1940, and presented his letter of credence to Pétain in Vichy on January 9, 1941.
Leahy had some levers with which to influence the French to moderate collaboration with the Axis Powers. He advised Roosevelt that shipments of food and medical aid to France would improve America's standing and stiffen Pétain's resolve. In his opinion, the "British blockade action which prevents the delivery of necessary foodstuffs to the inhabitants of unoccupied France is of the same order of stupidity as many other British policies in the present war." He suggested that aid to French North Africa would also strengthen the hand of General Maxime Weygand, the French Delegate-General in North Africa, in resisting Axis demands. Roosevelt compelled the British to accept the shipment of food and medicine for children, along with thousands of tons of fuel intended for their distribution.
American aid proved insufficient to buy French support. In May 1941, Darlan agreed to the Paris Protocols, which granted Germany access to French military bases in Syria, Tunisia, and French West Africa, and in July the French granted Japan access to bases in French Indochina, which directly threatened the American position in the Philippines. Although no German bombers had the range to bomb the United States from bases in Senegal, if they could deploy to Vichy-held Martinique, they could do so from there.
Weygand, the main American hope for a change in French policy, was recalled on November 18, 1941, despite Leahy's warnings that this could prompt a cession of American aid. On December 7, Leahy received news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was followed, on December 11, by the German declaration of war against the United States. Leahy thought the United States's entry into the war would strengthen his hand with the Vichy government, but Charles de Gaulle's capture of Saint Pierre and Miquelon later that month discredited American assurances that French colonies would not be seized.
By this time Leahy was convinced that the United States was backing the wrong side, and he urged Roosevelt to use this as a pretext for recalling him to the United States. This was finally prompted by the formation of a new government in Vichy under the pro-Axis Pierre Laval on April 18. Meanwhile, on April 9, Leahy's wife Louise underwent a hysterectomy. While recovering from the operation, she suffered an embolism and died on April 21. Leahy called on Pétain to say farewell on April 27. He arrived back in New York on the Swedish-registered ocean liner SS Drottningholm on June 1. He arranged for a funeral service for Louise at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where they had been members for many years, and watched her burial in Arlington National Cemetery on June 3, 1942. Reflecting on her loss, Leahy would write that Louise's death had "left me not only crushed with sorrow, but permanently less than half efficient for any work the future may have in store for me and completely uninterested in the remaining future."
## Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief
### Organization and role
Waging a two-ocean war as part of a coalition revealed serious deficiencies in the organization of the American high command when it came to formulating grand strategy: meetings of the senior officers of the Army and Navy with each other and with the President were irregular and infrequent, and there was no joint planning staff or secretariat to record decisions taken. Under the Constitution of the United States, the President was the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. At a meeting with Roosevelt on February 24, 1942, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General George C. Marshall, urged Roosevelt to appoint a chief of staff of the armed forces to provide unity of command, and he suggested Leahy for the role. Leahy had lunch with Roosevelt on July 7, during which this was discussed. On July 21, Leahy was recalled to active duty. He resigned as Ambassador to France and was appointed Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. In announcing the appointment, Roosevelt described Leahy's role as an advisory one rather than that of a supreme commander.
Leahy attended his first meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on July 28. The other members were Marshall; King, who was now both CNO and Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet (now abbreviated as COMINCH); and Lieutenant General Henry H. Arnold, the Chief of U.S. Army Air Forces. Henceforth, the JCS held regular meetings at noon on Wednesdays, which usually commenced with a light lunch. Leahy served as the de facto chairman. He drew up the agenda for the JCS meetings, presided over them, and signed off on all the major papers and decisions. He considered that this was due to his seniority and not by virtue of his position. He had a small personal staff of two military aides-de-camp and two or three secretaries. JCS meetings were held in the Public Health Service Building, where Leahy had an office. After some renovations were made, he was also given an office in the East Wing of the White House on September 7, 1942; the other two main offices there were occupied by Hopkins and Byrnes. Roosevelt had the Map Room constructed in the White House where large maps showed the progress of the war. Only Leahy and Hopkins had unrestricted access to the Map Room; everyone else had to be accompanied by Leahy or Hopkins or given special permission to enter.
Two days after his first JCS meeting, there was a meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), which Leahy also chaired. In these meetings the JCS met with the leaders of the British Joint Staff Mission: Field Marshal Sir John Dill, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Air Marshal Douglas Evill and Lieutenant General Gordon Macready. CCS meetings were held every Friday. The main agendum item at his first JCS and CCS meetings was Operation Gymnast, a proposed invasion of French North Africa. Marshall and King were opposed to it on the grounds that it would divert resources necessary for Operation Roundup, a landing in northern France, but after listening to their arguments, Leahy informed them Roosevelt was adamant that it was vital American forces take the field against Germany in 1942, and that Gymnast was to proceed. Roosevelt gave his formal assent on July 25. Marshall and King considered this to be tentative, but Leahy informed them that the decision was final.
Leahy usually arrived at his White House office sometime between 08:30 and 08:45 and went over copies of dispatches and reports. For convenience, the documents were color coded: pink for incoming dispatches from the theater; yellow for outgoing ones; green for JCS papers; white for CCS ones; and blue for papers from the Joint Staff Planners. Leahy would select the papers to be brought to the President's attention, and would meet with him each morning in the Oval Office or the Map Room. This included high-grade Ultra intelligence. Control of the flow of information gave Leahy a further source of power and influence beyond his personal relationship with the President.
### Grand strategy
When Roosevelt went away, Leahy went with him. Leahy missed the Casablanca Conference in January 1943; after setting out with Roosevelt, Hopkins and Rear Admiral Ross McIntire, Leahy developed bronchitis and had to remain in Trinidad. But he was present at all the other inter-Allied conferences that the President attended. Leahy's support of Roosevelt's decision to invade French North Africa did not mean that he bought into the British Mediterranean strategy. He joined Marshall and King in their advocacy of a cross-Channel operation in 1944. At the first conference he attended, the Third Washington Conference, in May 1943 he clashed with the British chiefs of staff over their reluctance to undertake operations to reopen the overland route to China, which Leahy considered vital to both the war against Japan and the postwar era. Leahy eventually extracted a promise from the British to undertake Operation Anakim, an offensive to recapture Burma, in 1943. Leahy sided with Hopkins and Major General Claire Chennault in supporting a bombing offensive against Japan from bases in China despite Marshall's prescient warnings that this could not be sustained without adequate ground troops to protect the air bases. Marshall was proven correct when a Japanese offensive overran Chennault's bases.
On November 12, 1943, Roosevelt, Hopkins, Leahy, King and Marshall set off together from Hampton Roads on the battleship USS Iowa. Roosevelt occupied the captain's cabin, and Leahy the one for an embarked admiral. They reached Mers-el-Kebir on November 20, from whence they flew to Tunis and then Cairo. Roosevelt stayed at the American Ambassador's compound in Cairo. Space was limited, so he took only Leahy and Hopkins with him. Discussions with the British were mainly concerned with Burma and China, about which they had much less interest than the Americans.
They then flew on to Tehran, Iran, for talks with Stalin. Roosevelt was slated to stay at the American legation there, but Stalin offered to put him up at the Soviet compound. He was allowed to bring two people with him, so he chose Leahy and Hopkins. The conference reached agreement with the Soviets on the cross-Channel operation (Operation Overlord) and an invasion of Southern France (Operation Anvil). When General Sir Alan Brooke began to back away from the commitment, Leahy lost his patience and demanded to know under what circumstances Brooke would be willing to undertake Overlord. The British, as Leahy put it, "fell into line".
Although the conservative Leahy regarded Hopkins as a "pinko", the two men worked well together, and Leahy became quite fond of Hopkins. Both were completely devoted to the President, and Leahy saw something of himself in the idealistic Hopkins. Over time, Leahy gradually replaced Hopkins as Roosevelt's most trusted advisor, becoming, in the words of historian Phillips O'Brien, "the second most powerful man in the world". The main reason for this was the Hopkins's precarious health, as he had stomach cancer. He married Louise Gill Macy in the Yellow Oval Room on July 30, 1942, they moved out of the White House in December 1943. He was therefore no longer at Roosevelt's beck and call.
Leahy spent D-Day, June 6, 1944, in his home town of Hampton, Iowa. This well-publicized "sentimental journey" was part of the deception efforts surrounding the Allied invasion of Europe. The idea was to lull any German agents in the United States into believing that the operation would not take place while such an important officer was out of the capital. The following month, he accompanied Roosevelt to the Pacific Strategy Conference in Hawaii at which they met with Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the commander in chief of the Pacific Ocean Areas, and General Douglas MacArthur, the commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific Area.
Roosevelt, Leahy and presidential speech writer Samuel Rosenman (instead of Hopkins) set out from Washington in Roosevelt's personal railcar, the Ferdinand Magellan, on July 13. They went to Hyde Park, where Roosevelt showed Leahy around his Presidential Library, then to Chicago, where Roosevelt conferred with leaders of the Democratic Party over the choice of Harry S. Truman as his vice presidential running mate in the 1944 election. In San Diego they boarded the cruiser USS Baltimore, which took them to Hawaii, where Nimitz briefed them on a proposed invasion of the island of Formosa, King's preferred target, but also spoke favorably of MacArthur's alternative of liberating the Philippines. Leahy hoped that this would facilitate a naval and air blockade that would make an invasion of Japan unnecessary. No decision was taken at this time, and the JCS continued debating the issue for months before authorizing the liberation of Luzon on October 3.
Hopkins was not present at the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944 either, continuing Leahy's transformation into a White House advisor. Leahy did not attend the political sessions at Quebec, but at this level political and military issues were indistinguishable. For example, the JCS examined a proposal for a British fleet to participate in the Pacific War, a military proposal with a political objective. King was unenthusiastic about the idea; the U.S. Navy was performing well against the Japanese, and the addition of British forces would complicate command and logistics arrangements. Leahy and Marshall pressed for the British offer to be accepted, and in the end it was, with the proviso that the British Pacific Fleet would be self-supporting.
Another debate concerned the American occupation zone in Germany. The United States was allocated the southern part of Germany, which meant that its lines of communications would run through France, where Leahy was concerned about the prospect of a postwar Communist takeover. Roosevelt and Churchill reached a compromise, whereby the ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven would be given to the Americans, along with the right of transit through the British Zone.
Leahy was advanced to the newly created rank of Fleet Admiral on December 15, 1944, making him the most senior of the seven men who received five-star rank that month. He accompanied President Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference in February 1945. The cruiser USS Quincy took them to Malta, where Leahy chaired a CCS meeting to discuss the war against Germany, and then the President's personal aircraft, the Sacred Cow, flew them to Yalta. At Yalta, Roosevelt met Churchill and Stalin to decide how Europe was to be reorganized after the impending surrender of Germany.
On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died. Leahy attended the ceremonies and the memorial service for his friend, which was held in the East Room of the White House.
### Atomic bomb
On April 13, Leahy gave the regular morning briefing on the progress of the war to Truman, who had become President on Roosevelt's death. This was followed by a short meeting with the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, and the Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal. Afterwards, Leahy offered to resign, but Truman decided to retain him as chief of staff. On June 18, the Joint Chiefs, along with Stimson and Forrestal, met with Truman at the White House to discuss Operation Olympic, the planned invasion of Kyushu. Truman chaired the meeting. Marshall and King strongly favored the operation, and all the others voiced their support except Leahy, who feared that it would result in high casualties. He questioned Marshall's casualty estimates, which were based on the Luzon campaign, which took place on a large land mass where there was ample room for maneuver, rather than the Okinawa campaign, which took place on an island where lack of maneuver room resulted in frontal assaults and high casualties.
According to Truman's Memoirs: Year of Decisions, Leahy was skeptical about the atomic bomb, saying: "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." After the bomb was tested and did explode, Truman consulted with Byrnes, Stimson, Leahy, Marshall, Arnold and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of United States Forces, European Theater. The consensus was that the atomic bomb should be used. Although Leahy later wrote in his memoirs that his "own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages", historian Barton J. Bernstein noted that Leahy did not oppose its use at the time:
> Nor is there solid evidence that any high-ranking American military leader, other than General George C. Marshall on one occasion, expressed moral objections before Hiroshima to the use of the atomic bomb on Japanese cities. Nor, before Hiroshima, did any other top military leader – Admiral William Leahy, Admiral Ernest King, or General Henry Arnold – ever raise a political or military objection to the use of the A-bomb on Japanese cities or argue explicitly that it would be unnecessary. Only after the war would Leahy utter moral and political objections...
### Truman administration
In July 1945, Leahy accompanied Truman to the Potsdam Conference where Truman met with Stalin and the new British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to make decisions about the governance of occupied Germany. Hopkins was too ill to make the journey. Leahy was disappointed in the outcome of these conferences. He considered that both Truman and Stalin had suffered defeats, with proposals that would have ensured a lasting peace in Europe being watered down or turned down. He recognized that the Soviet Union was a dominant power in Europe, and that the British Empire was in terminal decline, underscored by the mid-conference replacement of Churchill by Attlee.
On January 24, 1946, Leahy was appointed to the interim National Intelligence Authority (NIA), which oversaw activities of the nascent Central Intelligence Group. The following year the National Security Act of 1947 replaced these organizations with the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency respectively, ending Leahy's involvement. He continued to chair meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he rejected war plans that he felt placed too much emphasis on the first use of nuclear weapons.
Like many naval officers, he was opposed to the unification of the War and Navy departments into the Department of Defense, fearing that the Navy would lose its naval aviation and the Marine Corps. Nor did he agree with formalizing the role of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which he felt would place too much power in the hands of one individual. The position was created by amendments to the National Security Act that Truman signed into law on August 10, 1949, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was not the single chief of staff the Army and Air Force wanted.
Leahy was involved in the preparation of two speeches that marked the onset of the Cold War: Truman's Navy Day address on October 27, 1945, and Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech on March 5, 1946. The former was written by Leahy and Rosenman, and reflected Leahy's ideas about the fundamental goals of U.S. foreign policy; the latter was written by Churchill, but in consultation with Leahy, who was the only one of the "American military men" referred to in the speech with whom Churchill discussed the speech. But Leahy's non-interventionist stance on U.S. involvement in the Greek Civil War and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict were increasingly out of step with the policies of the Truman administration. On September 20, 1948, columnist Constantine Brown published allegations that White House advisors Clark Clifford and David K. Niles were urging Truman to get rid of Leahy, whom they regarded, Brown said, as an "old-fashioned reactionary".
On the day after Truman won the presidential election on November 2, 1948, Leahy asked to be retired in January. In December, doctors diagnosed Leahy with a partial blockage of the kidneys. On December 28, he met with Truman as chief of staff for the last time. Truman officially accepted his resignation as his chief of staff on March 2, 1949, although as an officer with five-star rank, Leahy technically remained on active service as an advisor to the Secretary of the Navy.
The following year, Leahy published his war memoirs, I Was There. His unemotional, unexciting and unenlightening style did his publisher no favors. Orville Prescott the book reviewer for The New York Times wrote: "As the personal confidant of President Roosevelt and President Truman, Admiral Leahy ought to have a good story to tell. Unfortunately, he hasn't... its stiff official manner, its elaborate discretion, its desperate need of editing and its lack of any exciting new information make it dull and dusty fare... writes in a prose style as rigid as a naval cadet standing at attention in his review." The book sold poorly, and when Leahy subsequently proposed a book about his time in Puerto Rico, the publisher turned it down.
## Death and legacy
Leahy died at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, on July 20, 1959, at the age of 84. At the time of his death, he was the oldest officer on active duty in the history of the U.S. Navy. He was given an Armed Forces military funeral. His body was viewed at the Bethlehem Chapel at the Washington National Cathedral from noon on July 22 until noon on July 23. A funeral service was then held in the cathedral at 14:00, followed by the burial in Arlington National Cemetery. Honorary pallbearers were Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Admiral Thomas C. Hart, Admiral Charles P. Snyder, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Vice Admiral Edward L. Cochrane, and Rear Admiral Henry Williams, all retired from service. Active military servicemen who were honorary pallbearers were Admiral Jerauld Wright, Admiral Robert L. Dennison, Rear Admiral Joseph H. Wellings, and close friend, William D. Hassett.
Leahy's papers are in the Naval History and Heritage Command and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; some personal correspondence is held by the Wisconsin Historical Society. The USS Leahy (CG-16), the lead ship of the Leahy-class cruisers, was named in his honor. In 2014 Quarters BB at the Old Naval Observatory was renamed Leahy House. On the mantelpiece was the order from Leahy to King and Marshall ending hostilities in World War II.
## Dates of rank
`United States Naval Academy naval cadet – Class of 1897, 35th of class of 47`
## Decorations and awards
- Leahy was invested as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Military Division of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath on November 21, 1945.
|
22,054,442 |
Nikolai Kulikovsky
| 1,165,072,568 |
Second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia
|
[
"1881 births",
"1958 deaths",
"20th-century Danish farmers",
"Burials at York Cemetery, Toronto",
"Danish emigrants to Canada",
"Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Denmark",
"Morganatic spouses of Russian royalty",
"White Russian emigrants to Denmark",
"White movement people"
] |
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky (5 November 1881 – 11 August 1958) was the second husband of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, the sister of Tsar Nicholas II and daughter of Tsar Alexander III.
He was born into a military landowning family from the south of the Russian Empire, and followed the family tradition by entering the army. In 1903, he was noticed by Grand Duchess Olga during a military review, and they became close friends. Olga wanted to divorce her first husband, Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, and marry Kulikovsky, but neither her husband nor her brother, the Tsar, would allow it.
During World War I, Olga eventually obtained a divorce and married Kulikovsky. They had two sons. Her brother was deposed in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and Kulikovsky was dismissed from the army by the revolutionary government. The Kulikovskys were forced into exile, and he became a farmer and businessman in Denmark, where they lived until after World War II. In 1948, they emigrated to Canada as agricultural immigrants, but within four years of their arrival they had sold their farm and moved into a small suburban house. He became increasingly disabled by back pain, and died in 1958 aged 76.
## Early life
Nikolai Kulikovsky was born into a military family from the Voronezh province of Russia. His grandfather was a general during the Napoleonic Wars, and his family owned two large estates in Ukraine. He rode from an early age, became an expert horseman, and was educated at Petrograd Real College of Gurevich, followed by the Nicholas Cavalry College [ru], from where he graduated with a degree.
He joined the Blue Cuirassier regiment of the imperial Russian cavalry shortly before 1903. Grand Duke Michael, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II, was the regiment's honorary colonel. In April 1903, during a military parade at the Pavlovsk Palace, Grand Duchess Olga, the youngest sister of Nicholas and Michael, saw Kulikovsky and begged Michael to arrange the seating at a casual luncheon so she and Kulikovsky were adjacent. The Grand Duchess was already married to Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg, who was covertly believed by his friends and family to be homosexual. A few days after her brief meeting with Kulikovsky, Olga asked Oldenburg for a divorce, which he refused with the qualification that he would reconsider his decision after seven years.
Kulikovsky was appointed as captain in the Blue Cuirassiers and posted to the provinces. By 1906, he and Olga were corresponding regularly, when Olga's husband Duke Peter appointed Kulikovsky as his aide-de-camp. With Peter's permission, Kulikovsky moved into the 200-room residence in Sergievskaya Street, Saint Petersburg, that Peter shared with Olga. According to a fellow officer, gossip about a possible romance between Kulikovsky and the Grand Duchess, based on little more than their holding hands in public, spread through high society.
## Marriage and revolution
Though Olga repeatedly asked Tsar Nicholas II to allow her to divorce, her brother refused on religious and dynastic grounds; he believed marriage was for life and that royalty should marry within royalty. When their brother, Grand Duke Michael, eloped with his mistress, Natasha Wulfert, the Tsar and Olga were scandalized along with the rest of society. Natasha was a commoner who had been divorced twice, and one of her former husbands was an officer in the same regiment as Kulikovsky. Michael was banished from Russia, and the likelihood of the Tsar ever granting Olga's divorce, or permitting her to marry a commoner, looked remote.
At the outbreak of World War I, Kulikovsky was sent to the front with his regiment. Michael was recalled from abroad, and Olga went to work in a military hospital as a nurse. Olga continued to press the Tsar to allow her divorce. In a letter she wrote, " ... finish with the divorce now during the war while all eyes and minds are occupied elsewhere—and such a small thing would be lost in all the greater things". The war went badly for the Russian imperial forces, and the Central Powers, led by Germany, advanced into Russia. Fearful for Kulikovsky's safety, Olga pleaded with the Tsar to transfer him to the relative safety of Kiev, where she was stationed at a hospital. In 1916, after visiting her in Kiev, the Tsar officially annulled her marriage to Duke Peter, and she married Kulikovsky on 16 November 1916, in the Kievo-Vasilievskaya Church on Triokhsviatitelskaya (Three Saints Street) in Kiev. Only the officiating priest, Olga's mother the Dowager Empress Marie, Olga's brother-in-law Grand Duke Alexander, two fellow nurses from the hospital in Kiev and four officers of the Akhtyrsky regiment, of which Olga was honorary colonel, attended. Their two-week honeymoon was spent in a farmhouse in Podgorny that had belonged to family friends of the Kulikovskys. After visiting Kulikovsky's parents and grandmother in Kharkov, Olga and Kulikovsky returned to Kiev.
During the war, internal tensions and economic deprivation in Russia continued to mount and revolutionary sympathies grew. After Nicholas II was deposed in early 1917, many members of the Romanov dynasty, including Nicholas and his immediate family, were held under house arrest. The new government retired Kulikovsky from the army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Dowager Empress Marie, Grand Duke Alexander, Grand Duchess Olga, and Kulikovsky managed to escape to the Crimea where they lived for a time before they too were placed under house arrest at one of the imperial estates. As a commoner, Kulikovsky was permitted more freedom of movement than the Romanovs, and was occasionally able to leave the estate in a pony-cart, which allowed him to run errands, obtain food, and seek news of the outside. On 12 August 1917, Olga and Kulikovsky's first child and son, Tikhon, was born in the Crimea. He was named after one of the Grand Duchess's favorite saints, Tikhon of Zadonsk. Although the grandson of an emperor and the nephew of another, Tikhon received no titles because his father was a commoner.
As newspapers were banned and letters infrequent, the Romanovs under house arrest knew little of the fate of Tsar Nicholas and his family. Nicholas, his wife, and their children, were originally held at their official residence, the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, but the provisional government under Alexander Kerensky relocated them to Tobolsk, Siberia. Eventually, in July 1918, after being transferred to Yekaterinburg, Nicholas and his family were killed by their Bolshevik guards. In the Crimea, the Grand Duchess's family were condemned to death by the Yalta revolutionary council but the executions were stayed by the Sevastopol council, who refused to act without orders from Moscow. In March 1918, German forces advanced on the Crimea, and the revolutionary guards were replaced by German ones.
When Germany surrendered to the Allies of World War I in November 1918, the German troops evacuated, allowing the surviving members of the imperial family time to escape abroad. The British warship HMS Marlborough rescued the Dowager Empress Marie and some of her family from the Crimea but Grand Duchess Olga and Kulikovsky decided to stay in Russia and travelled to the Caucasus region, where the Bolsheviks had been pushed back by the White Army. During the journey, a coupling on the train carriage in which they were travelling developed a fault, possibly from sabotage, and Kulikovsky crawled over the carriage roofs to reach the driver and stop the train. In the Caucasus, Kulikovsky took a job working on a farm as he was unable to secure a military posting in the White Army because the commanding general, Anton Denikin, wished to avoid association with the Romanovs. In a rented farmhouse at the large Cossack village of Novominskaya Olga and Kulikovsky's second son, Guri, was born on 23 April 1919. He was named after Guri Panaev, who had been killed serving in Olga's Akhtyrsky regiment. As the White Army was pushed back and the Red Army approached, the family set out on what would be their last journey through Russia; they travelled to Rostov-on-Don, and from there took refuge at Novorossiysk in the residence of the Danish consul, Thomas Schytte, who informed them of Dowager Empress Marie's safe arrival in Denmark.
After a brief stay with the Danish consul, the family were shipped to a refugee camp on the island of Büyükada in the Dardanelles Strait near Istanbul, Turkey, where the Kulikovsky family shared three rooms with eleven other adults. After two weeks, they were evacuated to Belgrade in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Regent Alexander Karageorgevich, later to become King Alexander I, offered them a permanent home there, but Dowager Empress Marie summoned her daughter to Denmark. The Grand Duchess complied, and the family arrived in Copenhagen on Good Friday 1920. They lived with Kulikovsky's mother-in-law, Dowager Empress Marie, at first at the Amalienborg Palace and then at the royal estate of Hvidøre. Kulikovsky and Marie did not get along; he was resentful of his wife acting as Marie's secretary and companion, and Marie was distant toward him.
## Danish residency and exodus
Without a role or rank, Kulikovsky brooded in Denmark, becoming moody and listless. A spinal injury sustained during the war, for which he had to wear a corset, remained unhealed. In 1925, Kulikovsky accompanied his wife to a Berlin nursing home to meet Anna Anderson, who claimed to be Olga's niece, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. According to Harriet von Rathlef, who witnessed the meeting, while Olga and Anderson conversed, he sat in a corner and sulked. Although Olga felt sympathy for Anderson, if only because she was ill, she eventually denounced her as an impostor. Possibly, she was pressured to do so by Kulikovsky and Dowager Empress Marie.
Marie died on 13 October 1928, and the Kulikovskys moved out of Hvidøre. After a brief stay in the Amalienborg Palace, the Kulikovskys moved to Holte, near Klampenborg, where a Danish millionaire, Gorm Rasmussen, engaged Kulikovsky to manage his stables. Hvidøre and some of Marie's jewellery were sold. With Olga's inheritance, Kulikovsky and his family were able to purchase Knudsminde Farm, several miles outside of Copenhagen. Kulikovsky was appointed to the board of a Russian insurance company based in Copenhagen, and oversaw the running of the farm. The farm-estate became a center for the Russian monarchist and anti-Bolshevik community in Denmark.
On 2 February 1935, he and Olga attended and acted as godparents, to the baptizing of Aleksander Schalburg, the son of Christian Frederik von Schalburg.
On 9 April 1940, neutral Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany and was occupied for the rest of World War II. As Olga's sons, Tikhon and Guri, served as officers in the Danish Army, they were interned as prisoners of war, but their imprisonment in a Copenhagen hotel lasted less than two months. Other Russian émigrés, keen to fight against the Soviets, enlisted in the German forces. Despite her sons' internment and her mother's Danish origins, Olga was implicated in her compatriots' collusion with German forces, as she continued to meet and extend help to Russian émigrés fighting against communism. After the surrender of Germany in 1945, the Soviet Union wrote to the Danish government accusing the Grand Duchess of conspiracy against the Soviet authorities. With the end of the war, Soviet troops occupied the easternmost part of Denmark, and Olga grew fearful of an assassination or kidnap attempt. She decided to move her family across the Atlantic to the relative safety of rural Canada, a decision with which Kulikovsky complied.
## Later life
In May 1948, the Kulikovskys travelled to London by Danish troopship. They were housed in a grace-and-favour apartment at Hampton Court Palace while arrangements were made for their journey to Canada as agricultural immigrants. On 2 June 1948, Kulikovsky, Olga, Tikhon and his Danish-born wife Agnete, Guri and his Danish-born wife Ruth, Guri and Ruth's two children, Xenia and Leonid, and Olga's companion and former maid Emilia Tenso ("Mimka") departed Liverpool on board the Empress of Canada. After a rough crossing, the ship docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The family proceeded to Toronto, where they lived until they purchased a 200-acre (0.8 km<sup>2</sup>) farm in Halton County, Ontario, near Campbellville. Kulikovsky was relieved to move out of Toronto, and escape media attention.
By 1952, the farm had become a burden to the elderly couple. Their sons had moved away; labour was hard to come by; Kulikovsky suffered increasing back pain and disability, and some of Olga's remaining jewellery was stolen. The farm was sold, and Kulikovsky, Olga, and Mimka, moved to a smaller 5-room house at 2130 Camilla Road, Cooksville, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto (now amalgamated into the city of Mississauga). Mimka suffered a stroke that left her disabled, and Olga nursed her until Mimka's death in 1954. Neighbours and visitors to the region, including foreign and royal dignitaries, took interest in Olga as the "last Romanov", and visited their small home, which was also a magnet for Romanov impostors whom both Kulikovsky and Olga considered a menace. Welcome visitors included Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, the daughter of her first cousin Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, in 1954.
By 1952, Kulikovsky had shrunk more than 4 inches (10 cm) from his peak height of 6 ft 2 inches (188 cm). He distrusted conventional medicine and tried homeopathy instead. By 1958, he was virtually paralyzed, and had difficulty sleeping. At the end of his life he was sleeping on the sofa in the living room of the couple's Cooksville house, to avoid waking his wife. He died there on the night of 11 August 1958. His estate was valued at 12,123.47 Canadian dollars, about 98,000 Canadian dollars as of 2012. The Grand Duchess died two years later, and was interred next to her husband in York Cemetery, Toronto.
## Notes and sources
|
488,525 |
HMS Collingwood (1908)
| 1,136,831,779 |
British Royal Navy battleship
|
[
"1908 ships",
"Ships built in Plymouth, Devon",
"St. Vincent-class battleships",
"World War I battleships of the United Kingdom"
] |
HMS Collingwood was a St Vincent-class dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She spent her whole career assigned to the Home and Grand Fleets and often served as a flagship. Prince Albert (later King George VI) spent several years aboard the ship before and during World War I. At the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, Collingwood was in the middle of the battleline and lightly damaged a German battlecruiser. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. The ship was deemed obsolete after the war; she was reduced to reserve and used as a training ship before being sold for scrap in 1922.
## Design and description
The design of the St Vincent class was derived from that of the previous Bellerophon class, with a slight increase in size, armour and more powerful guns, among other more minor changes. Collingwood had an overall length of 536 feet (163.4 m), a beam of 84 feet 2 inches (25.7 m), and a normal draught of 28 feet (8.5 m). She displaced 19,700 long tons (20,000 t) at normal load and 22,800 long tons (23,200 t) at deep load. In 1911 her crew numbered 758 officers and ratings.
Collingwood was powered by two sets of Parsons direct-drive steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 24,500 shaft horsepower (18,300 kW) and were intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). During her full-power, eight-hour sea trials on 17 January 1910, she only reached a top speed of 20.62 knots (38.19 km/h; 23.73 mph) from 26,789 shp (19,977 kW). Collingwood carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a range of 6,900 nautical miles (12,800 km; 7,900 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).
### Armament and armour
The St Vincent class was equipped with ten breech-loading (BL) 12-inch (305 mm) Mk XI guns in five twin-gun turrets, three along the centreline and the remaining two as wing turrets. The secondary, or anti-torpedo boat, armament comprised twenty BL 4-inch (102 mm) Mk VII guns. Two of these guns were each installed on the roofs of the fore and aft centreline turrets and the wing turrets in unshielded mounts, and the other ten were positioned in the superstructure. All guns were in single mounts. The ships were also fitted with three 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside and the third in the stern.
The St Vincent-class ships had a waterline belt of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 10 inches (254 mm) thick between the fore and aftmost barbettes, reducing to a thickness of 2 inches (51 mm) before it reached the ships' ends. Above this was a strake of armour 8 inches (203 mm) thick. Transverse bulkheads 5 and 8 inches (127 and 203 mm) inches thick terminated the thickest parts of the waterline and upper armour belts once they reached the outer portions of the endmost barbettes.
The three centreline barbettes were protected by armour 9 inches (229 mm) thick above the main deck that thinned to 5 inches (127 mm) below it. The wing barbettes were similar except that they had 10 inches of armour on their outer faces. The gun turrets had 11-inch (279 mm) faces and sides with 3-inch (76 mm) roofs. The three armoured decks ranged in thicknesses from .75 to 3 inches (19 to 76 mm). The front and sides of the forward conning tower were protected by 11-inch plates, although the rear and roof were 8 inches and 3 inches thick, respectively.
### Alterations
The guns on the forward turret roof were removed in 1911–1912 and the upper forward pair of guns in the superstructure were removed in 1913–1914. In addition, gun shields were fitted to all guns in the superstructure and the bridge structure was enlarged around the base of the forward tripod mast. During the first year of the war, a fire-control director was installed high on the forward tripod mast. Around the same time, the base of the forward superstructure was rebuilt to house eight 4-inch guns and the turret-top guns were removed, which reduced her secondary armament to a total of fourteen guns. In addition, a pair of 3-inch anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added.
By April 1917, Collingwood mounted thirteen 4-inch anti-torpedo boat guns as well as single 4-inch and 3-inch AA guns. Approximately 50 long tons (51 t) of additional deck armour had been added after the Battle of Jutland. Before the end of the war the AA guns were moved from the deckhouse between the aft turrets to the stern and the stern torpedo tube was removed. In 1918, a high-angle rangefinder was fitted and flying-off platforms were installed on the roofs of the fore and aft turrets.
## Construction and career
Collingwood, named after Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, was ordered on 26 October 1907. She was laid down at Devonport Royal Dockyard on 3 February 1908, launched on 7 November 1908 and completed in April 1910. Including her armament, the ship's cost is quoted at £1,680,888 or £1,731,640.
On 19 April 1910, Collingwood was commissioned and assigned to the 1st Division of the Home Fleet under the command of Captain William Pakenham. She joined other members of the fleet in regular peacetime exercises, and on 11 February 1911 damaged her bottom plating on an uncharted rock off Ferrol. On 24 June the ship was present at the Coronation Fleet Review for King George V at Spithead. Pakenham was relieved by Captain Charles Vaughan-Lee on 1 December. On 1 May 1912, the 1st Division was renamed the 1st Battle Squadron. On 22 June, Vaughan-Lee was transferred to the battleship Bellerophon and Captain James Ley assumed command; Vice-Admiral Stanley Colville hoisted his flag in Collingwood as commander of the 1st Battle Squadron. The ship participated in the Parliamentary Naval Review on 9 July at Spithead before beginning a refit late in the year. In March 1913, Collingwood and the 1st Battle Squadron undertook a port visit to Cherbourg, France. Midshipman Prince Albert (later King George VI) was assigned to the ship on 15 September 1913. Collingwood hosted Albert's older brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, during a short cruise on 18 April 1914. She became a private ship when Colville hauled down his flag on 22 June.
### World War I
Between 17 and 20 July, Collingwood took part in a test mobilisation and fleet review as part of the British response to the July Crisis. Arriving in Portland on 27 July, she was ordered to proceed with the rest of the Home Fleet to Scapa Flow two days later to safeguard the fleet from a possible German surprise attack. In August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, the Home Fleet was reorganised as the Grand Fleet, and placed under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe. Most of it was briefly based (22 October to 3 November) at Lough Swilly, Ireland, while the defences at Scapa were strengthened. On the evening of 22 November 1914, the Grand Fleet conducted a fruitless sweep in the southern half of the North Sea; Collingwood stood with the main body in support of Vice-Admiral David Beatty's 1st Battlecruiser Squadron. The fleet was back in port in Scapa Flow by 27 November. The 1st Battle Squadron cruised north-west of the Shetland Islands and conducted gunnery practice on 8–12 December. Four days later, the Grand Fleet sortied during the German raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, but failed to make contact with the High Seas Fleet. Collingwood and the rest of the Grand Fleet conducted another sweep of the North Sea on 25–27 December.
The Grand Fleet, including Collingwood, conducted gunnery drills on 10–13 January 1915 west of Orkney and Shetland. On the evening of 23 January, the bulk of the Grand Fleet sailed in support of Beatty's battlecruisers, but Collingwood and the rest of the fleet did not participate in the ensuing Battle of Dogger Bank the following day. The ship sailed for Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on 2 February to begin a brief refit and returned on 18 February. On 7–10 March, the Grand Fleet conducted a sweep in the northern North Sea, during which it conducted training manoeuvres. Another such cruise took place on 16–19 March. From 25 March to 14 April 1915, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas temporarily hoisted his flag aboard Collingwood. On 11 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a patrol in the central North Sea and returned to port on 14 April; another patrol in the area took place on 17–19 April, followed by gunnery drills off Shetland on 20–21 April.
The Grand Fleet conducted sweeps into the central North Sea on 17–19 May and 29–31 May without encountering any German vessels. During 11–14 June the fleet conducted gunnery practice and battle exercises west of Shetland. Collingwood was briefly docked at Invergordon from 23 to 25 June. King George V inspected the ship on 8 July, and the Grand Fleet conducted training off Shetland beginning three days later. Rear-Admiral Ernest Gaunt temporarily used Collingwood as his flagship from 24 August to 24 September and from 10 December to 16 January 1916. On 2–5 September 1915, the fleet went on another cruise in the northern end of the North Sea and conducted gunnery drills. Throughout the rest of the month, the Grand Fleet conducted numerous training exercises. The ship, together with the majority of the Grand Fleet, conducted another sweep into the North Sea from 13 to 15 October. Almost three weeks later, Collingwood participated in another fleet training operation west of Orkney during 2–5 November. On 21 November, she sailed for Devonport Royal Dockyard for a minor overhaul and arrived back at Scapa on 9 December.
The Grand Fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February 1916; Jellicoe had intended to use the Harwich Force to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. Another sweep began on 6 March, but had to be abandoned the following day as the weather grew too severe for the escorting destroyers. On the night of 25 March, Collingwood and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a strong gale threatened the light craft, so the fleet was ordered to return to base. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. The Grand Fleet arrived in the area after the Germans had withdrawn. On 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea.
#### Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, 6 light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats, departed the Jade Bight early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's five battlecruisers and supporting cruisers and torpedo boats. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. In response, the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. Collingwood was the eighteenth ship from the head of the battle line after the Grand Fleet deployed for battle.
The initial action was fought primarily by the British and German battlecruiser formations in the afternoon, but by 18:00, the Grand Fleet approached the scene. Fifteen minutes later, Jellicoe gave the order to turn and deploy the fleet for action. The transition from cruising formation caused congestion with the rear divisions, forcing many ships to reduce speed to 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) to avoid colliding with each other. During the first stage of the general engagement, Collingwood fired eight salvos from her main guns at the crippled light cruiser SMS Wiesbaden from 18:32, although the number of hits made, if any, is unknown. Her secondary armament then engaged the destroyer SMS G42, which was attempting to come to Wiesbaden's assistance, but failed to hit her. At 19:15 Collingwood fired two salvoes of high explosive (HE) shells at the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger, hitting her target once before she disappeared into the mist. The shell detonated in the German ship's sickbay and damaged the surrounding superstructure. Shortly afterwards, during the attack of the German destroyers around 19:20, the ship fired her main armament at a damaged destroyer without success and dodged two torpedoes that missed by 10 yards (9.1 m) behind and 30 yards (27 m) in front. This was the last time she fired her guns during the battle.
Following the German destroyer attack, the High Seas Fleet disengaged, and Collingwood and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no further action in the battle. This was, in part, due to confusion aboard the fleet flagship over the exact location and course of the German fleet; without this information, Jellicoe could not bring his fleet to action. At 21:30, the Grand Fleet began to reorganise into its night-time cruising formation. Early on the morning of 1 June, the Grand Fleet combed the area, looking for damaged German ships, but after spending several hours searching, they found none. Collingwood fired a total of 52 armour-piercing, capped and 32 HE shells from her main armament and 35 four-inch shells during the battle. Prince Albert was a sub-lieutenant commanding the forward turret during the battle and sat in the open on the turret roof during a lull in the action.
#### Subsequent activity
After the battle the ship was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, who inspected Collingwood on 8 August 1916. The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide to not risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the prevalence of German submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions.
Collingwood received a brief refit at Rosyth in early September before rejoining the Grand Fleet. On 29 October Sturdee came aboard to present the ship with her battle honour, "Jutland 1916". Captain Wilmot Nicholson briefly assumed command on 1 December before transferring to the new battlecruiser Glorious upon his relief by Captain Cole Fowler on 26 March 1917. Together with the rest of the 4th Battle Squadron, Collingwood put to sea for tactical exercises for a few days in February 1917. The ship was present at Scapa Flow when her sister ship Vanguard's magazines exploded on 9 July and her crew recovered the bodies of three men killed in the explosion. In January 1918, Collingwood and other of the older dreadnoughts cruised off the coast of Norway for several days, possibly to provide distant cover for a convoy to Norway. Along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, she sortied on the afternoon of 23 April after radio transmissions revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. The Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired. By early November, Collingwood was at Invergordon to receive a brief refit in the floating dock based there, and missed the surrender of the High Seas Fleet on the 21st. She was slightly damaged on 23 November while attempting to come alongside the oiler RFA Ebonol.
In January 1919, Collingwood was transferred to Devonport and assigned to the Reserve Fleet. Upon the dissolution of the Grand Fleet on 18 March, the Reserve Fleet was redesignated the Third Fleet and Collingwood became its flagship. She became a tender to HMS Vivid on 1 October and served as a gunnery and wireless telegraphy (W/T) training ship. The W/T school was transferred to Glorious on 1 June 1920 and the gunnery duties followed in early August; Collingwood returned to the reserve. She became a boys' training ship on 22 September 1921 until she was paid off on 31 March 1922. Collingwood was sold to John Cashmore Ltd for scrap on 12 December and arrived at Newport, Wales, on 3 March 1923 to be broken up.
## Relics
Battle ensigns flown by the ship during Jutland survive at the shore establishment of the same name and at the Roedean School in East Sussex.
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318,482 |
Anne Hutchinson
| 1,173,176,589 |
American religious figure and colonist (1591–1643)
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Anne Hutchinson (née Marbury; July 1591 – August 1643) was a Puritan spiritual advisor, religious reformer, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy which shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her strong religious convictions were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened the Puritan religious community in New England. She was eventually tried and convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters.
Hutchinson was born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, the daughter of Francis Marbury, an Anglican cleric and school teacher who gave her a far better education than most other girls received. She lived in London as a young adult, and there married a friend from home, William Hutchinson. The couple moved back to Alford where they began following preacher John Cotton in the nearby port of Boston, Lincolnshire. Cotton was compelled to emigrate in 1633, and the Hutchinsons followed a year later with their 11 children and soon became well established in the growing settlement of Boston in New England. Hutchinson was a midwife and helpful to those needing her assistance, as well as forthcoming with her personal religious understandings. Soon she was hosting women at her house weekly, providing commentary on recent sermons. These meetings became so popular that she began offering meetings for men as well, including the young governor of the colony, Henry Vane.
Hutchinson began to accuse the local ministers (except for Cotton and her husband's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright) of preaching a covenant of works rather than a covenant of grace, and many ministers began to complain about her increasingly blatant accusations, as well as certain unorthodox theological teachings. The situation eventually erupted into what is commonly called the Antinomian Controversy, culminating in her 1637 trial, conviction, and banishment from the colony. This was followed by a March 1638 church trial in which she was put out of her congregation.
Hutchinson and many of her supporters established the settlement of Portsmouth, Rhode Island with encouragement from Providence Plantations founder Roger Williams in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. After her husband's death a few years later, threats of Massachusetts annexing Rhode Island compelled Hutchinson to move totally outside the reach of Boston into the lands of the Dutch. Five of her older surviving children remained in New England or in England, while she settled with her younger children near an ancient landmark, Split Rock, in what later became The Bronx in New York City. Tensions were high at the time with the Siwanoy Indian tribe. In August 1643, Hutchinson, six of her children, and other household members were killed by Siwanoys during Kieft's War. The only survivor was her nine-year-old daughter Susanna, who was taken captive.
Hutchinson is a key figure in the history of religious freedom in England's American colonies and the history of women in ministry, challenging the authority of the ministers. She is honored by Massachusetts with a State House monument calling her a "courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration". Historian Michael Winship, author of two books about her, has called her "the most famous—or infamous—English woman in colonial American history".
## Life in England
### Childhood
Anne Hutchinson was born Anne Marbury to parents Francis Marbury and Bridget Dryden in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, and baptised there on 20 July 1591. Her father was an Anglican cleric in London with strong Puritan leanings, who felt strongly that a clergy should be well educated and clashed with his superiors on this issue. Marbury's repeated challenges to the Anglican authorities led to his censure and imprisonment several years before Anne was born. In 1578, he was given a public trial, of which he made a transcript from memory during a period of house arrest. He later used this transcript to educate and amuse his children, he being the hero and the Bishop of London being portrayed as a buffoon.
For his conviction of heresy, Marbury spent two years in Marshalsea Prison on the south side of the River Thames across from London. In 1580, at the age of 25, he was released and was considered sufficiently reformed to preach and teach. He moved to the remote market town of Alford in Lincolnshire, about 140 miles (230 km) north of London. Hutchinson's father was soon appointed curate (assistant priest) of St Wilfrid's Church, Alford, and in 1585 he also became the schoolmaster at the Alford Free Grammar School, one of many such public schools, free to the poor and begun by Queen Elizabeth I. About this time, Marbury married his first wife, Elizabeth Moore, who bore three children, then died. Within a year of his first wife's death, Marbury married Bridget Dryden, about 10 years younger than he and from a prominent Northampton family. Her brother Erasmus was the grandfather of John Dryden, the playwright and Poet Laureate. Anne was the third of 15 children born to this marriage, 12 of whom survived early childhood. The Marburys lived in Alford for the first 15 years of Anne's life, and she received a better education than most girls of her time, with her father's strong commitment to learning, and she also became intimately familiar with scripture and Christian tenets. Education at that time was offered almost exclusively to boys and men. One possible reason why Marbury taught his daughters may have been that six of his first seven children were girls. Another reason may have been that the ruling class in Elizabethan England began realising that girls could be schooled, looking to the example of the queen, who spoke six foreign languages.
In 1605 when Hutchinson was 15, her family moved from Alford to the heart of London, where her father was given the position of vicar of St Martin Vintry. Here his expression of Puritan views was tolerated, though somewhat muffled, because of a shortage of clergy. Marbury took on additional work in 1608, preaching in the parish of St Pancras, Soper Lane, several miles northwest of the city, travelling there by horseback twice a week. In 1610, he replaced that position with one much closer to home and became rector of St Margaret, New Fish Street, a short walk from St Martin Vintry. He was at a high point in his career, but he died suddenly at the age of 55 in February 1611, when Anne was 19 years old.
### Adulthood: following John Cotton
The year after her father's death, Anne Marbury, aged 21, married William Hutchinson, a familiar acquaintance from Alford who was a fabric merchant then working in London. The couple was married at St Mary Woolnoth Church in London on 9 August 1612, shortly after which they moved back to their hometown of Alford.
Soon they heard about an engaging minister named John Cotton who preached at St Botolph's Church in the large port of Boston, about 21 miles (34 km) from Alford. Cotton was installed as minister at Boston the year that the Hutchinsons were married, after having been a tutor at Emmanuel College in Cambridge. He was 27 years old, yet he had gained a reputation as one of the leading Puritans in England. Once the Hutchinsons heard Cotton preach, the couple made the trip to Boston as often as possible, enduring the ride by horseback when the weather and circumstances allowed. Cotton's spiritual message was different from that of his fellow Puritans, as he placed less emphasis on one's behaviour to attain God's salvation and more emphasis on the moment of religious conversion "in which mortal man was infused with a divine grace." Anne Hutchinson was attracted to Cotton's theology of "absolute grace", which caused her to question the value of "works" and to view the Holy Spirit as "indwelling in the elect saint". This allowed her to identify as a "mystic participant in the transcendent power of the Almighty"; such a theology was empowering to women, according to Eve LaPlante, whose status was otherwise determined by their husbands or fathers.
Another strong influence on Hutchinson was closer to her home in the nearby town of Bilsby. Her brother-in-law, the young minister John Wheelwright, preached a message like that of Cotton. As reformers, both Cotton and Wheelwright encouraged a sense of religious rebirth among their parishioners, but their weekly sermons did not satisfy the yearnings of some Puritan worshippers. This led to the rise of conventicles, which were gatherings of "those who had found grace" to listen to sermon repetitions, discuss and debate scripture, and pray. These gatherings were particularly important to women because they allowed women to assume roles of religious leadership that were otherwise denied them in a male-dominated church hierarchy. Hutchinson was inspired by Cotton and by other women who ran conventicles, and she began holding meetings in her own home, where she reviewed recent sermons with her listeners, and provided her own explanations of the message.
The Puritans wanted to abolish the ceremony of the Church of England and govern their churches based on a consensus of the parishioners. They preferred to eliminate bishops appointed by the monarchs, choose their own church elders (or governors), and provide for a lay leader and two ministers—one a teacher in charge of doctrine, and the other a pastor in charge of people's souls. By 1633, Cotton's inclination toward such Puritan practices had attracted the attention of Archbishop William Laud, who was on a campaign to suppress any preaching and practices that did not conform to the practices of the established Anglican Church. In that year, Cotton was removed from his ministry, and he went into hiding. Threatened with imprisonment, he made a hasty departure for New England aboard the ship Griffin, taking his pregnant wife with him. During the voyage to the colonies, she gave birth to their child, whom they named Seaborn.
When Cotton left England, Anne Hutchinson described it as a "great trouble unto her," and said that she "could not be at rest" until she followed her minister to New England. Hutchinson believed that the Spirit instructed her to follow Cotton to America, "impressed by the evidence of divine providence". She was well into her 14th pregnancy, however, so she did not travel until after the baby was born. With the intention of soon going to New England, the Hutchinsons allowed their oldest son Edward to sail with Cotton before the remainder of the family made the voyage. In 1634, 43-year-old Anne Hutchinson set sail from England with her 48-year-old husband William and their other ten surviving children, aged about eight months to 19 years. They sailed aboard the Griffin, the same ship that had carried Cotton and their oldest son a year earlier.
## Boston
William Hutchinson was successful in his mercantile business and brought a considerable estate with him to New England, arriving in Boston in the late summer of 1634. The Hutchinson family purchased a half-acre lot on the Shawmut Peninsula, now downtown Boston. Here they had a house built, one of the largest on the peninsula, with a timber frame and at least two stories. (The house stood until October 1711, when it was consumed in the great fire of Boston, after which the Old Corner Bookstore was built on the site.) The Hutchinsons soon were granted Taylor's Island in the Boston harbour, where they grazed their sheep, and they also acquired 600 acres of land at Mount Wollaston, 10 miles (16 km) south of Boston in the area that later became Quincy. Once established, William Hutchinson continued to prosper in the cloth trade and made land purchases and investments. He became a town selectman and deputy to the General Court. Anne Hutchinson likewise fit into her new home with ease, devoting many hours to those who were ill or in need. She became an active midwife, and while tending to women in childbirth, she provided them with spiritual advice. Magistrate John Winthrop noted that "her ordinary talke was about the things of the Kingdome of God," and "her usuall conversation was in the way of righteousness and kindnesse."
### Boston church
The Hutchinsons became members of the First Church in Boston, the most important church in the colony. With its location and harbour, Boston was New England's centre of commerce, and its church was characterised by Winthrop as "the most publick, where Seamen and all Strangers came". The church membership had grown from 80 to 120 during Cotton's first four months there. In his journal, Winthrop stated that "more were converted & added to that Churche, than to all the other Churches in the Baye." The historian Michael Winship noted in 2005 that the church seemed to approach the Puritan ideal of a Christian community. Early Massachusetts historian William Hubbard found the church to be "in so flourishing a condition as were scarce any where else to be paralleled." Winship considers it a twist of fate that the colony's most important church also had the most unconventional minister in John Cotton. The more extreme religious views of Hutchinson and Henry Vane, the colony's young governor, did not much stand out because of Cotton's divergence from the theology of his fellow ministers.
### Home Bible study group
Hutchinson's visits to women in childbirth led to discussions along the lines of the conventicles in England. She soon began hosting weekly meetings at her home for women who wanted to discuss Cotton's sermons and hear her explanations and elaborations. Her meetings for women became so popular that she had to organise meetings for men, as well, and she was hosting 60 or more people per week. These gatherings brought women, as well as their husbands, "to enquire more seriously after the Lord Jesus Christ."
As the meetings continued, Hutchinson began offering her own religious views, stressing that only "an intuition of the Spirit" would lead to one's election by God, and not good works. Her theological interpretations began diverging from the more legalistic views found among the colony's ministers, and the attendance increased at her meetings and soon included Governor Vane. Her ideas that one's outward behaviour was not necessarily tied to the state of one's soul became attractive to those who might have been more attached to their professions than to their religious state, such as merchants and craftsmen. The colony's ministers became more aware of Hutchinson's meetings, and they contended that such "unauthorised" religious gatherings might confuse the faithful. Hutchinson responded to this with a verse from Titus, saying that "the elder women should instruct the younger."
### Antinomian Controversy
#### Tensions build
Hutchinson's gatherings were seen as unorthodox by some of the colony's ministers, and differing religious opinions within the colony eventually became public debates. The resulting religious tension erupted into what has traditionally been called the Antinomian Controversy, but has more recently been labelled the Free Grace Controversy.
The Reverend Zechariah Symmes had sailed to New England on the same ship as the Hutchinsons. In September 1634, he told another minister that he doubted Anne Hutchinson's orthodoxy, based on questions that she asked him following his shipboard sermons. This issue delayed Hutchinson's membership to the Boston church by a week, until a pastoral examination determined that she was sufficiently orthodox to join the church.
In 1635, a difficult situation occurred when senior pastor John Wilson returned from a lengthy trip to England where he had been settling his affairs. Hutchinson was exposed to his teaching for the first time, and she saw a big difference between her own doctrines and his. She found his emphasis on morality and his doctrine of "evidencing justification by sanctification" to be disagreeable. She told her followers that Wilson lacked "the seal of the Spirit." Wilson's theological views were in accord with all of the other ministers in the colony except for Cotton, who stressed "the inevitability of God's will" ("free grace") as opposed to preparation (works). Hutchinson and her allies had become accustomed to Cotton's doctrines, and they began disrupting Wilson's sermons, even finding excuses to leave when Wilson got up to preach or pray.
Thomas Shepard, the minister of Newtown (which later became Cambridge), began writing letters to Cotton as early as the spring of 1636. He expressed concern about Cotton's preaching and about some of the unorthodox opinions found among his Boston parishioners. Shepard went even further when he began criticising the Boston opinions to his Newtown congregation during his sermons. In May 1636, the Bostonians received a new ally when the Reverend John Wheelwright arrived from England and aligned himself with Cotton, Hutchinson, and other "free grace" advocates. Wheelwright had been a neighbour of the Hutchinsons in Lincolnshire, and his wife was a sister of Hutchinson's husband. Another boost for the free grace advocates came during the same month, when the young aristocrat Henry Vane was elected as the governor of the colony. Vane was a strong supporter of Hutchinson, yet he also had his own ideas about theology that were considered not only unorthodox, but radical by some.
Hutchinson and the other free grace advocates continued to question the orthodox ministers in the colony. Wheelwright began preaching at Mount Wollaston, about ten miles south of the Boston meetinghouse, and his sermons began to answer Shepard's criticisms with his own criticism of the covenant of works. This mounting "pulpit aggression" continued throughout the summer, along with the lack of respect shown Boston's Reverend Wilson. Wilson endured these religious differences for several months before deciding that the affronts and errors were serious enough to require a response. He is the one who likely alerted magistrate John Winthrop, one of his parishioners, to take notice. On or shortly after 21 October 1636, Winthrop gave the first public warning of the problem that consumed him and the leadership of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for much of the next two years. In his journal he wrote, "One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church at Boston, a woman of a ready wit and a bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errors: 1. That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." He went on to elaborate these two points, and the Antinomian Controversy began with this journal entry.
#### Ministerial confrontation
On 25 October 1636, seven ministers gathered at the home of Cotton to confront the developing discord; they held a "private conference" which included Hutchinson and other lay leaders from the Boston church. Some agreement was reached, and Cotton "gave satisfaction to them [the other ministers], so as he agreed with them all in the point of sanctification, and so did Mr. Wheelwright; so as they all did hold, that sanctification did help to evidence justification." Another issue was that some of the ministers had heard that Hutchinson criticised them during her conventicles for preaching a covenant of works and said they were not able ministers of the New Testament. Hutchinson responded to this only when prompted, and only to one or two ministers at a time. She believed that her response, which was largely coaxed from her, was private and confidential. A year later, her words were used against her in a trial that resulted in her banishment from the colony.
By late 1636, as the controversy deepened, Hutchinson and her supporters were accused of two heresies in the Puritan church: antinomianism and familism. The word "antinomianism" literally means "against or opposed to the law"; in a theological context, it means "the moral law is not binding upon Christians, who are under the law of grace." According to this view, if one was under the law of grace, then moral law did not apply, allowing one to engage in immoral acts. Familism was named for a 16th-century sect called the Family of Love, and it involved one's perfect union with God under the Holy Spirit, coupled with freedom both from sin and from the responsibility for it. Hutchinson and her supporters were sometimes accused of engaging in immoral behaviour or "free love" in order to discredit them, but such acts were antithetical to their doctrine. Hutchinson, Wheelwright, and Vane all took leading roles as antagonists of the orthodox party, but theologically, it was Cotton's differences of opinion with the colony's other ministers that was at the centre of the controversy.
By winter, the theological schism had become great enough that the General Court called for a day of fasting to help ease the colony's difficulties. During the appointed fast-day on Thursday, 19 January 1637, Wheelwright preached at the Boston church in the afternoon. To the Puritan clergy, his sermon was "censurable and incited mischief", but the free grace advocates were encouraged, and they became more vociferous in their opposition to the "legal" ministers. Governor Vane began challenging the doctrines of the colony's divines, and supporters of Hutchinson refused to serve during the Pequot War of 1637 because Wilson was the chaplain of the expedition. Ministers worried that the bold stand of Hutchinson and her supporters began to threaten the "Puritan's holy experiment." Had they succeeded, historian Dunn believes that they would have profoundly changed the thrust of Massachusetts history.
#### Events of 1637
By March, the political tide began to turn against the free grace advocates. Wheelwright was tried for contempt and sedition that month for his fast-day sermon and was convicted in a close vote, but not yet sentenced. During the election of May 1637, Henry Vane was replaced as governor by John Winthrop; in addition, all the other Boston magistrates who supported Hutchinson and Wheelwright were voted out of office. By the summer of 1637, Vane sailed back to England, never to return. With his departure, the time was ripe for the orthodox party to deal with the remainder of their rivals.
The autumn court of 1637 convened on 2 November and sentenced Wheelwright to banishment, ordering him to leave the colony within 14 days. Several of the other supporters of Hutchinson and Wheelwright were tried and given varied sentences. Following these preliminaries, it was Anne Hutchinson's turn to be tried.
#### Civil trial: day 1
Hutchinson was brought to trial on 7 November 1637, with Wheelwright banished and other court business settled. Governor John Winthrop presided over the trial, in which Hutchinson was charged with "traducing [slandering] the ministers". Winthrop also presented other charges against her, including the allegation that she "troubled the peace of the commonwealth and churches" by promoting and divulging opinions that had divided the community, and continuing to hold meetings at her home despite a recent synod that had condemned them.
The court, however, found it difficult to charge Hutchinson because she had never spoken her opinions in public, unlike Wheelwright and the other men who had been tried, nor had she ever signed any statements about them. Winthrop's first two lines of prosecution were to portray her as a co-conspirator of others who had openly caused trouble in the colony, and then to fault her for holding conventicles. Question by question, Hutchinson effectively stonewalled him in her responses, and Winthrop was unable to find a way to convert her known membership in a seditious faction into a convictable offence. Deputy governor Thomas Dudley had a substantial background in law, and he stepped in to assist the prosecution. Dudley questioned Hutchinson about her conventicles and her association with the other conspirators. With no answer by Hutchinson, he moved on to the charge of her slandering the ministers.
The remainder of the trial was spent on this last charge. The prosecution intended to demonstrate that Hutchinson had made disparaging remarks about the colony's ministers, and to use the October meeting as their evidence. Six ministers had presented to the court their written versions of the October conference, and Hutchinson agreed with the substance of their statements. Her defence was that she had spoken reluctantly and in private, that she "must either speak false or true in my answers" in the ministerial context of the meeting. In those private meetings, she had cited Proverbs 29:25, "The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." The court was not interested in her distinction between public and private statements.
At the end of the first day of the trial, Winthrop recorded, "Mrs. Hutchinson, the court you see hath labored to bring you to acknowledge the error of your way that so you might be reduced. The time now grows late. We shall therefore give you a little more time to consider of it and therefore desire that you attend the court again in the morning." The first day had gone fairly well for Hutchinson, who had held her own in a battle of wits with the magistrates. Biographer Eve LaPlante suggests, "Her success before the court may have astonished her judges, but it was no surprise to her. She was confident of herself and her intellectual tools, largely because of the intimacy she felt with God."
#### Civil trial: day 2
During the morning of the second day of the trial, it appeared that Hutchinson had been given some legal counsel the previous evening, and she had more to say. She continued to criticise the ministers of violating their mandate of confidentiality. She said that they had deceived the court by not telling about her reluctance to share her thoughts with them. She insisted that the ministers testify under oath, which they were hesitant to do. Magistrate Simon Bradstreet said that "she would make the ministers sin if they said something mistaken under oath", but she answered that if they were going to accuse her, "I desire it may be upon oath." As a matter of due process, the ministers would have to be sworn in, but would agree to do so only if the defence witnesses spoke first.
There were three such witnesses, all from the Boston church: deacon John Coggeshall, lay leader Thomas Leverett, and minister John Cotton. The first two witnesses made brief statements that had little effect on the court, but Cotton was questioned extensively. When Cotton testified, he tended not to remember many events of the October meeting, and attempted to soften the meaning of statements that Hutchinson was being accused of. He stressed that the ministers were not as upset about any Hutchinson remarks at the end of the October meeting as they appeared to be later. Dudley reiterated that Hutchinson had told the ministers that they were not able ministers of the New Testament; Cotton replied that he did not remember her saying that.
There was more parrying between Cotton and the court, but the exchanges were not picked up in the transcript of the proceedings. Hutchinson asked the court for leave to "give you the ground of what I know to be true." She then addressed the court with her own judgment:
> You have no power over my body, neither can you do me any harm—for I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah, my Saviour, I am at his appointment, the bounds of my habitation are cast in heaven, no further do I esteem of any mortal man than creatures in his hand, I fear none but the great Jehovah, which hath foretold me of these things, and I do verily believe that he will deliver me out of your hands. Therefore take heed how you proceed against me—for I know that, for this you go about to do to me, God will ruin you and your posterity and this whole state.
This was the "dramatic high point of the most analyzed event of the free grace controversy", wrote historian Michael Winship. Historians have given a variety of reasons for this statement, including an "exultant impulse", "hysteria", "cracking under the strain of the inquest", and being "possessed of the Spirit". Winship, citing the work of historian Mary Beth Norton, suggests that Hutchinson consciously decided to explain why she knew that the divines of the colony were not able ministers of the New Testament. This was "not histrionics, but pedagogy," according to Winship; it was Hutchinson's attempt to teach the Court, and doing so was consistent with her character.
#### Civil trial: verdict
Hutchinson simplified the task of her opponents, whose prosecution had been somewhat shaky. Her revelation was considered not only seditious, but also in contempt of court. Cotton was pressed by Dudley on whether or not he supported Hutchinson's revelation; he said that he could find theological justification for it. Cotton may have still been angry over the zeal with which some opponents had come after the dissidents within his congregation. Winthrop was not interested in this quibbling, though; he was using Hutchinson's bold assertions to lead the court in the direction of rewriting history, according to the historical interpretations of Winship. Many of the Puritans had been convinced that there was a single destructive prophetic figure behind all of the difficulties that the colony had been having, and Hutchinson had just become the culprit. Winthrop addressed the court, "if therefore it be the mind of the court, looking at [her] as the principal cause of all our trouble, that they would now consider what is to be done with her."
The Bostonians made a final effort to slow the proceedings. William Coddington rose, asserting, "I do not see any clear witness against her, and you know it is a rule of the court that no man may be a judge and an accuser too," ending with, "Here is no law of God that she hath broken nor any law of the country that she hath broke, and therefore deserve no censure." The court wanted a sentence but could not proceed until some of the ministers spoke. Three of the ministers were sworn in, and each testified against Hutchinson. Winthrop moved to have her banished; in the ensuing tally, only the Boston deputies voted against conviction. Hutchinson challenged the sentence's legitimacy, saying, "I desire to know wherefore I am banished." Winthrop responded, "The court knows wherefore and is satisfied."
Hutchinson was called a heretic and an instrument of the devil, and was condemned to banishment by the Court "as being a woman not fit for our society". The Puritans sincerely believed that, in banishing Hutchinson, they were protecting God's eternal truth. Winthrop summed up the case with genuine feeling:
> Thus it pleased the Lord to heare the prayers of his afflicted people ... and by the care and indevour of the wise and faithfull ministers of the Churches, assisted by the Civill authority, to discover this Master-piece of the old Serpent.... It is the Lords work, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
#### Detention
Following her civil trial, Hutchinson was put under house arrest and ordered to be gone by the end of the following March. In the interim, she was not allowed to return home, but was detained at the house of Joseph Weld, brother of the Reverend Thomas Weld, located in Roxbury, about two miles from her home in Boston. The distance was not great, yet Hutchinson was rarely able to see her children because of the weather, which was particularly harsh that winter. Winthrop referred to Hutchinson as "the prisoner" and was determined to keep her isolated so that others would not be inspired by her, according to LaPlante. She was frequently visited by various ministers, whose intent, according to LaPlante, was to reform her thinking but also to collect evidence against her. Thomas Shepard was there to "collect errors", and concluded that she was a dangerous woman. Shepard and the other ministers who visited her drafted a list of her theological errors and presented them to the Boston church, which decided that she should stand trial for these views.
#### Church trial
Hutchinson was called to trial on Thursday, 15 March 1638, weary and in poor health following a four-month detention. The trial took place at her home church in Boston, though many of her supporters were gone. Her husband and other friends had already left the colony to prepare a new place to live. Her only family members present were her oldest son Edward and his wife, her daughter Faith and son-in-law Thomas Savage, and her sister Katherine with her husband Richard Scott.
The ministers intended to defend their orthodox doctrine and to examine Hutchinson's theological errors. Ruling elder Thomas Leverett was charged with managing the examination. He called Hutchinson and read the numerous errors with which she had been charged, and a nine-hour interrogation followed in which the ministers delved into some weighty points of theology. At the end of the session, only four of the many errors were covered, and Cotton was put in the uncomfortable position of delivering the admonition to his admirer. He said, "I would speake it to Gods Glory [that] you have bine an Instrument of doing some good amongst us... he hath given you a sharp apprehension, a ready utterance and abilitie to exprese yourselfe in the Cause of God." The ministers overwhelmingly concluded that Hutchinson's unsound beliefs outweighed all the good which she had done, and that she endangered the spiritual welfare of the community. Cotton continued,
> You cannot Evade the Argument... that filthie Sinne of the Communitie of Woemen; and all promiscuous and filthie cominge togeather of men and Woemen without Distinction or Relation of Mariage, will necessarily follow. Though I have not herd, nayther do I thinke you have bine unfaythfull to your Husband in his Marriage Covenant, yet that will follow upon it.
Here Cotton was making a link between Hutchinson's theological ideas and the more extreme behaviour credited to the antinomians and familists. He concluded:
> Therefor, I doe Admonish you, and alsoe charge you in the name of Ch[rist] Je[sus], in whose place I stand... that you would sadly consider the just hand of God agaynst you, the great hurt you have done to the Churches, the great Dishonour you have brought to Je[sus] Ch[rist], and the Evell that you have done to many a poore soule.
With this, Hutchinson was instructed to return in one week on the next lecture day.
Cotton had not yet given up on his parishioner. With the permission of the court, Hutchinson was allowed to spend the week at his home, where the recently arrived Reverend John Davenport was also staying. All week, the two ministers worked with her and, under their supervision, she wrote out a formal recantation of her unsound opinions that had formerly brought objection. Hutchinson stood at the next meeting on Thursday, 22 March and read her recantation in a subdued voice to the congregation. She admitted to having been wrong about the soul and spirit, wrong about the resurrection of the body, wrong in prophesying the destruction of the colony, and wrong in her demeanour toward the ministers, and she agreed that sanctification could be evidence of justification (what she called a "covenant of works") "as it flowes from Christ and is witnessed to us by the Spirit". Had the trial ended there, she would likely have remained in good standing with the Boston church, and had the possibility of returning some day.
Wilson explored an accusation made by Shepard at the end of the previous meeting, and new words brought on new assaults. The outcome of her trial was uncertain following the first day's grilling, but her downfall came when she would not acknowledge that she held certain theological errors before her four-month imprisonment. With this, she was accused of lying but, even at this point, Winthrop and a few of the ministers wanted her soul redeemed because of her significant evangelical work before she "set forth her owne stuffe". To these sentiments, Shepard vehemently argued that Hutchinson was a "Notorious Imposter" in whose heart there was never any grace. He admonished the "heinousness of her lying" during a time of supposed humiliation.
Shepard had swayed the proceedings, with Cotton signalling that he had given up on her, and her sentence was presented by Wilson:
> For as much as you, Mrs. Hutchinson, have highly transgressed and offended... and troubled the Church with your Errors and have drawen away many a poor soul, and have upheld your Revelations; and for as much as you have made a Lye.... Therefor in the name of our Lord Je[sus] Ch[rist]... I doe cast you out and... deliver you up to Satan... and account you from this time forth to be a Heathen and a Publican.... I command you in the name of Ch[rist] Je[sus] and of this Church as a Leper to withdraw your self out of the Congregation.
Hutchinson was now banished from the colony and removed from the congregation, and her leading supporters had been given three months to leave the colony, including Coddington and Coggeshall, while others were disenfranchised or dismissed from their churches. The court in November had ordered that 58 citizens of Boston and 17 from adjacent towns be disarmed unless they repudiated the "seditious label" given them, and many of these people followed Hutchinson into exile.
## Rhode Island
During Hutchinson's imprisonment, several of her supporters prepared to leave the colony and settle elsewhere. One such group of men, including her husband Will, met on 7 March 1638 at the home of wealthy Boston merchant William Coddington. Ultimately, 23 men signed what is known as the Portsmouth Compact, forming themselves into a "Bodie Politick" and electing Coddington as their governor, but giving him the Biblical title of "judge". Nineteen of the signers initially planned to move to New Jersey or Long Island, but Roger Williams convinced them to settle in the area of his Providence Plantations settlement. Coddington purchased Aquidneck Island (later named Rhode Island) in the Narragansett Bay from the Narragansetts, and the settlement of Pocasset was founded (soon renamed Portsmouth). Anne Hutchinson followed in April, after the conclusion of her church trial.
Hutchinson, her children, and others accompanying her travelled for more than six days by foot in the April snow to get from Boston to Roger Williams' settlement at Providence. They took boats to get to Aquidneck Island, where many men had gone ahead of them to begin constructing houses. In the second week of April, she reunited with her husband, from whom she had been separated for nearly six months.
### Final pregnancy
Hutchinson went into labour in May 1638, following the stress of her trial, her imprisonment all winter, and the difficult trip to Aquidneck Island. She delivered what her doctor John Clarke described as a handful of transparent grapes. This is known now as a hydatidiform mole, a condition occurring most often in women over 45, resulting from one or two sperm cells fertilising a blighted egg. Hutchinson had been ill most of the winter, with unusual weakness, throbbing headaches, and bouts of vomiting. Most writers on the subject agree that she had been pregnant during her trial. Historian Emery Battis, citing expert opinion, suggests that she may not have been pregnant at all during that time, but displaying acute symptoms of menopause. The following April after reuniting with her husband, she became pregnant, only to miscarry the hydatidiform mole. A woman could have had severe menopausal symptoms who had undergone a continuous cycle of pregnancies, deliveries, and lactations for 25 years, with the burdens of raising a large family and subjected to the extreme stress of her trials.
The Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gloated over Hutchinson's suffering and also that of Mary Dyer, a follower who had the premature and stillbirth of a severely deformed infant. The leaders classified the women's misfortunes as the judgment of God. Winthrop wrote, "She brought forth not one, but thirty monstrous births or thereabouts", then continued, "see how the wisdom of God fitted this judgment to her sin every way, for look—as she had vented misshapen opinions, so she must bring forth deformed monsters." Massachusetts continued to persecute Hutchinson's followers who stayed in the Boston area. Laymen were sent from the Boston church to Portsmouth to convince Hutchinson of her errors; she shouted at them, "the Church at Boston? I know no such church, neither will I own it. Call it the whore and strumpet of Boston, but no Church of Christ!"
### Dissension in government
Less than a year after Pocasset was settled, it suffered rifts and civil difficulties. Coddington had openly supported Hutchinson following her trial, but he had become autocratic and began to alienate his fellow settlers. Early in 1639, Hutchinson became acquainted with Samuel Gorton, who attacked the legitimacy of the magistrates. On 28 April 1639, Gorton and a dozen other men ejected Coddington from power. Hutchinson may not have supported this rebellion, but her husband was chosen as the new governor. Two days later, over 30 men signed a document forming a new "civil body politic". Winthrop noted in his journal that at Aquidneck,
> the people grew very tumultuous and put out Mr. Coddington and the other three magistrates, and chose Mr. William Hutchinson only, a man of very mild temper and weak parts, and wholly guided by his wife, who had been the beginner of all the former troubles in the country and still continued to breed disturbance.
Coddington and several others left the colony, establishing the settlement of Newport at the south end of the island. The freemen of Pocasset changed the name of their town to Portsmouth. They adopted a new government which provided for trial by jury and separation of church and state. The men who accompanied Coddington to Newport tended to be the strongest leaders; several became presidents or governors of the entire united colony after 1646, such as Coggeshall, Nicholas Easton, William Brenton, Jeremy Clarke, and Henry Bull. On 12 March 1640, the towns of Portsmouth and Newport agreed to re-unite. Coddington became governor of the island, and William Hutchinson was chosen as one of his assistants. The towns were to remain autonomous with laws made by the citizens.
During her tenure in Portsmouth, Hutchinson developed a new philosophy concerning religion. She persuaded her husband to resign from his position as a magistrate, as Roger Williams put it, "because of the opinion, which she had newly taken up, of the unlawfulness of magistracy."
Hutchinson's husband William died some time after June 1641 at the age of 55, the same age at which Anne's father had died. He was buried in Portsmouth. No record of his death exists because there was no established church, which would have been the customary repository for such records.
## New Netherland
Not long after the settlement of Aquidneck Island, the Massachusetts Bay Colony made some serious threats to annex the island and the entire Narragansett Bay area, causing Hutchinson and other settlers much anxiety. This compelled her to move totally out of the reach of the Bay colony and its sister colonies in Connecticut and New Haven and move into the jurisdiction of the Dutch. Hutchinson went to New Netherland some time after the summer of 1642 with seven of her children, a son-in-law, and several servants—16 total persons by several accounts. There they settled near an ancient landmark called Split Rock, not far from what became the Hutchinson River in northern Bronx, New York City. Other Rhode Island families were in the area, including the Throckmortons and the Cornells. By one account, Hutchinson bought her land from John Throckmorton (for whom Throggs Neck is named) who had earlier been a settler of Providence with Roger Williams, but was now living in New Netherland.
The Hutchinsons stayed temporarily in an abandoned house while a permanent house was being built with the help of James Sands, who had married Katherine Walker, a granddaughter of William Hutchinson's brother Edward. Sands later became a settler of Block Island (later New Shoreham, Rhode Island), and the Reverend Samuel Niles, another early settler of Block Island, recorded the following about Sands' experience in New Netherland:
> Mrs. Hutchinson... removed to Rhode Island, but making no long stay there, she went further westward to a place called Eastchester, now in the eastern part of the province of New York, where she prepared to settle herself; but not to the good liking of the Indians that lived back in the woods, as the sequel proves. In order to pursue her purpose, she agreed with Captain James Sands, then a young man, to build her house, and he took a partner with him in the business... there came a company of Indians to the frame where he was at work, and made a great shout and sat down. After some time, they gathered up his tools, put his broad axe on his shoulders and his other tools into his hands, and made signs for him to go away. But he seemed to take no notice of them, but continued in his work.
Thus the natives gave overt clues that they were displeased with the settlement being formed there. The property had supposedly been secured by an agent of the Dutch West India Company in 1640, but the negotiation was transacted with members of the Siwanoy people in distant Norwalk, and the local natives likely had little to do with that transaction, if they even knew of it at all. Hutchinson was therefore taking a considerable risk in putting a permanent dwelling at this site.
The exact location of the Hutchinson house has been a source of great interest for several centuries. LaPlante hints in her biography of Hutchinson that the homestead was near the Indian Trail that went through modern-day Pelham Bay Park, on the east side of the Hutchinson River. Lockwood Barr offers another hypothesis, citing the extensive land title research of Otto Hufeland published by the Westchester Historical Society in 1929. He concluded that the site of the homestead was on the west side of the Hutchinson River in Eastchester. A map in Barr's book that appeared in the 1929 work shows the property bordering the river in an area that is now called Baychester, between two creeks called Rattlesnake Brook and Black Dog Brook. This area of the Bronx is now highly developed; Rattlesnake Brook is extant, mostly in underground culverts, but Black Dog Brook is defunct.
### Death
The Hutchinsons' settlement in this area coincided with the local unrest between the colonists and the Indians. The Director of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, had aroused the ire of the Indians by ordering attacks on their settlements in an effort to drive them from the region. Mrs. Hutchinson had a favourable relationship with the Narragansetts in Rhode Island, and she may have felt a false sense of safety among the Siwanoy of New Netherland. The Hutchinsons had been friendly to them, but the Indians diminished the New Netherland colony in a series of incidents known as Kieft's War. The fate of the Hutchinson family was summarised by LaPlante:
> The Siwanoy warriors stampeded into the tiny settlement above Pelham Bay, prepared to burn down every house. The Siwanoy chief, Wampage, who had sent a warning, expected to find no settlers present. But at one house the men in animal skins encountered several children, young men and women, and a woman past middle age. One Siwanoy indicated that the Hutchinsons should restrain the family's dogs. Without apparent fear, one of the family tied up the dogs. As quickly as possible, the Siwanoy seized and scalped Francis Hutchinson, William Collins, several servants, the two Annes (mother and daughter), and the younger children—William, Katherine, Mary, and Zuriel. As the story was later recounted in Boston, one of the Hutchinsons' daughters, "seeking to escape," was caught "as she was getting over a hedge, and they drew her back again by the hair of the head to the stump of a tree, and there cut off her head with a hatchet."
The warriors then dragged the bodies into the house, along with the cattle, and burned the house to the ground. During the attack, Hutchinson's nine-year-old daughter Susanna was out picking blueberries; she was found, according to legend, hidden in the crevice of Split Rock nearby. She is believed to have had red hair, which was unusual to the Indians, and perhaps because of this curiosity her life was spared. She was taken captive, was named "Autumn Leaf" by one account, and lived with the Indians for two to six years (accounts vary) until ransomed back to her family members, most of whom were living in Boston.
The exact date of the Hutchinson massacre is not known. The first definitive record of the occurrence was in John Winthrop's journal, where it was the first entry made for the month of September, though not dated. It took days or even weeks for Winthrop to receive the news, so the event almost certainly occurred in August 1643, and this is the date found in most sources.
The reaction in Massachusetts to Hutchinson's death was harsh. The Reverend Thomas Weld wrote, "The Lord heard our groans to heaven, and freed us from our great and sore affliction.... I never heard that the Indians in those parts did ever before this commit the like outrage upon any one family or families; and therefore God's hand is the more apparently seen herein, to pick out this woeful woman". Peter Bulkley, the pastor at Concord, wrote, "Let her damned heresies, and the just vengeance of God, by which she perished, terrify all her seduced followers from having any more to do with her leaven."
Wampage claimed to have slain Hutchinson, and legend has it that he assumed her name after the massacre, calling himself "Anne Hoeck" to be honored by using the name of his most famous victim. Eleven years after the event, he confirmed a deed transferring the Hutchinsons' property to Thomas Pell, with his name on the document being given as "Ann Hoeck alias Wampage."
## Historical impact
Hutchinson claimed that she was a prophetess, receiving direct revelation from God. In this capacity, she prophesied during her trial that God would send judgment upon the Massachusetts Bay Colony and would wipe it from existence. She further taught her followers that personal revelation from God was as authoritative in a person's life as the Bible, a teaching that was antithetical to Puritan theology. She also claimed that she could identify "the elect" among the colonists. These positions ultimately caused John Cotton, John Winthrop, and other former friends to view her as an antinomian heretic.
According to modern historian Michael Winship, Hutchinson is famous, not so much for what she did or said during the Antinomian Controversy, but for what John Winthrop made of her in his journal and in his account of the controversy called the Short Story. According to Winship, Hutchinson became the reason in Winthrop's mind for all of the difficulties the colony had experienced, though unfairly, and with her departure, any other lingering issues were swept under the carpet. Winthrop's account has given Hutchinson near legendary status and, as with all legends, what she stood for has shifted over the centuries. Winthrop described her as "a woman of ready wit and bold spirit". In the words of Winship, to Winthrop, Hutchinson was a "hell-spawned agent of destructive anarchy". The close relationship between church and state in Massachusetts Bay meant that a challenge to the ministers was interpreted as challenge to established authority of all kinds. To 19th century America, she was a crusader for religious liberty, as the nation celebrated its new achievement of the separation of church and state. Finally, in the 20th century, she became a feminist leader, credited with terrifying the patriarchs, not because of her religious views but because she was an assertive woman. According to feminist Amy Lang, Hutchinson failed to understand that "the force of the female heretic vastly exceeds her heresy". Lang argues that it was difficult for the court to pin a crime on her; her true crime in their eyes, according to Lang's interpretation, was the violation of her role in Puritan society, and she was condemned for undertaking the roles of teacher, minister, magistrate, and husband. (However, the Puritans themselves stated that the threat which they perceived was entirely theological, and no direct mention was ever made to indicate that they were threatened by her gender.)
Winship calls Hutchinson "a prophet, spiritual adviser, mother of fifteen, and important participant in a fierce religious controversy that shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638", upheld as a symbol of religious freedom, liberal thinking, and Christian feminism. Anne Hutchinson is a contentious figure, having been lionised, mythologised, and demonised by various writers. In particular, historians and other observers have interpreted and re-interpreted her life within the following frameworks: the status of women, power struggles within the Church, and a similar struggle within the secular political structure. As to her overall historical impact, Winship writes, "Hutchinson's well-publicized trials and the attendant accusations against her made her the most famous, or infamous, English woman in colonial American history."
## Memorials and legacy
In front of the State House in Boston, Massachusetts stands a statue of Anne Hutchinson with her daughter Susanna as a child. The statue, dedicated in 1922, has an inscription on the marble pediment that reads:
The memorial is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
Another memorial to Hutchinson was erected south of Boston in Quincy, Massachusetts, at the corner of Beale Street and Grandview Avenue. This is near the location where the Hutchinsons owned a 600-acre farm with a house, and this is where they stayed for several days in early spring 1638 while making the trip from Boston to their new home on Aquidneck Island.
There is also an Anne Hutchinson memorial in Founders' Brook Park in Portsmouth, RI. The park features marble stones inscribed with quotes taken from Hutchinson's trial.
Anne Hutchinson was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.
### Literary works
According to Hutchinson biographer Eve LaPlante, some literary critics trace the character of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to Hutchinson's persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Historian Amy Lang wrote that Hester Prynne was the embodiment of a fictional Anne Hutchinson—a Hutchinson created by the early Puritan chroniclers. Lang notes that Hester was what orthodox Puritans said Hutchinson was, either in reality or at least spiritually. The parallel is that Hutchinson was the heretic who metaphorically seduced the Puritan community, while in Hawthorne's novel Hester Prynne literally seduced the minister of her community.
Hawthorne noted that The Scarlet Letter was inspired by John Neal's 1828 novel Rachel Dyer, in which Hutchinson's fictional granddaughter is a victim of the Salem witch trials. Hutchinson appears in the opening chapters as a martyr connected to the later martyrs of the witch hysteria.
Anne Hutchinson and her political struggle with Governor Winthrop are depicted in the 1980 play Goodly Creatures by William Gibson. Other notable historical characters who appear in the play are Reverend John Cotton, Governor Harry Vane, and future Quaker martyr Mary Dyer. In January 2014, Dan Shore's opera Anne Hutchinson, with libretto by William A. Fregosi and Fritz Bell, was performed twice in Boston, Massachusetts, by the Intermezzo Opera Company.
### Namesakes
In southern New York, Hutchinson's most prominent namesakes are the Hutchinson River, one of the few rivers named after a woman;, the Hutchinson River Parkway was in turn named for the river. Elementary schools are named for her, such as in the Westchester County towns of Pelham and Eastchester.
In Portsmouth, Rhode Island, Anne Hutchinson and her friend Mary Dyer, the Quaker martyr, have been remembered at Founders Brook Park with the Anne Hutchinson/Mary Dyer Memorial Herb Garden, a medicinal botanical garden set by a scenic waterfall and historical marker for the early settlement of Portsmouth. The garden was created by artist and herbalist Michael Steven Ford, who is a descendant of both women. The memorial was a grass roots effort by a local Newport organisation, the Anne Hutchinson Memorial Committee headed by Newport artist Valerie Debrule. The organization is called Friends of Anne Hutchinson; it meets annually at the memorial in Portsmouth on the Sunday nearest to 20 July, the date of Anne's baptism, to celebrate her life and the local colonial history of the women of Aquidneck Island. Hutchinson Hall, an underclassmen residence hall at the University of Rhode Island, is named in her honor.
Riffing off of commentary from her contemporary detractors, Anne has been embodied as a stand-up comedy act weaving current events and history into "licentious" walking tours and stage shows done in drag centered in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
### Pardon
In 1987, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned Anne Hutchinson, revoking the order of banishment by Governor Winthrop 350 years earlier.
## Family
### Immediate family
Anne and William Hutchinson had 15 children, all of them born and baptised in Alford except for the last child, who was baptised in Boston, Massachusetts. Of the 14 children born in England, 11 lived to sail to New England.
The oldest child Edward was baptised 28 May 1613. He signed the Portsmouth Compact and settled on Aquidneck Island with his parents, but he soon made peace with the Massachusetts authorities and returned to Boston. He was an officer in the colonial militia, and died from wounds received during King Philip's War. Susanna was baptised 4 September 1614 and died in Alford during the plague in 1630. Richard (baptised 8 December 1615) was admitted to the Boston church in 1634, but he returned to England and no further record has been found. Faith (baptised 14 August 1617) married Thomas Savage and lived in Boston, dying about 1651. Bridget (baptised 15 January 1618/9) married John Sanford and lived in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where her husband was briefly governor of the island; after his death she became the third wife of William Phillips and had three sons, John Samuel and William. She died by 1698.
Francis (baptised 24 December 1620) was the oldest of the children to perish in the massacre in New Netherland. Elizabeth (baptised 17 February 1621/2) died during the plague in Alford and was buried there on 4 October 1630. William (baptised 22 June 1623) died during infancy. Samuel (baptised 17 December 1624) lived in Boston, married, and had a child, but left behind few records. Anne (baptised 5 May 1626) married William Collins, and both of them went to New Netherland and perished in the massacre with her mother. Mary (baptised 22 February 1627/8), Katherine (baptised 7 February 1629/30), William (baptised 28 September 1631), and daughter Zuriel (baptised in Boston 13 March 1635/6) were all children when they went with their mother to New Netherland, and were killed during the Indian massacre in the late summer of 1643. Susanna was the 14th child of the Hutchinsons and the youngest born in England, baptised 15 November 1633. She survived the Indian attack in 1643, was taken captive, and eventually traded to the English, after which she married John Cole and had 11 children with him.
Of Hutchinson's dozen or more siblings who survived childhood, only one other came to New England; her youngest sister, Katherine, the wife of Richard Scott, came to Boston and then Providence. With her husband, Katherine was a Puritan, Baptist, and then Quaker, and was whipped in Boston for supporting her future son-in-law Christopher Holder who had his right ear cut off for his Quaker evangelism.
### Descendants
A number of Anne Hutchinson's descendants have reached great prominence. Among them are United States Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as are presidential aspirants Stephen A. Douglas, George W. Romney, and Mitt Romney. Her grandson Peleg Sanford was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Other descendants include Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Melville Weston Fuller and Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; Lord Chancellor of England John Singleton Copley, Jr., who was the first Lord Lyndhurst; President of Harvard University Charles William Eliot; actor Ted Danson; Musician Kaitlyn ni Donovan; and opera singer and socialite Madam Lillie Fay Moulton De Hegermann-Lindencrone. One descendant bearing the Hutchinson name was her great-great-grandson Thomas Hutchinson, who was a loyalist Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay at the time of the Boston Tea Party, an event leading to the American Revolutionary War.
### Ancestry
In 1914, John Champlin published the bulk of the currently known ancestry of Anne Hutchinson, showing her descent on her father's side of the family from Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. Gary Boyd Roberts and others have published her line of descent on her mother's side from Edward I of England, thus connecting her with Edward's great grandparents, Henry II of England and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Most of the material in the following ancestor chart is from Champlin, except for the Williamson line which was published in The American Genealogist by F. N. Craig in 1992.
## See also
- Christian egalitarianism
- Christian views about women
- List of colonial governors of Rhode Island
- Mary Dyer
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Quietly Confident Quartet
| 1,156,929,167 |
Australian medley relay swimming team who won the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics
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[
"Australian male medley swimmers",
"Nicknamed groups of Olympic competitors",
"Olympic gold medalists for Australia",
"Olympic swimmers for Australia",
"Quartets",
"Swimmers at the 1980 Summer Olympics"
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The Quietly Confident Quartet was the self-given name of the Australian men's 4 × 100 metres medley relay swimming team that won the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, through the 2016 Olympics, the Australian victory remains the only occasion the United States has not won the event at Olympic level since its inception in 1960. The quartet consisted of backstroker Mark Kerry, breaststroker Peter Evans, butterflyer Mark Tonelli, and freestyler Neil Brooks. The team was nominally led by its oldest member Tonelli, who was 23 and was also a spokesperson for the Australian athletes' campaign for their right to compete at the Olympics against the wishes of the Fraser government. The team was seen as an unlikely prospect to win; all four of the swimmers had clashed with swimming authorities over disciplinary issues and three experienced suspension or expulsion from the Australian team during their careers.
Australia had previously won medals in the event, but was not regarded as one of the favourites for the gold, as the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and Sweden all fielded more decorated swimmers over the component legs of the relay. After the backstroke leg, Australia was in fourth place and more than a second in arrears of the Soviet leaders. However, Evans was the fastest among the breaststrokers and moved the team into second position at the halfway point in the race; and Tonelli, a makeshift butterflyer, completed his leg in a time much faster than his previous best, allowing Australia to keep the Soviet lead reasonable. Australia's anchor swimmer Brooks overtook his more credentialled Soviet counterpart Sergey Koplyakov in the latter half of the final leg to secure a narrow victory. The quartet disbanded after the Olympics due to Tonelli's retirement, although some of the members continued to be present in the relay team at various times alongside new swimmers. By 1986, all four members of the 1980 team had retired from international competition.
## Personnel
The Australian team for the event was a young and inexperienced foursome. Mark Tonelli was the oldest at the age of 23, followed by Mark Kerry, who turned 21 a month after the Olympics. Both were attending their second Olympics, while Peter Evans and Neil Brooks were 18 and 17 respectively and had never represented Australia at the Commonwealth, World Championship or Olympic level. Evans and Brooks were from Western Australia, a state that had never been prominent in Australian swimming. The team members had some contact prior to their Olympic selection; Brooks' family had billeted Tonelli in 1976 when the Australian Olympic team held a training camp in Perth. Brooks cited his experience with Tonelli as a motivating factor in his career.
The quartet was also marked by rebellious and anti-establishment tendencies. Tonelli and Kerry were expelled from the 1978 Commonwealth Games team by the Australian Swimming Union for violating a curfew during a training camp in Hawaii before the team's trip to Edmonton, Canada for the competition; Tonelli had been out drinking and admitted to smoking marijuana, which was not illegal in Hawaii, while Kerry had been courting a female. In 1980, during the lead-up to the selection of the Olympic team, Brooks walked out of a training camp, alleging that the coaches were neglecting him, while Evans once stopped during a training session and refused to do extra mileage, emphatically proclaiming that "work is a poor substitute for talent". Later in their careers, Evans and Brooks continued to have their clashes with swimming officialdom; Evans over his coaches' demands for more training mileage and Brooks over swimmers' human rights. Brooks was later suspended twice in his career for his clashes with swimming authorities, and expelled from the Australian Institute of Sport for indiscipline.
The rebel qualities of the group were on show in the lead-up to the Olympics. An obstacle arose with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in a boycott of the Games by a large part of the Western world, led by the United States. The Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was also the patron of the Australian Olympic Committee, and he and sections of the public put significant political pressure on the athletes to join the boycott. Tonelli believed that only the sportspeople would suffer from a boycott and that trade relations would continue unabated. He took a leadership role among the athletes, fighting for their right to compete and publicising their cause to the Australian community. Evans was fully supportive of Tonelli's campaign, reflecting that "We were political tools, and the only ones to suffer would be us." He rhetorically asked: "Do you really think that if we didn't go someone would come up to us after the Games and pat us on the back for not going?"
Kerry was equally adamant that he was going to compete, unlike some swimmers who decided to make personal boycotts. He received offers from Australian officials to not compete in return for financial payments. He said
> I felt the biggest statement we could make was to go to Moscow and show the world. If there was a total boycott, fine, but trade was still going on. It was disgusting. Why should the athletes be made to suffer?
According to women's swimming captain Lisa Forrest, Tonelli adopted populist tactics in championing the athletes' cause. He said that Fraser was sending "wheat to feed the Russian army, wool to clothe the army and Australian metal to make Russian guns", claiming that this contradicted the proposed protest against the invasion and Russian military aggression. Tonelli's anti-authoritarian and individualistic style manifested itself during media appearances, including a news interview in which he debated with Reverend Lance Shilton, who had called the athletes traitors. Shilton expressed sympathy for the athletes, which Tonelli interpreted as condescension. He responded by rolling his eyes and twirling his finger, a gaffe that was shown on national television; Tonelli mistakenly thought that only his voice was being broadcast at the time and that the images were showing something else. Forrest said that "the damage was done—one of our most prominent anti-boycott lobbyists ... looked like a smart alec".
## Event history and expectations
The United States had always won the 4 × 100 m medley relay since the event's inception at the Olympics in 1960 with comfortable margins. The closest winning buffer was 2.6 seconds and in 1972 and 1976 they had won by 4.10 and 3.72 s respectively; their boycott opened up the field in the event. In the five previous times the event had been contested, Australia's best result had come in the inaugural race in Rome, where the team of David Theile, Terry Gathercole, Neville Hayes, and Geoff Shipton out-touched Japan to claim silver. The only other time that Australia had won a medal was in Tokyo in 1964, when Peter Reynolds, Ian O'Brien, Kevin Berry, and David Dickson finished behind the United States and Germany. The following two Games saw a fourth placing and an elimination in the heats. The previous outing in 1976 in Montreal had seen Australia come sixth. Kerry was the only veteran of the 1976 relay team who returned to the Olympics in Moscow.
Australia was regarded by swimming analysts as a medal chance, but were not seen as the main threats—Sweden, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were the most heavily fancied teams. The hosts had the silver medallists in the 100 m backstroke and breaststroke, Viktor Kuznetsov and Arsens Miskarovs respectively, and their butterflyer Yevgeny Seredin had come fifth in his 100 m event. Their freestyler Sergey Koplyakov later came fourth in the corresponding 100 m event. The British boasted Duncan Goodhew, the 100 m breaststroke gold medallist, and Gary Abraham, who had placed fifth in the 100 m backstroke. Sweden's butterflyer Pär Arvidsson and backstroker Bengt Baron had won their respective 100 m events and their freestyle swimmer Per Holmertz would win silver in the 100 m a few days later. Their weakest swimmer was the breaststroker Peter Berggren, who came ninth in the 100 m. On paper, Australia's team paled in comparison. Brooks later came seventh in his 100 m freestyle semifinal and 14th overall after having an asthma attack, and Evans was Australia's only medallist in the corresponding individual event, winning bronze in the breaststroke. Kerry had been eliminated in the 100 m backstroke semifinals, while Tonelli was the Australian champion in the 100 m freestyle and backstroke but was swimming as a makeshift butterflyer; the nation did not have an entrant in the 100 m butterfly. Adding to the pressure was Australia's failure to win any gold medals in any sport at the 1976 Olympics. This meant that the public were still awaiting their first gold since the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Coming into the Olympics, Australia was ranked seventh out of the thirteen competing countries.
## Race
The medley relay was scheduled for Thursday, 24 July, the fifth day of swimming competition, with heats in the morning and the final in the evening. Australia's prospects improved when Sweden was disqualified in the first heat. Australia and the Soviet Union swam in the second heat. With their superior depth, the home team was able to rest their entire first-choice quartet in the heats. On the other hand, Australia was only willing to rest Kerry—Glenn Patching swam the backstroke leg in his place. The hosts led the Australians from the start and extended their margin over each of the first three legs. Brooks reclaimed 1.34 s on the freestyle leg, but the Australians fell 0.13 s short to come second in their heat. Nevertheless, the Australians still qualified in second place overall, as they and the Soviets were more than 1.5 s faster than the third-placed Hungarians. In any case, despite resting all of their first-choice quartet, the home team were still faster than the Australians, who had fielded all but one of their full-strength team.
Evans brashly took the opportunity to attempt to regain the psychological ascendancy from Goodhew, confronting him privately and stating that "we will win it", later reporting that the Briton was astounded by his posturing. The eldest swimmer in the quartet at the age of 23, Tonelli convened the team as its de facto leader. He asked his compatriots to commit to swimming their legs in a certain time; Kerry vowed to swim the backstroke in 57 s, Evans the breaststroke in 63 s flat, Tonelli the butterfly in 54 s and Brooks promised to anchor the team in 49.8 s, even though he had never gone faster than 51 s. Tonelli named the foursome the "Quietly Confident Quartet" because they exhibited a reserved self-belief as they lined up for the race. Whereas most of the other teams were "psyching up" in the marshalling area, the Australians were remaining light-hearted and placid, confident that they could perform in the water.
Patching was one of several backstrokers who had slipped on the starting area earlier in the meet, so Kerry decided to rub a sticky red substance onto the soles of his feet. The Soviet organisers had provided a carpet following the incidents, resulting in Kerry leaving red footprints in the stadium. Kerry led off in a time faster than his effort in the individual event, but it was still two seconds slower than his personal best. He finished his leg in 57.87 s, leaving Australia in fourth place. Kuznetsov gave the Soviets the lead after posting a time of 56.81 s, with Hungary and Great Britain in second and third place. France was the last to reach the 100 m mark, recording a time of 58.84 s. Evans then swam a personal best of 63.01 s, the fastest split among the breaststrokers by 0.63 s. His leg moved Australia into second place at the halfway mark, just 0.45 s behind the hosts and roughly half a second ahead of the British and the Hungarians. The four leading teams had broken away, leaving a two-second gap back to the fifth-placed East Germans.
Tonelli then swam his leg in 54.94 s, almost two seconds faster than his previous best over the distance. He began to lose ground in the last 50 m and was a bodylength behind Seredin until a late surge brought him to within a metre by the time the swimmers touched the wall. If Tonelli had replicated his relay leg in the individual event, he would have claimed the silver medal. Although he lost 0.36 s to Seredin, he had minimised his loss and Australia were within 0.81 s going into the final leg. Furthermore, the Australians were now more than a second clear of the third-placed Great Britain.
Brooks then executed a powerful, well-timed dive and surfaced almost even with his Soviet counterpart Koplyakov. He had drawn level halfway through his leg and made a superior turn to take the lead as they headed home. The Soviet freestyler pulled level with 25 m to go before Brooks again pulled away to seal an Australian victory by 0.22 s. He did not breathe in the last ten metres, and claimed to be laughing for the final five metres, confident that his opponent could not pass him. Brooks had finished his leg in 49.86 s as he had vowed to his teammates. In doing so, he recorded the swiftest freestyle split in the relay, faster than that of the individual 100 m freestyle gold medallist, Jörg Woithe of East Germany.
The time of 3 m 45.70 s sealed Australia's first win in a medley relay at the Olympics, for men or women. It remains the only time that the United States has not won the men's event. The team made a celebratory dive into the water and did a poolside interview. Tonelli remarked that "I was totally stunned. After all the hassle, and my being the athletes' mouthpiece, we'd come through and done it". Forrest hailed the win as "a gold medal that should never have been".
Sportscaster Norman May's dramatic call of the race on the 2UE radio network, ending with "Gold, gold for Australia, gold!", became one of Australia's best-known and most iconic sports commentaries.
## Government reaction
Relations between the Olympians and the Australian Government remained tense after months of political struggle regarding the boycott. A prime minister would customarily send a congratulatory message to Olympic medallists. However, the Australian Olympic chef de mission Phil Coles confirmed at the following day's press conference that the quartet had not received a message from Malcolm Fraser. Australian journalists soon bombarded Fraser's office with phone calls asking why he had not applauded the athletes. Various members of the government recommended that Fraser congratulate the swimmers, but the prime minister baulked. When questioned in a radio interview, he said "I hope that circumstances do not arise over the next few years which will cause them to have very great regrets about the fact that they've gone". Fraser relented and late in the night, his office sent a telegram. However, he would not send his message directly to the Olympic village, so the telegram was sent to the Australian Embassy in Moscow. Fraser had ordered the Australian diplomatic mission to close its doors to the Olympians, so the embassy staff had to pass the envelopes containing the message through the fence to Australian Olympic officials. Fraser's telegram said:
> You know I did not and do not approve of Australia being represented at these Olympic Games. I do want to say however that your performance in the relay was a truly great sporting achievement. My personal congratulations.
Coles reported that the relay squad tore up the prime minister's message.
## Aftermath
The quartet never competed as a unit after the Moscow Olympics. Tonelli retired immediately after the Games, while Kerry took an extended break. The backstroker attempted a comeback in the leadup to the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, but his abbreviated preparation before the selection trials was not enough and he was defeated by other swimmers. This left Evans and Brooks as the only members of the 1980 team to participate in Australia's medley relay victory at the Commonwealth Games. In 1984, Kerry secured a recall to the team as Australia's preferred backstroker, while Brooks was surpassed by Mark Stockwell as the leading freestyler. Australia came third in the 1984 Summer Olympics in the medley relay as the Americans returned to the Olympic fold; Evans and Kerry swam in the final, while Brooks did the freestyle leg in the heats. Evans and Kerry retired after the Olympics, and Brooks was not the first-choice swimmer in 1986, meaning that a totally different quartet competed in the medley relay at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Brooks was suspended for drunken behaviour on the flight back to Australia, and then retired, and all four members of the Quietly Confident Quartet had departed the Australian swimming scene.
|
72,759,730 |
Battle of Winwick
| 1,152,197,584 |
1648 battle of the Second English Civil War
|
[
"1648 in England",
"1648 in Scotland",
"17th century in Lancashire",
"Battles involving Lancashire",
"Battles involving Scotland",
"Battles of the English Civil Wars",
"Conflicts in 1648",
"England–Scotland relations",
"English Civil War",
"Military history of England",
"Registered historic battlefields in England",
"Wars of the Three Kingdoms"
] |
The Battle of Winwick (also known as the Battle of Red Bank) was fought on 19 August 1648 near the Lancashire village of Winwick between part of a Royalist army under Lieutenant General William Baillie and a Parliamentarian army commanded by Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell. The Royalists were defeated with all of those who took part in the fighting, their army's entire infantry force, either killed or captured. The Royalist mounted component fled but surrendered five days after the battle. Winwick was the last battle of the Second English Civil War.
The First English Civil War between Royalist supporters of Charles I and an alliance of Parliamentarian and Scottish forces ended in 1646 with Charles defeated and a prisoner. He continued to negotiate with several factions among his opponents and this sparked the Second English Civil War in 1648: a series of mutinies and Royalist uprisings in England and Wales, and a Scottish Royalist invasion of north-west England. The invading army was attacked and defeated by a smaller Parliamentarian army at the battle of Preston on 17 August. The majority of the Royalists, mostly Scots, had not been engaged but they fled south, closely pursued by the Parliamentarians, mostly of the New Model Army. On 19 August, hungry, cold, soaking wet, exhausted and short of dry powder, the Scottish infantry turned to fight at Winwick. Their cavalry waited 3 miles (5 km) away at Warrington.
The Parliamentarian advance guard was put to flight with heavy casualties. After a lengthy pause, Parliamentarian infantry arrived: they attempted to storm the Scottish position and were thrown back. A full-scale assault was then launched which resulted in more than three hours of furious but indecisive close-quarters fighting. The Parliamentarians fell back again, pinned the Scots in place with their cavalry and sent their infantry on a circuitous flank march. As soon as the Scots saw this force appear on their right flank they broke and fled. Parliamentarian cavalry pursued, killing many. All of the surviving Scots surrendered: their infantry either at Winwick church or in Warrington, their cavalry on 24 August at Uttoxeter. Winwick was the last battle of the war. In its aftermath Charles was beheaded on 30 January 1649 and England became a republic on 19 May.
## Primary sources
The three most useful accounts of the short campaign which included the battles of Preston and Winwick were written by Oliver Cromwell, commander of the Parliamentarian army; Marmaduke Langdale, commander of the English Royalists who bore the brunt of the fighting at Preston; and John Hodgson, a lieutenant in a Parliamentarian infantry regiment. The first two accounts were written shortly after the campaign; Hodgson wrote his memoirs in 1683. Cromwell was the only one of the three present at Winwick. There is also a letter by the Parliamentarian cavalry officer Major John Sanderson giving details of his participation in the battle and an account of it written by the Royalist James Heath in 1661. Two partial accounts of the campaign were written by senior Scottish commanders in the 1670s.
## Opposing forces
### Infantry
Infantry formations, equipment and tactics were similar in both armies. The basic tactical formation was the regiment, which varied greatly in size. An infantry regiment was usually made up of 10 equally sized companies and typically had a nominal or establishment strength of 800 or 1,000 men; this was rarely met. Each was composed of both musketmen and pikemen.
The musketmen were armed with muskets possessing 4-foot-long (1.2 m) barrels and, mostly, matchlock firing mechanisms. These relied on the glowing end of a length of slow match, thin cord soaked in saltpetre, igniting the weapon's priming powder when the trigger was pulled. They were reliable and robust weapons, but their effectiveness was severely reduced in poor weather. Keeping the slow match burning at all times resulted in the consumption of a vast amount of it, while dowsing it rendered the musket useless. Balancing combat readiness against logistical capability called for fine judgement from a regiment's officers. A few musketmen on each side were equipped with the more reliable flintlock muskets. In 1648 musket tactics were in transition from firing one rank at a time so as to maintain a steady fire, to the entire unit discharging a volley simultaneously for shock effect. A well-trained musketman took approximately 40 seconds to reload and would carry ten rounds of ammunition.
Pikemen were equipped with pikes: long wooden shafts tipped with steel points. Pikes as issued were normally 18-foot-long (5.5 m), but on the march they were commonly cut down to a more wieldy 15 feet (4.6 m) or so. The pikemen carried basic swords and typically wore steel helmets but no other armour; in some regiments a few pikemen, usually those in the front rank, would have also worn body armour. Military manuals of the time suggested a ratio of two musketmen for each pikeman, but in practice commanders usually attempted to maximise the number of musketmen and a higher ratio was the rule.
Both armies organised their infantry regiments into brigades of three regiments each, which doctrine suggested be deployed two regiments abreast, with the third behind as a reserve. The men in each unit would form up four or five ranks deep and in a relatively loose formation, with about 3 feet (0.9 m) of frontage per file; so an infantry regiment of 600 might form up 120 men wide and 5 deep, giving it a frontage of 360 feet (110 m) and a depth of 15 feet (4.6 m). The pikemen would be placed in the centre of a formation, in a "stand", with the musketmen divided on each side. The usual tactic against infantry was for the musketmen to fire on their opponents and once it was thought they had been sufficiently weakened or demoralised the stand of pikemen would advance, attempting to break through the enemy centre. This was known as a "push of the pike". The musketmen would also advance, engaging the enemy with their musket butts, which were steel-plated for this purpose, and attempting to envelop the opposing formation.
Against cavalry, doctrine called for infantry units to tighten the spacing between their files so that each man took up only 18 inches (46 cm) frontage and to advance steadily. To be effective against infantry, cavalry needed to break into their formation, and if the men were packed together this was not possible. It was accepted that so long as the morale of the infantry held, cavalry could do little against the front of such a formation. However, the flanks and rear were increasingly vulnerable when the infantry packed more closely together, as this made manoeuvring or turning the unit more difficult.
### Cavalry
Most of the Parliamentarian cavalry were mounted on large, for the time, horses. The cavalrymen all wore metal lobster-tailed pot helmets which protected the head and, usually, the neck, cheeks and, to an extent, face; and thigh-length boots. Body armour – a cuirass (metal chest and back plates) – was worn by most cavalrymen, although many relied on just a jacket of thick uncured leather. They were each armed with two pistols and a sword. The pistols were 18 to 24 inches (46–61 cm) long and had a very limited effective range. Most but not all cavalry pistols had flintlock firing mechanisms, which were more reliable in damp or windy weather than matchlock mechanisms. Flintlock mechanisms were more expensive than matchlock ones and were usually reserved for the cavalry, who found igniting and using the slow match while controlling a horse inconvenient. The swords were straight, 3-foot-long (90 cm) and effective at both cutting and thrusting.
The Royalist cavalry were similarly equipped with helmets, pistols, swords and body armour, although many of the Scots bore lances rather than pistols. Scottish horses were smaller and lighter than their English equivalents; this gave them greater manoeuvrability but put them at a disadvantage in a face-to-face confrontation. The Scottish cavalry were well mounted, but inexperienced and ill disciplined. Parliamentarian cavalry were trained to advance very close together, with their riders' legs interlocked, at no faster than a trot – to maintain formation. They would discharge their pistols at very short range and upon coming into contact attempt to use the sheer weight of their mounts and the mass of their formation to force back their opponents and burst through their ranks. Royalist cavalry were more likely to charge at a faster pace and in a looser formation.
Both armies contained dragoons. These had originated as mounted infantry, using horses to increase their operational mobility and dismounting to fight with pikes or muskets. By 1648 they had largely become specialist mounted troops; none carried pikes. The Parliamentarian dragoons were in the process of exchanging their muskets for carbines (shorter-barrelled versions of muskets, more wieldy for carrying on, or even firing from, horseback) or, occasionally, pistols. Scottish dragoons were also partway through this transformation and carried both matchlock muskets and cavalry swords. Dragoons usually acted as scouts, or formed their army's rearguard.
### Artillery
Cannonballs believed to have been found at the site strongly suggest that at least one piece of light artillery was deployed.
### Summary
Most of the Parliamentarian soldiers were seasoned veterans, well trained and with experience of battle. The Scots as a whole were unenthusiastic about another round of warfare and had difficulty raising troops. Some regiments had barely half their establishment, of whom more than half were new recruits, lacking both experience and adequate training. A contemporary exaggerated that "not a fifth man could handle a pike."
## Background
In 1639, and again in 1640, Charles I, who was king of both Scotland and England in a personal union, went to war with his Scottish subjects in the Bishops' Wars. These had arisen from the Scots' refusal to accept Charles's attempts to reform the Scottish Kirk to bring it into line with English religious practices. Charles was not successful in these endeavours and the ensuing settlement with his Scottish Parliament in 1641 severely limited his powers. After years of rising tensions the relationship between Charles and his English Parliament broke down, starting the First English Civil War in 1642.
In England Charles's supporters, the Royalists, were opposed by the combined forces of the Parliamentarians and the Scots. In 1643 the latter pair formed an alliance bound by the Solemn League and Covenant. After four years of war the Royalists were defeated and Charles surrendered to the Scots on 5 May 1646. The Scots agreed with the English Parliament on a peace settlement which would be put before the King. Known as the Newcastle Propositions, the Scots spent months trying to persuade Charles to agree to them but he refused. The Scots eventually handed Charles over to the English Parliamentary forces in exchange for a financial settlement and left England on 3 February 1647.
Charles then engaged in separate negotiations with different factions. Presbyterian English Parliamentarians and the Scots wanted him to accept a modified version of the Newcastle Propositions, but in June 1647 a junior army officer seized Charles and the army council pressed him to accept the Heads of Proposals, a less demanding set of terms. He rejected these as well and instead signed an offer known as the Engagement, which had been thrashed out with the Scottish delegation, on 26 December 1647. Charles agreed to confirm the Solemn League and Covenant by Act of Parliament in both kingdoms, and other conditions, in return for the Scots' assistance in enforcing his claim to the English throne.
When the Scottish delegation returned to Edinburgh with the Engagement, the Scots were bitterly divided on whether to ratify its terms. After a protracted political struggle those in favour of it, known as the Engagers, gained a majority in the Scottish Parliament and on 11 April 1648 repudiated the 1643 treaty with the Parliamentarians. On 29 April, they seized the English border town of Carlisle.
### War
Meanwhile, the coalition of interests which had cohered on the Parliamentarian side during the first war fractured in 1647. There were risings in support of the Royalist cause in England and Wales and mutinies by Parliamentarian garrisons. These were especially serious in Kent, Essex and South Wales and marked the start of the Second English Civil War. Six English warships defected to the Royalists. The most reliable military force the Parliamentarian leaders had at their disposal was the New Model Army. This had been split into garrisons across the country; its commander, Sir Thomas Fairfax, based in London, put down the revolt in Kent on 1 June at the fiercely fought Battle of Maidstone. He then moved into Essex and began an eleven-week siege of Colchester. In South Wales the Parliamentarians faced mutinous garrisons in Chepstow, Tenby and Pembroke Castle as well as Royalist risings.
The Scots raised an army under the command of the Duke of Hamilton to send into England to fight on behalf of the King. With rebellion breaking out in England and Wales and the Scottish army marching for the border the future of Britain hung in the balance, in the view of the modern historian Ian Gentles. The summer of 1648 was extremely wet and stormy, causing both sides to be hampered by the weather. Major General John Lambert was in charge of Parliamentarian forces in the north of England. His men harassed the Royalist force around Carlisle, gathered information and besieged Pontefract Castle from early June. Marmaduke Langdale raised 4,000 English Royalists and covered the arrival of Hamilton's army.
When Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell arrived in South Wales on 11 May with 5,000 men of the New Model Army he found the local Parliamentarian forces regaining control. A force of 8,000 ill-armed Royalists had been defeated by a much smaller force under Colonel Thomas Horton on 8 May at the battle of St Fagans. Tenby was besieged by Horton and capitulated on 31 May while Cromwell besieged Pembroke Castle in the far south west on 31 May, hampered by a lack of artillery. As the situation with regards to the siege and the restiveness of the local populace improved, Cromwell despatched cavalry regiments one at a time to march north and reinforce Lambert. Siege guns arrived on 1 July and the castle surrendered on the 11th. Cromwell mopped up and was marching east with more than 4,000 men within a week.
## Prelude
Hamilton crossed the border into England on 8 July and joined with Langdale's English Royalists at Carlisle on the 9th. This combined force besieged Appleby Castle while waiting for reinforcements and artillery from Scotland and the arrival of a Scottish corps which had been serving in Ireland. In early August the Royalist army started moving south in stages. By 17 August its advance guard had reached Wigan, but the army was strung out over 50 miles (80 km). Lambert, acting on Cromwell's orders, stood on the defensive until reinforced at Weatherby on 12 August when Cromwell arrived and took command of the combined force. On 13 August Cromwell directed his army westward; Langdale promptly informed Hamilton that the combined Parliamentarian force was bearing down on their east flank, but this warning was largely disregarded.
### Battle of Preston
On the morning of 17 August the Scottish infantry, the largest single contingent of the Royalist army, was just to the north of Preston. Langdale's corps of 4,000 men was 8 miles (13 km) north east of Preston and falling back ahead of the Parliamentarian advance scouts. Langdale again warned Hamilton as to the situation and was again ignored. Hamilton concentrated on passing the Scottish infantry over the Ribble bridge while Langdale set up a defensive position north west of Preston. An initial Parliamentarian attack was beaten back and follow up assaults resulted in fierce fighting. After four hours the weight of numbers told and the Parliamentarians broke through. They cut off all the Royalist forces north of the Ribble and brought the bridge under a withering fire. The bridge was strongly defended by 600 Scottish infantry, but the Parliamentarians captured it in two hours of furious fighting, by which time night was falling. Approximately 1,000 Royalists were dead and 4,000 captured by the end of the day.
### Retreat from Preston
The Scottish leaders south of the river held a council of war and decided that the survivors should immediately make their way south, to be well away from Cromwell's force by morning and link up with their main force of cavalry at Wigan. To move as rapidly and stealthily as possible the Scots abandoned their baggage and ammunition trains, only taking with them what each man could carry. The baggage, equipment, artillery and ammunition left behind was supposed to be destroyed once the march was well under way, but it was not and was all captured before daylight.
Discovering that the Scots had left their camp, the Parliamentarians sent a force of cavalry across the bridge and down the road south. Within 3 miles (5 km) they had closed with the few cavalry the Scots were using as a rear guard. Nearly the whole of the mounted contingent of the New Model Army, reinforced by some Lancashire troops, was in pursuit by the next morning, some 2,500 cavalry and dragoons. Their advance guard harried the Scottish cavalry, determined to break through them to force the Royalist infantry to stand and fight. The Scottish cavalry under Middleton, recalled from Wigan, took up a position to hold off the Parliamentarian pursuit. Throughout 18 August the Parliamentarians pressed, so aggressively that in one skirmish the commander of the advance guard was killed. All of the infantry of the New Model Army was now following their mounted comrades, a further 2,900 men. The Parliamentarians were still outnumbered by the surviving Royalists, who in the immediate aftermath of Preston may have numbered as many as 11,000, mostly Scots.
On the evening of 18 August at least a substantial part of the Scottish infantry formed up on Standish Moor north of Wigan, briefly holding off their pursuers. Cromwell reported a hundred prisoners taken outside Wigan. The Scots entered the town, thoroughly plundered it and marched on through the night. Some men had not eaten nor slept for two nights; cavalrymen fell asleep in their saddles. Hungry, cold, soaking wet, exhausted and short of dry powder or matchlock the Scots continued south, leaving bands of stragglers and deserters behind them. Sanderson, who fought at Winwick, wrote of the roads, fields, woods and ditches being littered with the dead from Preston to Warrington.
## Battle
During the morning of 19 August, about 9 miles (14 km) south of Wigan, the Scots halted between the villages of Newton and Winwick. They had found a naturally strong defensive position where the road crossed Hermitage Brook, and they could take defensive advantage of a large bank on the south side of the stream's valley, the "Red Bank", and plentiful hedges. (It is this bank which causes the battle to be sometimes known as Red Bank.) The ground around the ford and the stream valley was very muddy, which would hamper any attack. They prepared for battle, positioning stands of pikemen at the ford and other access points, and lining the hedges above the valley of the stream with musketmen. The cavalry continued to Warrington, 3 miles (5 km) to the south. The plan was for the cavalry to secure the bridge while the infantry gave the Parliamentarian advance guard a rebuff. This would gain enough time for the infantry to cross the bridge – always a dangerous time, when forces were inevitably divided and unable to support each other – covered by the cavalry. Perhaps coordination broke down, for the cavalry crossed the bridge, making it dangerous for the infantry to follow them until the situation had been resolved. The cavalry did barricade the bridge and construct some field fortifications.
English Heritage estimate that the Scots numbered about 4,000–6,000 infantry at the start of the battle; the historian Richard Brooks gives a total of 7,000, including the cavalry, who were not engaged. The Parliamentarians were pursuing with nearly all of the New Model Army, supplemented by some local troops: approximately 2,500 cavalry and dragoons and 2,900 infantry for a total of some 5,400–5,500 men. The Parliamentarian pursuers rode up the road – their horses were exhausted and unable to manage more than a walk – and in the words of Hodgson the Scots "snaffled our forlorn [advance guard], and put them to retreat". Heath writes of them "having lost abundance of men".
A lengthy pause followed as the weary Parliamentarian mounted troops waited for some of their infantry to catch up. Once they arrived they attempted to storm the Scottish positions in a push of the pike, led by Pride's Regiment, but were initially repulsed. More Parliamentarian infantry arrived and the assault was renewed; fierce fighting continued for more than three hours, with repeated Parliamentarian charges and prolonged close-quarter fighting between the opposing pike formations. Colonel Thomas Pride distinguished himself leading his regiment in this fighting, but the Parliamentarians were unable to dislodge the Scots. The modern historian Trevor Royle says "Both sides fought with equal ferocity and determination". Cromwell's account accepts that several Parliamentarian pike attacks were thrown back and talks of his troops "charging very hard upon them [the Scots]".
By now the Scottish musketmen had run out of gunpowder, partly because of having abandoned their baggage train at Preston and partly because the persistent heavy rain dampened many powder flasks. Cannonballs are reported as having been recovered from the site, indicating that at least some artillery was employed. The Scots are believed to have marched south with as many as 20 easily portable pieces of light artillery to supplement the fire of their musketmen although Parliamentarian accounts claim that these were all captured when the Scots abandoned their baggage train after the battle of Preston. The Parliamentarian infantry fell back and their cavalry and some skirmishing dragoons held the Scots in place – if they had attempted to retreat the cavalry would have attacked them in their rear.
During this hiatus the Parliamentarian infantry took a circuitous route to the east behind woods and in dead ground to emerge on the flank and rear of the Scots. Sanderson, who was there, has local people telling the Parliamentarians the best route by which to outflank the Scots. At about the time the Parliamentarians emerged some Scottish cavalry returned from Warrington, but the sight of the enemy emerging on their right flank was too much for the exhausted Scots. The Scottish infantry broke and fled before the Parliamentarians contacted them. About half routed towards Winwick and 300 Parliamentarian cavalry followed, cutting down many. The Scots discarded their weapons and crowded into the village church, where they were taken prisoner. Seeing that the battle was lost, the Scottish cavalry force withdrew back to Warrington. The rest of the Scottish infantry, fewer than 2,600 men, followed them, hard pressed by the Parliamentarians. Stragglers and wounded were attacked and killed by local people. The fighting at Winwick cost the Scots 1,000 killed and 2,000 taken prisoner.
When the Scottish infantry reached Warrington late on 19 August they discovered that their cavalry and their commander had abandoned them. Hamilton left a message saying they would "preserve themselves for a better time" and ordering the infantry to surrender on the best terms they could get. The commander of the infantry, Lieutenant General William Baillie, was at such a loss that he turned to his staff and "beseeched any that would to shoot him through the head". Warrington bridge was barricaded and terms of surrender were sought. Cromwell took them prisoner, sparing their lives and their immediate personal possessions. Cromwell declared the victory at Winwick to be "nothing but the hand of God".
### Pursuit
Approximately 2,500–3,000 mounted Scots headed south. They dispersed a force of militia at Whitchurch and turned east for Stone, hoping to later turn north and make for Pontefract Castle; which was still held by Royalists and from where they may have been able to return to Scotland. Discipline collapsed: troopers, even officers, deserted; one trooper shot his sergeant and was himself executed. Local militia repeatedly attacked, one group capturing the commander of the Scottish cavalry, the Earl of Middleton. The weather continued to be wet and stormy. At Uttoxeter on the morning of 24 August the Scots refused to march. A handful of the senior officers left, some eventually made their way to safety. Hamilton was too sick to move and surrendered on terms to the still pursuing Parliamentarians. The prisoners, excepting the senior commanders, were promised their lives and their clothes, they were not to be beaten, the sick and wounded would be treated locally and Hamilton was allowed six servants.
### Casualties
Numbers of casualties are difficult to calculate. Modern historians accept that approximately 1,000 Royalists were killed at Preston and 4,000 taken prisoner. During the retreat from Preston and at Winwick and its aftermath approximately a further 1,000 Royalists are believed to have died. About 2,000 Scots were captured at Winwick – contemporary estimates vary widely – and a further 2,600 at Warrington. The capture of Hamilton and the cavalry with him – possibly as many as 3,000 – completed the annihilation of the Royalist army. Again neither contemporary nor modern estimates agree. Those prisoners who had served voluntarily, as opposed to being conscripted, were sold as slaves: to work the land in the Americas or as galley slaves to Venice. Hamilton was beheaded for treason in March 1649.
The English Parliament announced that their losses during the whole campaign had been 100 or fewer killed. Cromwell declined to quantify the loss, but did speak of "many" wounded. A Parliamentary casualty figure of 100 is widely given by modern historians; Bull and Seed are sceptical and estimate that in excess of 500 were killed or wounded.
## Aftermath
The Battle of Winwick was the last battle of the Second English Civil War. Hearing of the outcome of Winwick, Colchester surrendered to Fairfax on 27 August 1648 on harsh terms. This effectively ended the war, although Pontefract held out until 22 March the following year.
The rout of the Engager army led to further political upheaval in Scotland and the faction opposed to the Engagement was able to gain control of the government, with the assistance of a group of English Parliamentarian cavalry led by Cromwell. Exasperated by the duplicity of Charles I and by the English Parliament's refusal to stop negotiating with him and accept the demands of the New Model Army, the Army purged Parliament and established the Rump Parliament, which appointed a High Court of Justice to try Charles I for treason against the English people. He was convicted and on 30 January 1649 beheaded. On 19 May, with the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, the country became a republic.
The Scottish Parliament, which had not been consulted before the King's execution, declared his son Charles II, King of Britain. Charles II set sail to Scotland, landing on 23 June 1650 and the Scottish Parliament set about rapidly recruiting an army to support the new king. The leaders of the English Commonwealth felt threatened by the Scots reassembling an army and the New Model Army, led by Cromwell, invaded Scotland on 22 July. After 14 months of hard fighting Scotland was largely subjugated and a Scottish counter-invasion was crushed at the Battle of Worcester. Charles was one of the few to escape, into exile on the continent.
The defeated Scottish government was dissolved and the English Parliament absorbed the kingdom of Scotland into the Commonwealth. Military rule was imposed, with 10,000 English troops garrisoned across the country to quell the threat of local uprisings. After in-fighting between factions in the English Parliament and the army, Cromwell ruled over the Commonwealth as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. On 3 February the dominant army faction, under Lieutenant General George Monck, called new parliamentary elections. These resulted in the Convention Parliament which on 8 May 1660 declared that Charles II had reigned as the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I. Charles II returned from exile and was crowned king of England on 23 April 1661, completing the Restoration.
## Battlefield today
The site of the battle was listed by Historic England on the Register of Historic Battlefields on 31 January 2018. It is one of only 47 English battlefields accorded the status of being the location of an "engagement of national significance". It is noted to be "the only English battlefield of the Second Civil War which remains in a good state of preservation." The site of the battle and the "Red Bank" have been shown on Ordnance Survey maps since 1849. At the time of the battle the area was moorland and rough grazing with wooded, marshy valleys. Farming and mining activities, and work on the Wigan to Warrington road, have considerably altered the lie of the land; there has also been housing development around the fringes of the site, especially to the south. Nevertheless, the line of the Hermitage Brook and the barrier of the Red Bank on the south side of Hermitage Green Lane can still be clearly seen.
## Notes, citations and sources
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Anekantavada
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Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India
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' (Hindi: अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects.
According to Jainism, no single, specific statement can describe the nature of existence and the absolute truth. This knowledge (Kevala Jnana), it adds, is comprehended only by the Arihants. Other beings and their statements about absolute truth are incomplete, and at best a partial truth. All knowledge claims, according to the anekāntavāda doctrine must be qualified in many ways, including being affirmed and denied. Anekāntavāda is a fundamental doctrine of Jainism.
The origins of anekāntavāda can be traced back to the teachings of Mahāvīra (599–527 BCE), the 24th Jain . The dialectical concepts of syādvāda "conditioned viewpoints" and nayavāda "partial viewpoints" arose from anekāntavāda in the medieval era, providing Jainism with more detailed logical structure and expression. The details of the doctrine emerged in Jainism in the 1st millennium CE, from debates between scholars of Jain, Buddhist and vedic schools of philosophies.
Anekantavada has also been interpreted to mean non-absolutism, "intellectual Ahimsa", religious pluralism, as well as a rejection of fanaticism that leads to terror attacks and mass violence. Some scholars state that modern revisionism has attempted to reinterpret anekantavada with religious tolerance, openmindedness and pluralism..The word may be literally translated as “non-one-sidedness doctrine,” or “the doctrine of not-one-side.”
## Etymology
The word anekāntavāda is a compound of two Sanskrit words: anekānta and vāda. The word anekānta itself is composed of three root words, "an" (not), "eka" (one) and "anta" (end, side), together it connotes "not one ended, sided", "many-sidedness", or "manifoldness". The word vāda means "doctrine, way, speak, thesis". The term anekāntavāda is translated by scholars as the doctrine of "many-sidedness", "non-onesidedness", or "many pointedness".
The term anekāntavāda is not found in early texts considered canonical by Svetambara tradition of Jainism. However, traces of the doctrines are found in comments of Mahavira in these Svetambara texts, where he states that the finite and infinite depends on one's perspective. The word anekantavada was coined by Acharya Siddhasen Divakar to denote the teachings of Mahavira that state truth can be expressed in infinite ways. The earliest comprehensive teachings of anekāntavāda doctrine is found in the Tattvarthasutra by Acharya Umaswami, and is considered to be authoritative by all Jain sects. In the Digambara tradition texts, the 'two-truths theory' of Kundakunda also provides the core of this doctrine.
## Philosophical overview
The doctrine of anekāntavāda, also known as anekāntatva, states that truth and reality is complex and always has multiple aspects. Reality can be experienced, but it is not possible to totally express it with language. Human attempts to communicate are naya, or "partial expression of the truth". Language is not truth, but a means and attempt to express it. From truth, according to Māhavira, language returns, and not the other way around. For example, one can experience the truth of a taste, but cannot fully express that taste through language. Any attempts to express the experience are syāt, or valid "in some respect" but it still remains a "perhaps, just one perspective, incomplete". In the same way, spiritual truths are complex, they have multiple aspects, language cannot express their plurality, yet through effort and appropriate karma they can be experienced.
The anekāntavāda premises of the Jains are ancient, as evidenced by mentions of them in Buddhist texts such as the Samaññaphala Sutta. The Jain āgamas suggest that Māhavira's approach to answering all metaphysical philosophical questions was a "qualified yes" (syāt). These texts identify anekāntavāda doctrine to be one of the key differences between the teachings of the Māhavira and those of the Buddha. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, rejecting extremes of the answer "it is" or "it is not" to metaphysical questions. The Māhavira, in contrast, taught his followers to accept both "it is" and "it is not", with "from a viewpoint" qualification and with reconciliation to understand the absolute reality. Syādvāda (predication logic) and Nayavāda (perspective epistemology) of Jainism expand on the concept of anekāntavāda. Syādvāda recommends the expression of anekānta by prefixing the epithet syād to every phrase or expression describing the nature of existence.
The Jain doctrine of anekāntavāda, according to Bimal Matilal, states that "no philosophic or metaphysical proposition can be true if it is asserted without any condition or limitation". For a metaphysical proposition to be true, according to Jainism, it must include one or more conditions (syadvada) or limitations (nayavada, standpoints).
### Syādvāda
Syādvāda (Sanskrit: स्याद्वाद) is the theory of conditioned predication, the first part of which is derived from the Sanskrit word syāt (Sanskrit: स्यात्), which is the third person singular of the optative tense of the Sanskrit verb as (Sanskrit: अस्), 'to be', and which becomes syād when followed by a vowel or a voiced consonant, in accordance with sandhi. The optative tense in Sanskrit (formerly known as the 'potential') has the same meaning as the present tense of the subjunctive mood in most Indo-European languages, including Hindi, Latin, Russian, French, etc. It is used when there is uncertainty in a statement; not 'it is', but 'it may be', 'one might', etc. The subjunctive is very commonly used in Hindi, for example, in 'kya kahun?', 'what to say?'. The subjunctive is also commonly used in conditional constructions; for example, one of the few English locutions in the subjunctive which remains more or less current is 'were it ०, then ०', or, more commonly, 'if it were..', where 'were' is in the past tense of the subjunctive.
Syat can be translated into English as meaning "perchance, may be, perhaps" (it is). The use of the verb 'as' in the optative tense is found in the more ancient Vedic era literature in a similar sense. For example, sutra 1.4.96 of Panini's Astadhyayi explains it as signifying "a chance, maybe, probable".
In Jainism, however, syadvada and anekanta is not a theory of uncertainty, doubt or relative probabilities. Rather, it is "conditional yes or conditional approval" of any proposition, states Matilal and other scholars. This usage has historic precedents in classical Sanskrit literature, and particularly in other ancient Indian religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) with the phrase syad etat, meaning "let it be so, but", or "an answer that is 'neither yes nor no', provisionally accepting an opponent's viewpoint for a certain premise". This would be expressed in archaic English with the subjunctive: 'be it so', a direct translation of syad etat. Traditionally, this debate methodology was used by Indian scholars to acknowledge the opponent's viewpoint, but disarm and bound its applicability to certain context and persuade the opponent of aspects not considered.
According to Charitrapragya, in Jain context syadvada does not mean a doctrine of doubt or skepticism, rather it means "multiplicity or multiple possibilities". Syat in Jainism connotes something different from what the term means in Buddhism and Hinduism. In Jainism, it does not connote an answer that is "neither yes nor no", but it connotes a "many sidedness" to any proposition with a sevenfold predication.
Syādvāda is a theory of qualified predication, states Koller. It states that all knowledge claims must be qualified in many ways, because reality is many-sided. It is done so systematically in later Jain texts through saptibhaṅgīnaya or "the theory of sevenfold scheme". These saptibhaṅgī seem to have been first formulated in Jainism by the 5th or 6th century CE Svetambara scholar Mallavadin, and they are:
1. Affirmation: syād-asti—in some ways, it is,
2. Denial: syān-nāsti—in some ways, it is not,
3. Joint but successive affirmation and denial: syād-asti-nāsti—in some ways, it is, and it is not,
4. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is, and it is indescribable,
5. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is not, and it is indescribable,
6. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is, it is not, and it is indescribable,
7. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: ''''—in some ways, it is indescribable.
Each of these seven predicates state the Jain viewpoint of a multifaceted reality from the perspective of time, space, substance and mode. The phrase syāt declares the standpoint of expression – affirmation with regard to own substance (dravya), place (kṣetra), time (kāla), and being (bhāva), and negation with regard to other substance (dravya), place (kṣetra), time (kāla), and being (bhāva). Thus, for a ‘jar’, in regard to substance (dravya) – earthen, it simply is; wooden, it simply is not. In regard to place (kṣetra) – room, it simply is; terrace, it simply is not. In regard to time (kāla) – summer, it simply is; winter, it simply is not. In regard to being (bhāva) – brown, it simply is; white, it simply is not. And the word ‘simply’ has been inserted for the purpose of excluding a sense not approved by the ‘nuance’; for avoidance of a meaning not intended.
According to Samantabhadra's text Āptamīmāṁsā (Verse 105), "Syādvāda, the doctrine of conditional predications, and kevalajñāna (omniscience), are both illuminators of the substances of reality. The difference between the two is that while kevalajñāna illumines directly, syādvāda illumines indirectly". Syadvada is indispensable and helps establish the truth, according to Samantabhadra.
### Nayavāda
Nayavāda (Sanskrit: नयवाद) is the theory of standpoints or viewpoints. Nayavāda is a compound of two Sanskrit words—naya ("standpoint, viewpoint, interpretation") and vāda ("doctrine, thesis"). Nayas are philosophical perspective about a particular topic, and how to make proper conclusions about that topic.
According to Jainism, there are seven nayas or viewpoints through which one can make complete judgments about absolute reality using syadvada. These seven naya, according to Umaswati, are:
1. Naigama-naya: common sense or a universal view
2. Samgraha-naya: generic or class view that classifies it
3. Vyavahara-naya: pragmatic or a particular view assesses its utility
4. Rijusutra-naya: linear view considers it in present time
5. Sabda-naya: verbal view that names it
6. Samabhirudha-naya: etymological view uses the name and establishes it nature
7. Evambhuta-naya: actuality view considers its concrete particulars
The naya theory emerged after about the 5th century CE, and underwent extensive development in Jainism. There are many variants of nayavada concept in later Jain texts.
A particular viewpoint is called a naya or a partial viewpoint. According to Vijay Jain, Nayavada does not deny the attributes, qualities, modes and other aspects; but qualifies them to be from a particular perspective. A naya reveals only a part of the totality, and should not be mistaken for the whole. A synthesis of different viewpoints is said to be achieved by the doctrine of conditional predications (syādvāda).
### Jiva, the changing soul
Ancient India, particularly the centuries in which the Mahavira and the Buddha lived, was a ground of intense intellectual debates, especially on the nature of reality and self or soul. Jain view of soul differs from those found in ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts, and Jain view about jiva and ajiva (self, matter) utilizes anekantavada.
The Upanishadic thought (Hindu) postulated the impermanence of matter and body, but the existence of an unchanging, eternal metaphysical reality of Brahman and Ātman (soul, self). The Buddhist thought also postulated impermanence, but denied the existence of any unchanging, eternal soul or self and instead posited the concept of anatta (no-self). According to the vedāntin (Upanishadic) conceptual scheme, the Buddhists were wrong in denying permanence and absolutism, and within the Buddhist conceptual scheme, the vedāntins were wrong in denying the reality of impermanence. The two positions were contradictory and mutually exclusive from each other's point of view. The Jains managed a synthesis of the two uncompromising positions with anekāntavāda. From the perspective of a higher, inclusive level made possible by the ontology and epistemology of anekāntavāda and syādvāda, Jains do not see such claims as contradictory or mutually exclusive; instead, they are seen as ekantika or only partially true. The Jain breadth of vision embraces the perspectives of both Vedānta which, according to Jainism, "recognizes substances but not process", and Buddhism, which "recognizes process but not substance". Jainism, on the other hand, pays equal attention to both substance (dravya) and process (paryaya).
This philosophical syncretisation of paradox of change through anekānta has been acknowledged by modern scholars such as Arvind Sharma, who wrote:
> Our experience of the world presents a profound paradox which we can ignore existentially, but not philosophically. This paradox is the paradox of change. Something – A changes and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent, then what changes? In this debate between the "permanence" and "change", Hinduism seems more inclined to grasp the first horn of the dilemma and Buddhism the second. It is Jainism that has the philosophical courage to grasp both horns fearlessly and simultaneously, and the philosophical skill not to be gored by either.
### Inclusivist or exclusivist
Some Indian writers state that Anekantavada is an inclusivist doctrine positing that Jainism accepts "non-Jain teachings as partial versions of truth", a form of sectarian tolerance. Others scholars state this is incorrect and a reconstruction of Jain history because Jainism has consistently seen itself in "exclusivist term as the one true path". Classical Jain scholars saw their premises and models of reality as superior to the competing spiritual traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism, both of which Jainism considered inadequate. For instance, the Jain text Uttaradhyayana Sutra in section 23.63 calls the competing Indian thought to be "heterodox and heretics" and that they "have chosen a wrong path, the right path is that taught by the Jinas". Similarly, the early Jain scholar Haribhadra, who likely lived between the 6th and 8th century, states that those who do not follow the teachings of Jainism cannot be "approved or accommodated".
John Koller states anekāntavāda to be "epistemological respect for view of others" about the nature of existence whether it is "inherently enduring or constantly changing", but "not relativism; it does not mean conceding that all arguments and all views are equal".
In contemporary times, according to Paul Dundas, the Anekantavada doctrine has been interpreted by some Jains as intending to "promote a universal religious tolerance", and a teaching of "plurality" and "benign attitude to other [ethical, religious] positions". This is problematic and a misreading of Jain historical texts and Mahavira's teachings, states Dundas. The "many pointedness, multiple perspective" teachings of the Mahavira is a doctrine about the nature of Absolute Reality and human existence, and it is sometimes called "non-absolutism" doctrine. However, it is not a doctrine about tolerating or condoning activities such as sacrificing or killing animals for food, violence against disbelievers or any other living being as "perhaps right". The Five vows for Jain monks and nuns, for example, are strict requirements and there is no "perhaps, just one perspective". Similarly, since ancient times, Jainism co-existed with Buddhism and Hinduism, according to Dundas, but Jainism was highly critical of the knowledge systems and ideologies of its rivals, and vice versa.
## History and development
The principle of anekāntavāda is one of the foundational Jain philosophical concept. The development of anekāntavāda also encouraged the development of the dialectics of syādvāda (conditioned viewpoints) and nayavāda (partial viewpoints).
According to Karl Potter, the Jain anekāntavāda doctrine emerged in a milieu that included Buddhists and Hindus in ancient and medieval India. The diverse Hindu schools such as Nyaya-Vaisheshika, Samkhya-Yoga and Mimamsa-Vedanta, all accepted the premise of Atman that "unchanging permanent soul, self exists and is self-evident", while various schools of early Buddhism denied it and substituted it with Anatta (no-self, no-soul). But the leading school of Buddhism named Shunyavada falls apart which says that there is no permanent soul or everything is Shunya (Empty) with argument that who is the witness of everything is Shunya (Emptiness). Further, for causation theories, Vedanta schools and Madhyamika Buddhists had similar ideas, while Nyaya-Vaisheshika and non-Madhyamika Buddhists generally agreed on the other side. Jainism, using its anekāntavāda doctrine occupied the center of this theological divide on soul-self (jiva) and causation theories, between the various schools of Buddhist and Hindu thought.
### Origins
The origins of anekāntavāda are traceable in the teachings of Mahāvīra, who used it effectively to show the relativity of truth and reality. Taking a relativistic viewpoint, Mahāvīra is said to have explained the nature of the soul as both permanent, from the point of view of underlying substance, and temporary, from the point of view of its modes and modification.
### Early history
Early Jain texts were not composed in Vedic or classical Sanskrit, but in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit language. According to Matilal, the earliest Jain literature that present a developing form of a substantial anekantavada doctrine is found in Sanskrit texts, and after Jaina scholars had adopted Sanskrit to debate their ideas with Buddhists and Hindus of their era. These texts show a synthetic development, the existence and borrowing of terminology, ideas and concepts from rival schools of Indian thought but with innovation and original thought that disagreed with their peers.
The early Svetambara canons and teachings do not use the terms anekāntavāda and syādvāda, but contain teachings in rudimentary form without giving it proper structure or establishing it as a separate doctrine. Śvētāmbara text, Sutrakritanga contains references to Vibhagyavāda, which, according to Hermann Jacobi, is the same as syādvāda and saptibhaṅgī. For example, Jacobi in his 1895 translation interpreted vibhagyavada as syadvada, the former mentioned in the Svetambara Jain canonical text Sutrakritanga. However, the Digambara Jains dispute this text is canonical or even authentic.
> A monk should be modest, though he be of a fearless mind; he should expound the syādvāda, he should use the two permitted kinds of speech, living among virtuous men, impartial and wise.
According to Upadhyaye, the Bhagvatisūtra (also called Vyākhyāprajñapti) mentions three primary predications of the saptibhaṅgīnaya. This too is a Svetambara text, and considered by Digambara Jains as unauthentic.
The earliest comprehensive teachings of anekāntavāda doctrine is found in the Tattvarthasutra of Umasvati, considered to be authoritative by all Jain sects including Svetambara and Digambara. The century in which Umaswati lived is unclear, but variously placed by contemporary scholars to sometime between 2nd and 5th century.
The Digambara scholar Kundakunda, in his mystical Jain texts, expounded on the doctrine of syādvāda and saptibhaṅgī in Pravacanasāra and Pancastikayasāra. Kundakunda also used nayas to discuss the essence of the self in Samayasāra. Kundakunda is believed in the Digambara tradition to have lived about the 1st-century CE, but has been placed by early modern era scholars to 2nd or 3rd century CE. In contrast, the earliest available secondary literature on Kundakunda appears in about the 10th century, which has led recent scholarship to suggest that he may have lived in or after 8th-century. This radical reassessment in Kundakunda chronology, if accurate, would place his comprehensive theories on anekantavada to the late 1st millennium CE.
### Parable of the blind men and an elephant
The Jain texts explain the anekāntvāda concept using the parable of blind men and an elephant, in a manner similar to those found in both Buddhist and Hindu texts about limits of perception and the importance of complete context. The parable has several Indian variations, but broadly goes as follows:
> A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said, "elephant is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.
This parable is called Andha-gaja-nyaya maxim in Jain texts.
Two of the Jain references to this parable are found in Tattvarthaslokavatika of Vidyanandi (9th century) and it appears twice in the Syādvādamanjari of Ācārya Mallisena (13th century). According to Mallisena, whenever anyone takes a partial, unconditional view of the ultimate reality, and denies the possibility of another aspect of that reality, it is an instance of the above parable and a defective view. Mallisena goes further in his second reference to the above parable and states that all reality has infinite aspects and attributes, all assertions can only be relatively true. This does not mean scepticism or doubt is the right path to knowledge, according to Mallisena and other Jain scholars, but that any philosophical assertion is only conditionally, partially true. Any and all viewpoints, states Mallisena, that do not admit an exception are false views.
While the same parable is found in Buddhist and Hindu texts to emphasize the need to be watchful for partial viewpoints of a complex reality, the Jain text apply it to isolated topic and all subjects. For example, the syadvada principle states that all the following seven predicates must be accepted as true for a cooking pot, according to Matilal:
- from a certain point of view, or in a certain sense, the pot exists
- from a certain point of view, the pot does not exist
- from a certain point of view, the pot exists and does not exist
- from a certain point of view, the pot is inexpressible
- from a certain point of view, the pot both exists and is inexpressible
- from a certain point of view, the pot both does not exist and is inexpressible
- from a certain point of view, the pot exists, does not exist, and is also inexpressible
### Medieval developments
Ācārya Haribhadra (8th century CE) was one of the leading proponents of anekāntavāda. He wrote a doxography, a compendium of a variety of intellectual views. This attempted to contextualise Jain thoughts within the broad framework, rather than espouse narrow partisan views. It interacted with the many possible intellectual orientations available to Indian thinkers around the 8th century.
Ācārya Amrtacandra starts his famous 10th century CE work Purusathasiddhiupaya with strong praise for anekāntavāda: "I bow down to the principle of anekānta, the source and foundation of the highest scriptures, the dispeller of wrong one-sided notions, that which takes into account all aspects of truth, reconciling diverse and even contradictory traits of all objects or entity."
Ācārya Vidyānandi (11th century CE) provides the analogy of the ocean to explain the nature of truth in Tattvarthaslokavārtikka, 116:
, a 17th-century Jain monk, went beyond anekāntavāda by advocating madhāyastha, meaning "standing in the middle" or "equidistance". This position allowed him to praise qualities in others even though the people were non-Jain and belonged to other faiths. There was a period of stagnation after Yasovijayaji, as there were no new contributions to the development of Jain philosophy.
## Influence
The Jain philosophical concept of Anekantavada made important contributions to ancient Indian philosophy, in the areas of skepticism and relativity. The epistemology of anekāntavāda and syādvāda also had a profound impact on the development of ancient Indian logic and philosophy.
While employing anekāntavāda, the 17th century Jain scholar Yasovijaya stated that it is not anābhigrahika (indiscriminate attachment to all views as being true), which is effectively a kind of misconceived relativism. In Jain belief, anekāntavāda transcends the various traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
### Role in Jain history
Anekāntavāda played a role in the history of Jainism in India, during intellectual debates from Śaivas, Vaiṣṇavas, Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians at various times. According to John Koller, professor of Asian studies, anekāntavāda allowed Jain thinkers to maintain the validity of their doctrine, while at the same time respectfully criticizing the views of their opponents. In other cases, it was a tool used by Jaina scholars to confront and dispute Buddhist scholars in ancient India, or in the case of Haribhadra justify the retaliation of the killing of his two nephews by Buddhist monks, with capital punishment for all Buddhist monks in the suspected monastery, according to the Buddhist version of Haribhadra's biography.
There is historical evidence that along with intolerance of non-Jains, Jains in their history have also been tolerant and generous just like Buddhists and Hindus. Their texts have never presented a theory for holy war. Jains and their temples have historically procured and preserved the classic manuscripts of Buddhism and Hinduism, a strong indicator of acceptance and plurality. The combination of historic facts, states Cort, suggest that Jain history is a combination or tolerance and intolerance of non-Jain views, and that it is inappropriate to rewrite the Jainism past as a history of "benevolence and tolerance" towards others.
### Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi mentioned Anekantavada and Syadvada in the journal Young India – 21 Jan 1926. According to Jeffery D. Long – a scholar of Hindu and Jain studies, the Jain Syadvada doctrine helped Gandhi explain how he reconciled his commitment to the "reality of both the personal and impersonal aspects of Brahman", and his view of "Hindu religious pluralism":
> I am an Advaitist and yet I can support Dvaitism (dualism). The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has a something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an Anekāntavadi or a Syādvadi. But my Syādvāda is not the Syādvāda of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. (...) My Anekāntavāda is the result of the twin doctrine of Satyagraha and .
### Against religious intolerance and contemporary terrorism
Referring to the September 11 attacks, John Koller states that the threat to life from religious violence in modern society mainly exists due to faulty epistemology and metaphysics as well as faulty ethics. A failure to respect the life of other human beings and other life forms, states Koller, is "rooted in dogmatic but mistaken knowledge claims that fail to recognize other legitimate perspectives". Koller states that anekāntavāda is a Jain doctrine that each side commit to accepting truths of multiple perspectives, dialogue and negotiations.
According to Sabine Scholz, the application of the Anekantavada as a religious basis for "intellectual Ahimsa" is a modern era reinterpretation, one attributed to the writings of A.B. Dhruva in 1933. This view states that Anekantavada is an expression of "religious tolerance of other opinions and harmony". In the 21st century, some writers have presented it as an intellectual weapon against "intolerance, fundamentalism and terrorism". Other scholars such as John E. Cort and Paul Dundas state that, while Jainism indeed teaches non-violence as the highest ethical value, the reinterpretation of Anekantavada as "religious tolerance of other opinions" is a "misreading of the original doctrine". In Jain history, it was a metaphysical doctrine and a philosophical method to formulate its distinct ascetic practice of liberation. Jain history shows, to the contrary, that it persistently was harshly critical and intolerant of Buddhist and Hindu spiritual theories, beliefs and ideologies. John Cort states that the Anekantavada doctrine in pre-20th century Jain literature had no relation to religious tolerance or "intellectual Ahimsa". Jain intellectual and social history toward non-Jains, according to Cort, has been contrary to the modern revisionist attempts, particularly by diaspora Jains, to present "Jains having exhibited a spirit of understanding and tolerance toward non-Jains", or that Jains were rare or unique in practicing religious tolerance in Indian intellectual history. According to Padmanabha Jaini, states Cort, indiscriminate open mindedness and the approach of "accepting all religious paths as equally correct when in fact they are not" is an erroneous view in Jainism and not supported by the Anekantavada doctrine.
According to Paul Dundas, in and after the 12th century, the persecution and violence against Jains by Muslim state caused Jain scholars to revisit their theory of Ahimsa (non-violence). For example, Jinadatta Suri in 12th century, wrote during a time of widespread destruction of Jain temples and blocking of Jaina pilgrimage by Muslim armies, that "anybody engaged in a religious activity who was forced to fight and kill somebody" in self-defense would not lose any merit. N.L. Jain, quoting Acarya Mahaprajna, states Anekantavada doctrine is not a principle that can be applied to all situations or fields. In his view, the doctrine has its limits and Anekantavada doctrine does not mean intellectual tolerance or acceptance of religious violence, terrorism, taking of hostages, proxy wars such as in Kashmir, and that "to initiate a conflict is as sinful as to tolerate or not oppose it".
The reinterpretation of Anekantavada as a doctrine of religious tolerance is novel, popular but not unusual for contemporary Jains. It is a pattern of reinterpretation and reinvention to rebrand and reposition that is found in many religions, states Scholz.
## Comparison with non-Jain doctrines
According to Bhagchandra Jain, one difference between the Buddhist and Jain views is that "Jainism accepts all statements to possess some relative (anekāntika) truth" while for Buddhism this is not the case.
In Jainism, states Jayatilleke, "no proposition could in theory be asserted to be categorically true or false, irrespective of the standpoint from which it was made, in Buddhism such categorical assertions were considered possible in the case of some propositions." Unlike Jainism, there are propositions that are categorically true in Buddhism, and there are others that are anekamsika (uncertain, indefinite). Examples of categorically true and certain doctrines are the Four Noble Truths, while examples of the latter in Buddhism are the avyakata-theses. Further, unlike Jainism, Buddhism does not have a Nayavāda doctrine.
According to Karl Potter and other scholars, Hinduism developed various theory of relations such as satkaryavada, asatkaryavada, avirodhavada and others. The anekantavada overlaps with two major theories found in Hindu and Buddhist thought, according to James Lochtefeld. The Anekantavada doctrine is satkaryavada in explaining causes, and the asatkaryavada in explaining qualities or attributes in the effects. The different schools of Hindu philosophy further elaborated and refined the theory of pramanas and the theory of relations to establish correct means to structure propositions in their view.
## Criticism
Indologists such as professor John E. Cort state that anekāntavāda is a doctrine that was historically used by Jain scholars not to accept other viewpoints, but to insist on the Jain viewpoint. Jain monks used anekāntavāda and syādvāda as debating weapons to silence their critics and defend the Jain doctrine. According to Paul Dundas, in Jain hands, this method of analysis became "a fearsome weapon of philosophical polemic with which the doctrines of Hinduism and Buddhism could be pared down to their ideological bases of simple permanence and impermanence, respectively, and thus could be shown to be one-pointed and inadequate as the overall interpretations of reality they purported to be". The Jain scholars, however, considered their own theory of Anekantavada self-evident, immune from criticism, needing neither limitations nor conditions.
The doctrines of anekāntavāda and syādavāda are often criticised to denying any certainty, or accepting incoherent contradictory doctrines. Another argument against it, posited by medieval era Buddhists and Hindus applied the principle on itself, that is if nothing is definitely true or false, is anekāntavāda true or false?
According to Karl Potter, the Anekantavada doctrine accepts the norm in Indian philosophies that all knowledge is contextual, that object and subject are interdependent. However, as a theory of relations, it does not solve the deficiencies in other progress philosophies, just "compounds the felony by merely duplicating the already troublesome notion of a dependence relation".
### Hindu philosophies
#### Nyaya
The Nyaya school criticized the Jain doctrine of anekantavada, states Karl Potter, as "wanting to say one thing at one time, the other at another", thereby ignoring the principle of non-contradiction. The Naiyayikas states that it makes no sense to simultaneously say, "jiva and ajiva are not related" and "jiva and ajiva are related". Jains state that jiva attaches itself to karmic particles (ajiva) which means there is a relation between ajiva and jiva. The Jain theory of ascetic salvation teaches cleansing of karmic particles and destroying the bound ajiva to the jiva, yet, Jain scholars also deny that ajiva and jiva are related or at least interdependent, according to the Nyaya scholars. The Jain theory of anekantavada makes its theory of karma, asceticism and salvation incoherent, according to Nyaya texts.
#### Vaisheshika
The Vaisheshika and Shaivism school scholar Vyomashiva criticized the Anekantavada doctrine because, according to him, it makes all moral life and spiritual pursuits for moksha meaningless. Any spiritually liberated person must be considered under Anekantavada doctrine to be [a] both liberated and not liberated from one point of view, and [b] simply not liberated from another point of view, since all assertions are to be qualified and conditional under it. In other words, states Vyomashiva, this doctrine leads to a paradox and circularity.
#### Vedanta
Anekāntavāda was analyzed and critiqued by Adi Śankarācārya (\~800 CE) in his bhasya on Brahmasutra (2:2:33–36): He stated that anekantavada doctrine when applied to philosophy suffers from two problems: virodha (contradictions) and samsaya (dubiety), neither of which it is able to reconcile with objectivity.
> It is impossible that contradictory attributes such as being and non-being should at the same time belong to one and the same thing; just as observation teaches us that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the same moment. The third alternative expressed in the words — they either are such or not such — results in cognition of indefinite nature, which is no more a source of true knowledge than doubt is. Thus the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the knowing subject, and the act of knowledge become all alike indefinite. How can his followers act on a doctrine, the matter of which is altogether indeterminate? The result of your efforts is perfect knowledge and is not perfect knowledge. Observation shows that, only when a course of action is known to have a definite result, people set about it without hesitation. Hence a man who proclaims a doctrine of altogether indefinite contents does not deserve to be listened any more than a drunken or a mad man.
Shankara's criticism of anekantavada extended beyond the arguments of it being incoherent epistemology in ontological matters. According to Shankara, the goal of philosophy is to identify one's doubts and remove them through reason and understanding, not get more confused. The problem with anekantavada doctrine is that it compounds and glorifies confusion. Further, states Shankara, Jains use this doctrine to be "certain that everything is uncertain".
Contemporary scholars, states Piotr Balcerowicz, concur that the Jain doctrine of Anekantavada does reject some versions of the "law of non-contradiction", but it is incorrect to state that it rejects this law in all instances.
### Buddhist philosophy
The Buddhist scholar Śāntarakṣita, and his student Kamalasila, criticized anekantavada by presenting his arguments that it leads to the Buddhist premise "jivas (souls) do not exist". That is, the two of the most important doctrines of Jainism are mutually contradictory premises. According to Santaraksita, Jains state that "jiva is one considered collectively, and many considered distributively", but if so debates Santaraksita, "jiva cannot change". He then proceeds to show that changing jiva necessarily means jiva appear and disappear every moment, which is equivalent to "jiva don't exist". According to Karl Potter, the argument posited by Śāntarakṣita is flawed, because it commits what is called in the Western logic as the "fallacy of division".
The Buddhist logician Dharmakirti critiqued anekāntavāda as follows:
> With the differentiation removed, all things have dual nature. Then, if somebody is implored to eat curd, then why he does not eat camel?" The insinuation is obvious; if curd exists from the nature of curd and does not exist from the nature of a camel, then one is justified in eating camel, as by eating camel, he is merely eating the negation of curd.
### Self-criticism in Jain scholarship
The medieval era Jain logicians Akalanka and Vidyananda, who were likely contemporaries of Adi Shankara, acknowledged many issues with anekantavada in their texts. For example, Akalanka in his Pramanasamgraha acknowledges seven problems when anekantavada is applied to develop a comprehensive and consistent philosophy: dubiety, contradiction, lack of conformity of bases (vaiyadhi karanya), joint fault, infinite regress, intermixture and absence. Vidyananda acknowledged six of those in the Akalanka list, adding the problem of vyatikara (cross breeding in ideas) and apratipatti (incomprehensibility). Prabhācandra, who probably lived in the 11th century, and several other later Jain scholars accepted many of these identified issues in anekantavada'' application.
## See also
|
13,901,083 |
Beaune Altarpiece
| 1,171,952,224 |
15th-century Netherlandish painting
|
[
"1445 paintings",
"1446 paintings",
"1447 paintings",
"1448 paintings",
"1449 paintings",
"1450 paintings",
"Angels in art",
"Judgment in Christianity",
"Paintings based on the Book of Revelation",
"Paintings by Rogier van der Weyden",
"Paintings depicting Jesus",
"Paintings depicting John the Baptist",
"Paintings depicting Michael (archangel)",
"Paintings of apostles",
"Paintings of the Virgin Mary",
"Polyptychs",
"The Last Judgement in art"
] |
The Beaune Altarpiece (or The Last Judgement) is a large polyptych c. 1445–1450 altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, painted in oil on oak panels with parts later transferred to canvas. It consists of fifteen paintings on nine panels, of which six are painted on both sides. Unusually for the period, it retains some of its original frames.
Six of the outer panels (or shutters) have hinges for folding; when closed the exterior view of saints and donors is visible. The inner panels contain scenes from the Last Judgement arranged across two registers. The large central panel spans both registers and shows Christ seated on a rainbow in judgement, while below him, the Archangel Michael holds scales to weigh souls. The lower register panels form a continuous landscape, with the panel on the far proper right showing the gates of Heaven, while the entrance to Hell is on the far proper left. Between these, the dead rise from their graves, and are depicted moving from the central panel to their final destinations after receiving judgement.
The altarpiece was commissioned in 1443 for the Hospices de Beaune in eastern France, by Nicolas Rolin, Chancellor of the Duchy of Burgundy, and his wife Guigone de Salins, who is buried in front of the altarpiece's original location. It is in poor condition; it was moved in the 20th century both to shield it against sunlight and protect it from the almost 300,000 visitors the hospice receives annually. It has suffered from extensive paint loss, the wearing and darkening of its colours, and an accumulation of dirt. In addition, a heavy layer of over-paint was applied during restoration. The two painted sides of the outer panels have been separated to be displayed; traditionally, the shutters would have been opened only on selected Sundays or church holidays.
## Commission and hospice
Nicolas Rolin was appointed Chancellor of Burgundy by Philip the Good in 1422, a position he held for the next 33 years. His tenure with the duke made him a wealthy man, and he donated a large portion of his fortune for the foundation of the Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune. It is not known why he decided to build in Beaune rather than in his birthplace of Autun. He may have chosen Beaune because it lacked a hospital and an outbreak of the plague had decimated the population between 1438 and 1440. Furthermore, in 1435, when the Treaty of Arras failed to bring a cessation to the longstanding hostility and animosity between Burgundy and France, Beaune suffered first the ravages of marauding bands of écorcheurs, who roamed the countryside scavenging in the late 1430s and early 1440s, then an ensuing famine. The hospice was built after Rolin gained permission from Pope Eugene IV in 1441, and was consecrated on 31 December 1452. At the same time, Rolin established the religious order of the sœurs hospitalières [fr]. He dedicated the hospice to Anthony the Great, who was commonly associated with sickness and healing during the Middle Ages.
Rolin declared in the hospice's founding charter, signed in August 1443, that "in the interest of my salvation ... in gratitude for the goods which the Lord, source of all wealth, has heaped upon me, from now on and for always, I found a hospital." In the late 1450s, only a few years before he died, he added a provision to the hospital charter stipulating that the Mass for the Dead be offered twice daily. Rolin's wife, Guigone de Salins, played a primary role in the foundation, as probably did his nephew Jan Rolin. De Salins lived and served at the hospice until her own death in 1470.
Documents relating to the altarpiece's commission survive, with the artist, patron, date of completion and place of installation all known – unusual for a Netherlandish altarpiece. It was intended as the centrepiece for the chapel, and Rolin approached Rogier van der Weyden around 1443, when the hospital was founded. The altarpiece was ready by 1451, the year the chapel was consecrated. Painted in van der Weyden's Brussels workshop – most likely with the aid of apprentices – the panels were transported to the hospice once completed. The altarpiece is first mentioned in a 1501 inventory, at which time it was positioned on the high altar.
The polyptych was intended to provide both comfort and warning to the dying; acting as a reminder of their faith and directing their last thoughts towards the divine. This is evident in its positioning within view of the patients' beds. Medical care was expensive and primitive in the 15th century; the spiritual care of patients was as important as the treatment of physical ailments. For those too ill to walk, Rolin specified that 30 beds be placed within sight of the altarpiece which was visible through a pierced screen. There were usually only two patients per bed, a luxury at a time when six to fifteen in a large bed was more common.
St Sebastian and St Anthony represent healing. Both were associated with bubonic plague and their inclusion is intended to reassure the dying that they will act as intercessors with the divine. St Michael developed a cult following in 15th-century France, and he was seen as a guardian of the dead, a crucial role given the prevalence of plague in the region. There was another severe outbreak in 1441–1442, just before Rolin founded the hospital. According to the art historian Barbara Lane, patients were unlikely to survive their stay at Beaune, yet the representation of St Michael offered consolation as they could "gaze on his figure immediately above the altar of the chapel every time the altarpiece was opened. Like Saints Anthony and Sebastian on the exterior of the polyptych, the archangel offered ... hope that they would overcome their physical ills."
## Description
The altarpiece measures 220 cm × 548 cm (87 in × 216 in), and comprises fifteen separate paintings across nine panels, six of which are painted on both sides. When the shutters are opened, the viewer is exposed to the expansive "Last Judgement" interior panels. These document the possible spiritual fates of the viewers: that they might reach Heaven or Hell, salvation or damnation; stark alternatives appropriate for a hospice. When the outer wings (or shutters) are folded, the exterior paintings (across two upper and four lower panels) are visible. The exterior panels serve as a funerary monument for the donors. Art historian Lynn Jacobs believes that the "dual function of the work accounts for the choice of the theme of the Last Judgement on its interior".
When the shutters are closed the polyptych resembles the upper portion of a cross. The elevated central panel allowed additional space for a narrative scene depicting a heavenly vista, a single large figure, or a crucifixion with space for the cross to extend above the other panels. Van der Weyden conveys the heavenly sphere in the tall vertical panel, whereas the earthly is relegated to the lower-register panels and the exterior view. Moreover, the T-shape echoes typical configurations of Gothic churches, where the naves often extended past the aisles into the apse or choir. The imagery of the outer panels is set in the earthly realm with the donors and the saints painted in grisaille to imitate sculpture. Hence, the work clearly distinguishes between figures of the divine, earthly and hellish realms.
### Inner panels
As with van der Weyden's Braque Triptych, the background landscape and arrangements of figures extend across individual panels of the lower register to the extent that the separations between panels are ignored. There are instances of figures painted across two adjoining panels, whereas Christ and St Michael are enclosed within the single central panel, giving emphasis to the iconography. The celestial sphere, towards which the saved move, is dramatically presented with a "radiant gold background, spanning almost the entire width of the altarpiece".
The lower register presents Earth and contains the gates to Heaven and Hell. The imposing figure of Christ indicates the "reign of heaven is about to begin." The distinction between the earthly and heavenly realms creates a sense of order, and Christ "exudes calm and control", and a sense of balance and movement throughout the panels.
The presentation of the resurrected dead across the five lower panels is reminiscent of a Gothic tympanum, specifically that at Autun Cathedral. Rolin would have been familiar with the Autun Cathedral entrances, which may have influenced his commissioning of a Last Judgement for the hospice. Additionally, Rolin was aware of the liturgy associated with the Mass for the Dead, and would have known Last Judgement scenes associated with the Mass from 15th-century illuminated manuscripts, such as the full-page Last Judgement in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, which shows Christ in a similar position, seated above the dead as they rise from their graves.
#### Upper register
Christ sits in judgement in the upper centre panel. He holds a lily in his right hand and a sword in his left, and sits on a rainbow extending across two panels, his feet resting on a sphere. His right hand is raised in the act of benediction, and his left hand is lowered. These positions indicate the act of judgement; he is deciding if souls are to be sent to Heaven or Hell, his gestures echoing the direction and positioning of the scales held by the Archangel Michael beneath him. His palms are open, revealing the wounds sustained when they were nailed to the cross, while his cope gapes in places making visible the injury caused by the lance, from which pours deep-red blood.
Christ's face is identical to the representation in the Braque Triptych, completed just a few years later in 1452. Christ, placed so high in the pictorial space and spanning both registers, orchestrates the entirety of the inner panels. Whereas earlier Last Judgements might have seemed chaotic, here he brings a sense of order.
The Archangel Michael, as the embodiment and conduit of divine justice, is positioned directly below Christ, the only figure to reach both Heaven and Earth. He wears a dispassionate expression as he holds a set of scales to weigh souls. Unusually for Christian art, the damned outweigh the blessed; Michael's scales have only one soul in each pan, yet the left pan tips below the right. Michael is given unusual prominence in a "Last Judgement" for the period, and his powerful presence emphasises the work's function in a hospice and its preoccupation with the liturgy of death. His feet are positioned as if he is stepping forward, about to move out of the canvas, and he looks directly at the observer, giving the illusion of judging not only the souls in the painting but also the viewer.
Michael, like Sebastian and Anthony, was a plague saint and his image would have been visible to patients through the openings of the pierced screen as they lay in their beds. He is portrayed with iconographic elements associated with the Last Judgement, and, dressed in a red cope with woven golden fabrics over a shining white alb, is by far the most colourful figure in the lower panels, "hypnotically attracting the viewer's glance" according to Lane. He is surrounded by four cherubs playing trumpets to call the dead to their final destination. Michael's role in the Last Judgement is emphasised through van der Weyden's use of colour: Michael's gleaming white alb contrasts with the cherubs' red vestments, set against a blue sky directly below heaven's golden clouds.
Both of the upper register wings contain a pair of angels holding instruments of the Passion. These include a lance, a crown of thorns and a stick with a sponge soaked in vinegar. The angels are dressed in white liturgical vestments, including an alb and an amice.
Beneath Michael, souls scurry left and right. The saved walk towards the gates of Heaven where they are greeted by a saint; the damned arrive at the mouth of Hell and fall en masse into damnation. The souls balanced in the scales are naked. The blessed look towards Christ, the banished look downwards. Both groups are tilted in the direction of Christ's hands. Reinforcing this, inscriptions around the groupings read VIRTUTES (Virtues) and PECCATA (sins).
#### Lower register
The Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, the twelve Apostles and an assortment of dignitaries are positioned in a Deësis, at either side of Michael. The apostles are seated in a semicircle; St Peter is dressed in red on the far left, and St Paul, dressed in green, is on the far right. The seven haloed dignitaries, dressed in contemporary clothing, are unidentified but include a king, a pope, a bishop, a monk, and three women. Rather than general representative types, they are portraits of specific unidentified individuals, according to Shirley Blum.
The dead rise from their graves around Michael's feet; some emerge to walk towards Heaven, others towards Hell. They are on a dramatically reduced scale compared to the saints. Lorne Campbell notes that the panels indicate a deeply pessimistic view of humanity, with the damned far outnumbering the saved, especially compared to Stefan Lochner's Cologne panel, where the saved crowd around the gate to Heaven.
The souls undergo a gradual transformation as they move from panel to panel. Those rising from their graves at Michael's feet show little expression, but become more animated as they move to either side; horror and desperation become especially visible on the faces of the damned as they move towards Hell.
On the left, the saved have, according to Jacobs, "the same beatific expressions", but their postures gradually change from facing Christ and Michael to looking towards Heaven's gate, most notably with the couple below Mary where the man turns the woman's gaze away from Michael, and towards Heaven. This contrasts with another couple on the opposite panel who face Hell; the woman is hunched over as the man raises his hand in vain to beseech God for mercy.
Heaven is represented by an entrance to the Heavenly City, which is in a contemporary Gothic style illuminated by long, thin rays of light. The saved approach clasping their hands in prayer and are greeted at the entrance by an angel. Only a few souls pass through the heavenly gates at a time. The imagery of a church as an earthly representation of Heaven was popularised in the 13th century by theologians such as Durandus; the gate to Heaven in this work resembles the entrance to the Beaune hospice. The way to Heaven is shown clearly as a gilded church – the saved ascend a set of steps, turn right, and disappear from sight. It is fully enclosed in a single panel, whereas Hell extends onto the adjoining panel, perhaps hinting that sin contaminates all around it.
Van der Weyden depicts Hell as a gloomy, crowded place of both close and distant fires, and steep rock faces. The damned tumble helplessly into it, screaming and crying. The sinners enter Hell with heads mostly bowed, dragging each other along as they go. Traditionally, a Last Judgement painting would depict the damned tormented by malevolent spirits; yet here the souls are left alone, the only evidence of their torment in their expressions.
The hellscape is painted so as to instil terror, but without devils. Erwin Panofsky was the first to mention this absence, and proposed that van der Weyden had opted to convey torment in an inward manner, rather than through elaborate descriptions of devils and fiends. He wrote, "The fate of each human being ... inevitably follows from his own past, and the absence of any outside instigator of evil makes us realize that the chief torture of the Damned is not so much physical pain as a perpetual and intolerably sharpened consciousness of their state". According to Bernhard Ridderbos, van der Weyden accentuated the theme by "restricting the number of the dead and treating them almost as individuals. As the damned approach the abyss of hell they become more and more compressed."
### Exterior panels
The six exterior panels consists of two donor wings, two containing saints, and two panels with Gabriel presenting himself to Mary. The donors are on the outer wings, kneeling in front of their prayer books. Four imitation statues in grisaille make up the inner panels. The lower two depict St Sebastian and St Anthony. Sebastian was the saint of plagues and an intercessory against epidemics, Anthony the patron saint of skin diseases and ergotism, then known as St Anthony's Fire. The two saints had close associations with the Burgundian court: Philip the Good was born on St Anthony's day, he had an illegitimate son named Anthony, and two of Rolin's sons were named Anthony. St Sebastian was the patron saint of Philip the Good's chivalric Order of the Golden Fleece.
The two small upper register panels show a conventional Annunciation scene, with the usual dove representing the Holy Spirit. The two sets of panels, unlike those on the interior, are compositionally very different. The figures occupy distinctly separate niches and the colour schemes of the grisaille saints and the donors contrast sharply.
Like many mid-15th century polyptychs, the exterior panels borrow heavily from the Ghent Altarpiece, completed in 1432. The use of grisaille is borrowed from that work, as is the treatment of the Annunciation. Van der Weyden uses iconography in the Beaune exterior that is not found in his other works, suggesting that Rolin may have asked that the altarpiece follow van Eyck's example. Van der Weyden was not inclined merely to imitate though, and arranged the panels and figures in a concentrated and compact format. Jacobs writes that "the exterior presents the most consistent pictorial rendering of trompe l'oeil sculpture to date". Gabriel's scroll and Mary's lily appear to be made of stone; the figures cast shadows against the back of their niches, creating a sense of depth which adds to the illusion.
The exterior panels are drab, according to Blum, who writes that on Rolin's panel the most colourful figure is the red angel, which, with its gold helmet and keys, "emerges like an apparition". Rolin and de Salins can be identified by the coats-of-arms held by the angels; husband and wife kneel at cloth-covered prie-dieux (portable altars) displaying their emblems. Although De Salins was reputedly pious and charitable, and even perhaps the impetus for the building of the hospice, she is placed on the exterior right, traditionally thought of as an inferior position corresponding to Hell, linking her to Eve, original sin and the Fall of man.
Van Eyck had earlier portrayed Rolin in the c. 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, and the patron is recognizable from that work; both portraits show similar lips, a large chin and somewhat pointed ears. In van Eyck's portrait, Rolin is presented as perhaps pompous and arrogant; here – ten years later – he appears more thoughtful and concerned with humility. Campbell notes wryly that van der Weyden may have been able to disguise the sitter's ugliness and age, and that the unusual shape of his mouth may have been downplayed. He writes that while "van Eyck impassively recorded, van der Weyden imposed a stylised and highly personal vision of the subject". Van Eyck's depiction was most likely the more accurate; van der Weyden embellished, mainly by lengthening the nose, enlarging the eyes and raising the eyebrows.
## Inscriptions
The panels contain quotations in Latin from several biblical texts. They appear either as lettering seemingly sewn into the edges of the figures' clothes (mostly hidden in the folds), or directly on the surface of the central inner panel. The latter occur in four instances; two pairs of text float on either side of Christ, two around Michael. Beneath the lily, in white paint are the words of Christ: VENITE BENEDICTI PATRIS MEI POSSIDETE PARATUM VOBIS REGNUM A CONSTITUTIONE MUNDI ("Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world"). The text beneath the sword reads: DISCEDITE A ME MALEDICTI IN IGNEM ÆTERNUM QUI PARATUS EST DIABOLO ET ANGELIS EJUS ("Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels").
The inscriptions follow the 14th-century convention of showing figures, imagery and motifs associated with the saved to Christ's right, and those of the damned to his left. The words beneath the lily (the benedicti) read upwards towards Heaven, their curves leaning in towards Christ. The text to the left (the maledicti) flows in the opposite direction; from the highest point downwards. The inscriptions to Christ's right are decorated in light colours, to the extent that they are usually difficult to discern in reproduction. The lettering opposite faces downwards, and is applied with black paint.
## Condition
A number of the panels are in poor condition, owing variously to darkening of the colours, accumulated dirt and poor decisions during early restorations. The altarpiece stayed in the chapel from the time of its installation until the French Revolution, from which it was hidden in an attic for decades. When it was brought out, the nude souls – thought to be offensive – were painted over with clothing and flames; it was moved to a different room, hung three metres (10 ft) from the ground, and portions were whitewashed. In 1836, the Commission of Antiquities retrieved it and began plans to have it restored. Four decades later it underwent major restoration – between 1875 and 1878 – when many of these additions were removed, but not without significant damage to the original paintwork, such as the loss of pigment to the wall-hangings in the donor panels, which were originally red and gold. In general, the central inside panels are better preserved than the interior and exterior wings. De Salins' panel is damaged; its colours have darkened with age; originally the niche was a light blue (today it is light green) and the shield held by the angel was painted in blue.
The panels were laterally divided so both sides could be displayed simultaneously, and a number have been transferred to canvas.
## Sources and influences
Since before 1000, complex depictions of the Last Judgement had been developing as a subject in art, and from the 11th century became common as wall-painting in churches, typically placed over the main door in the west wall, where it would be seen by worshippers as they left the building. Iconographical elements were gradually built up, with St Michael weighing the souls first seen in 12th-century Italy. Since this scene has no biblical basis, it is often thought to draw from pre-Christian parallels such as depictions of Anubis performing a similar role in Ancient Egyptian art. In medieval English, a wall-painting of the Last Judgement was called a doom.
Van der Weyden may have drawn influence from Stefan Lochner's c. 1435 Last Judgement, and a similar c. 1420 painting now in the Hotel de Ville, Diest, Belgium. Points of reference include Christ raised over a Great Deësis of saints, apostles and clergy above depictions of the entrance to Heaven, and the gates of Hell. In both of the earlier works, Christ perches on a rainbow; in the Deësis panel he is also above a globe. While the two earlier works are filled with dread and chaos, van der Weyden's panels display the sorrowful, self-controlled dignity typical of his best work. This is most evident in the manner in which the oversized and dispassionate Christ orchestrates the scene from Heaven.
The work's moralising tone is apparent from some of its more overtly dark iconography, its choice of saints, and how the scales tilt far lower beneath the weight of the damned than the saved. The damned to Christ's left are more numerous and less detailed than the saved to his right. In these ways it can be compared to Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece, which served much the same purpose, having been commissioned for the Monastery of St Anthony in Isenheim, which cared for the dying.
The similarities between the altarpiece and the c. late-1460s Last Judgement by van der Weyden's apprentice Hans Memling has led art historians to suggest a common tie with Florentine banker Angelo Tani who gave commissions to van der Weyden before his death in 1464. Because Memling's apprenticeship post-dated the completion and installation of the altarpiece, art historians speculate that Tani or Memling would have seen it in situ, or that Memling came into possession of a workshop copy.
In Memling's work the Deësis and Christ's placement, above St Michael with his scales, are almost identical to the Beaune Altarpiece. Despite the marked similarities, the crowded scenes in Memling's Last Judgement contrast sharply with "the hushed serenity of Rogier's composition", according to Lane, and in a mirror image of van der Weyden's altarpiece, Memling shows the saved outweighing the damned in St Michael's scales.
|
24,572,212 |
Hurricane Rick (2009)
| 1,170,016,573 |
Category 5 Pacific hurricane in 2009
|
[
"2009 Pacific hurricane season",
"Category 5 Pacific hurricanes",
"October 2009 events in North America",
"October 2009 events in Oceania",
"Pacific hurricanes in Mexico",
"Tropical cyclones in 2009"
] |
Hurricane Rick was the third-most intense Pacific hurricane on record and the second-most intense tropical cyclone worldwide in 2009, only behind Typhoon Nida. Developing off the southern coast of Mexico on October 15, Rick traversed an area with favorable environmental conditions, favoring rapid intensification, allowing it to become a hurricane within 24 hours of being declared a tropical depression. An eye began to form during the afternoon of October 16; once fully formed, the storm underwent another period of rapid strengthening. During the afternoon of October 17, the storm attained Category 5 status on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. Several hours later, Rick attained its peak intensity as the third-strongest Pacific hurricane on record with winds of 180 mph (290 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 906 mbar (hPa; 26.75 inHg).
After maintaining this intensity for several hours, Rick began to weaken in response to a combination of an eyewall replacement cycle and increasing wind shear. By October 19, the storm was downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane and the following day to a tropical storm. The long-anticipated northeast turn took place near the end of this phase, also accompanied by a brief decrease in forward motion. On October 21, Rick quickly moved northeast, brushing the tip of Baja California Sur before making landfall near Mazatlán with winds of 60 mph (97 km/h; 52 kn). Several hours after moving inland, the final advisory from the NHC was issued as the storm weakened to a tropical depression and dissipated.
Prior to landfall, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) initially forecast Rick to make landfall in southern Baja California as a high-end Category 2 hurricane, prompting hurricane watches. Officials ordered several hundred residents to evacuate from low-lying areas, although tropical storm warnings replaced the hurricane watches after the storm had weakened. Overall, the damage from Rick was significantly less than initially anticipated. In Mexico, three people were killed by the storm, one in Oaxaca and two in Baja California Sur.
## Meteorological history
Hurricane Rick originated from a strong tropical wave that moved off the west coast of Africa on October 3, 2009. Convective activity was initially sparse as the system tracked westward across the Atlantic Ocean. By October 8, an area of low pressure developed within the disturbance wave and convection increased. The low eventually moved over South America and dissipated on October 11. The wave, however, remained well-defined and continued westward, entering the Pacific Ocean on October 12. By the morning of October 15, the wave began to regain convection and eventually spawned a new area of low pressure roughly 475 mi (764 km; 413 nmi) south-southwest of Puerto Ángel, Mexico. By the afternoon, the NHC reported that the system had become increasingly organized and was likely to develop into a tropical depression later that day. Around 11:00 am PDT (1800 UTC), the NHC declared that the low had developed into a tropical depression, the 20th of the 2009 Pacific hurricane season. The storm featured well-developed outflow in all directions. Environmental conditions consisting of low wind shear, high moisture content and above average sea surface temperatures in the path of the system were exceptionally favorable for rapid development. Additionally, the storm was being steered through this region by a low- to mid-level ridge over Mexico.
Six hours after being declared a depression, the system quickly intensified into a tropical storm, at which time it was given the name Rick. Deep convection, an early indication of an eye forming, had begun wrapping around the center of the system. Early on October 16, a ragged eyewall began to develop and several hours later, Rick intensified into a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h). The rapid intensification was fueled by waters of 30 °C (86 °F), several degrees above average. By the evening of October 16, microwave satellite imagery depicted a well-defined eye; however, this feature was not present on infrared images. Despite this, the NHC upgraded Rick to a Category 2 hurricane with winds now reaching 100 mph (160 km/h). Early the next morning, the storm intensified into a major hurricane, a storm that ranks as a Category 3 or higher on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale. The eye was clearly visible on satellite images and deep, very cold convection surrounded it, signifying a powerful cyclone. Less than 40 minutes after this upgrade, the NHC issued a special advisory stating that Rick had further strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane.
Continuing to gain strength, Rick attained winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) several hours later on October 17. A possible outer eyewall, a second eye larger than the first that often forms at the beginning of an eyewall replacement cycle, was noted at this time. The eye of the storm became very well-defined and nearly cloud free, measuring roughly 11.5 mi (18.5 km; 10.0 nmi) in diameter. In addition to the rapid intensification, Rick was also growing in size. By the afternoon hours, tropical storm-force winds extended up to 155 mi (249 km; 135 nmi) from the center of the storm, with a maximum gale diameter of 300 mi (483 km; 261 nmi). At 3:10 pm PDT (2210 UTC), the NHC issued its second special advisory for Rick, this time stating that the storm had become a Category 5 hurricane, the first in the basin since Hurricane Kenna in 2002. Around 8:00 pm PDT (0300 UTC on October 18), Rick attained its peak intensity as the third-strongest Pacific hurricane on record. Maximum sustained winds in the eyewall reached an estimated 180 mph (290 km/h) and the barometric pressure is estimated to have bottomed out at 906 mbar (906.00 hPa; 26.75 inHg). The pressure was not directly measured by Hurricane Hunter aircraft because the storm was too far from land at the time. Lixion Avila, a senior hurricane specialist at the NHC, described Rick's satellite presentation at this time as "spectacular."
Rick maintained its peak intensity for roughly two hours between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm PDT (0200 and 0400 UTC) on October 17, before it began to weaken in response to an eyewall replacement cycle and increasing wind shear. Throughout the day, deep convection around the eye warmed slightly and a combination of dry air and wind shear restrained the extent of the storms' outflow to the west. The combination of these factors imparted steady weakening. Later that day, Rick began to turn towards the northwest as the subtropical ridge north of the system began to weaken. Early on October 19, Rick degraded to a Category 3 hurricane as it began its approach to the southern end of the Baja California peninsula. Wind shear and dry air quickly entered the core of the system, with the eye disappearing from satellite imagery later that morning.
During the evening of October 19, the center of Rick became devoid of convective activity, resulting in the NHC downgrading it to a tropical storm. According to meteorologists at the NHC, the weakening was "...almost as fast as it strengthened several days ago." The first Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance mission into the storm took place during the afternoon of October 20. During the mission, sustained winds of 65 mph (105 km/h; 56 kn) and a surface pressure of 990 mbar (990.00 hPa; 29.23 inHg) were recorded. Several hours after this, convection rapidly increased, with a large area of deep convection developing northeast of the center of circulation; however, this was not associated with intensification. Around 7:00 am PDT (1400 UTC) on October 21. Tropical Storm Rick made landfall near Mazatlán with winds of 60 mph (95 km/h). Following landfall, the storm rapidly weakened to a tropical depression and roughly seven hours after moving inland, the surface circulation of Rick dissipated over the high terrain of Mexico.
## Preparations
Officials in Oaxaca shut down beaches and warned people not to venture out into the water. Residents were advised of potentially heavy rainfall. Along coastal areas of Mexico, specifically around Acapulco, officials closed ports to small crafts due to rough seas. Residents around the city were also warned about the possibility of mudslides from heavy rain associated with the cyclone's outer bands. Upon Rick's intensification to a Category 4 hurricane, officials in Mexico raised the alert level in Guerrero, Jalisco and Michoacán to severe. In Sonora, the local government placed 14 municipalities under a blue alert, the pre-storm phase; the alert was upgraded to a yellow alert for the municipalities of Álamos, Benito Juárez, Navojoa, Etchojoa and Huatabampo on October 18.
Early on October 19, the Government of Mexico issued a hurricane watch for areas of Baja California Sur between Santa Fe and San Evaristo. Following the issuance of the watch, authorities in the region began planning to open shelters and begin evacuating residents from low-lying areas. Later that day, the watch was replaced by a tropical storm warning as Rick weakened to a tropical storm. By October 20, a new tropical storm watch was issued for mainland Mexico for areas between El Roblito and Altata. Shortly after, officials had opened nine shelters in the region; however, schools remained open until further notice. Later in the day, the tropical storm warning for Baja California was discontinued while the watch for mainland Mexico was upgraded to a warning. This warning was later discontinued on October 21 as Rick dissipated over the mountains of Mexico. Several cruises were affected by the storm throughout southern Baja California. The Carnival Splendor made a sudden docking as the storm formed and delayed its arrival in Cabo San Lucas by several days. The Carnival Spirit, scheduled to dock in Acapulco on October 21, delayed its arrival until October 22. The Sapphire Princess rescheduled its course, remaining near San Francisco, California, for several additional days instead of traveling south. The Norwegian Star skipped its planned docking in Cabo San Lucas and remained at sea until the passage of Rick. Other cruises affected by the storm include Radiance of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, MS Veendam and MS Statendam.
## Impact and aftermath
### Mexico
Schools throughout southern Sinaloa were closed for two days beginning on October 21 due to the arrival of Tropical Storm Rick. Residents in low-lying areas were urged to evacuate due to both storm surge and fresh water flooding from the anticipated 3 to 6 in (76 to 152 mm) of rain. Although several hundred miles from land, wind gusts up to 40 mph (65 km/h) were felt along coastal areas in Mazatlán. Near the coast of Oaxaca, large seas capsized a boat carrying three people. Two of the passengers were rescued; however, the third was found dead. Large swells killed one person along the southern end of Baja California Sur on October 19. Another fatality took place in the same region after a boy was swept away from an eroded beach. Roughly 320 people near Cabo San Lucas were evacuated due to the threat of flooding. Reports near the city also indicated that there was structural damage and significant traffic issues from rain-induced mudslides.
In Mazatlán, near where Rick made landfall, high winds downed trees and signs, leaving numerous residents without power. Heavy rain was also reported during the passage of the storm. Throughout Mexico, damage from Rick amounted to 192 million pesos (\$14.6 million USD). On December 29, the Government of Mexico allocated 381 million pesos (US\$29.6 million) to assist in recovery from both Hurricanes Jimena and Rick.
### United States
Although no longer a tropical cyclone, remnant moisture from Rick enhanced a strong cold front over the Great Plains of the United States. Severe thunderstorms occurred over parts of the southern states, with at least three tornadoes touching down in Louisiana. Further north, the complex brought heavy rainfall to the northeast and parts of southern Canada. In Louisiana, the storm system spawned seven tornadoes, two of which were ranked as EF-1. One of these tornadoes damaged more than 10 structures, destroyed a grain silo, flipped a tractor trailer and left numerous residents without power. In all, the tornadoes left nearly \$1 million in losses and injured one person.
In Texas, the remnants of Rick produced torrential rainfall, peaking at 9.34 in (237 mm) within a concentrated area. Meteorologists did not anticipate the severity of the precipitation in this area. One person was killed after being swept away in her Jeep on a flooded roadway. Several homes were also flooded during the event and an estimated 300 homes were left without power. Following the floods, numerous roads were closed and some schools had delayed openings. Throughout the state, flood damage amounted to \$690,000, with most of this being in Travis County. Heavy rainfall in Louisiana contributed to widespread flooding that resulted in the closure of several major highways. In Union Parish, rainfall exceeding 6 in (150 mm) led to flash flooding that inundated several homes and a local school, inflicting over \$100,000 in damage.
## Records and intensity forecasts
On October 17, Hurricane Rick was classified a Category 5 hurricane, becoming the first in the eastern Pacific basin since Hurricane Kenna in 2002 and the first east of the International Date Line since Hurricane Ioke in 2006. The storm also became the thirteenth cyclone of this intensity east of the International Date Line since official records in the Eastern Pacific began in 1949. Shortly after being upgraded to Category 5 status, Rick attained its peak intensity with winds of 180 mph (290 km/h; 156 kn) and a barometric pressure of 906 mbar (906.00 hPa; 26.75 inHg), making it the second-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the East Pacific, surpassing Kenna. Only Hurricane Linda of 1997 was stronger than Rick, with minimum pressure of 902 mbar (902 hPa; 26.6 inHg). Hurricane Patricia in 2015 later far surpassed both Rick and Linda, attaining a pressure of 872 mbar (hPa; 25.75 inHg). It also became the second storm in the basin to have sustained winds of 180 mph (290 km/h; 156 kn) or higher, the first being Linda with 185 mph (298 km/h; 161 kn) winds. Patricia surpassed both with 215 mph (346 km/h; 187 kn) winds.
Upon being declared a tropical depression on October 15, computer forecasting models already anticipated the likelihood of rapid intensification due to the unusually favorable environmental conditions ahead of the system. The Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model (HWRF) showed the storm attaining a minimum pressure below 900 mbar (hPa; 26.58 inHg), an intensity not attained by any Eastern Pacific hurricane on record at the time. The Statistical Hurricane Intensity Prediction Scheme (SHIPS) rapid intensification index, a storm's probability of intensifying by 35 mph (56 km/h; 30 kn) or more within 24 hours, was set at 60%. This percentage quickly increased to 82% several hours later, 11 times higher than the sample mean. The official forecast from the NHC by their second advisory stated that Rick would become a Category 4 hurricane by October 19; however, they mentioned that due to the favorable environment, the storm could intensify faster than forecast. Once Rick had become a Category 2 storm on October 16, the NHC increased their forecast peak intensity to 145 mph (233 km/h; 126 kn), a mid-range Category 4 hurricane.
The first mention of Rick possibly becoming a Category 5 hurricane was in the seventh discussion released by the NHC on October 17. In their advisory, it was noted that the storm had a 10% chance of reaching this intensity within 36 hours. Several hours after this advisory was released, a special update advisory was issued. This new advisory placed the peak intensity of Rick just below Category 5 status, with maximum winds of 155 mph (249 km/h; 135 kn). It was not until the late morning hours of October 17 that the NHC officially anticipated the storm to attain Category 5 status. Upon attaining winds of 180 mph (290 km/h; 156 kn), Rick was forecast to peak with winds of 185 mph (298 km/h; 161 kn), which would have tied the record (at the time) intensity set by Hurricane Linda.
## See also
- Timeline of the 2009 Pacific hurricane season
- List of the most intense tropical cyclones
- Other tropical cyclones named Rick
|
19,995,454 |
Rotating locomotion in living systems
| 1,172,381,757 |
Rotational self-propulsion of organisms
|
[
"Animal locomotion",
"Biomechanics",
"Evolutionary biology",
"Hypothetical life forms",
"Rotation",
"Speculative evolution",
"Terrestrial locomotion",
"Thought experiments"
] |
Several organisms are capable of rolling locomotion. However, true wheels and propellers—despite their utility in human vehicles—do not seem to play a significant role in the movement of living things (with the exception of certain flagella, which work like corkscrews). Biologists have offered several explanations for the apparent absence of biological wheels, and wheeled creatures have appeared often in speculative fiction.
Given the ubiquity of the wheel in human technology, and the existence of biological analogues of many other technologies (such as wings and lenses), the lack of wheels in the natural world would seem to demand explanation—and the phenomenon is broadly explained by two main factors. First, there are several developmental and evolutionary obstacles to the advent of a wheel by natural selection, addressing the question "Why can't life evolve wheels?" Secondly, wheels are often at a competitive disadvantage when compared with other means of propulsion (such as walking, running, or slithering) in natural environments, addressing the question "If wheels could evolve, why might they be rare nonetheless?" This environment-specific disadvantage also explains why at least one historical civilization abandoned the wheel as a mode of transport.
## Known instances of rotation in biology
There exist two distinct modes of locomotion using rotation: first, simple rolling; and second, the use of wheels or propellers, which spin on an axle or shaft, relative to a fixed body. While many creatures employ the former mode, the latter is restricted to microscopic, single-celled organisms.
### Rolling
Some organisms use rolling as a means of locomotion. These examples do not constitute the use of a wheel, as the organism rotates as a whole, rather than employing separate parts which rotate independently.
Several species of elongate organisms form their bodies into a loop to roll, including certain caterpillars (which do so to escape danger), tiger beetle larvae, myriapods, mantis shrimp, Armadillidiidae, and Mount Lyell salamanders. Other species adopt more spherical postures, primarily to protect their bodies from predators; this posture has been seen in pangolins, wheel spiders, hedgehogs, armadillos, armadillo girdled lizards, isopods, and fossilized trilobites. Pangolins and wheel spiders have been observed to purposely roll away from predators. These species may roll passively (under the influence of gravity or wind) or actively, typically by altering their shape to generate a propulsive force.
Tumbleweeds, which are the above-ground portions of certain plants, separate from their root structure and roll in the wind to distribute their seeds. These plants are found especially in open plain environments. The most well-known of these include Kali tragus (also known as Salsola tragus), or prickly Russian thistle, which arrived in North America in the late 19th century, and gained a reputation as a noxious weed. Fungi of the genus Bovista are known to use the same strategy to disperse their spores.
Rotifers are a phylum of microscopic but multi-celled animals, typically found in freshwater environments. Although the Latin name rotifer means 'wheel-bearer', these organisms do not have any rotating structures, but rather a ring of rhythmically beating cilia used for feeding and propulsion.
Keratinocytes, a type of skin cell, migrate with a rolling motion during the process of wound healing. These cells serve to form a barrier against pathogens and moisture loss through wounded tissue.
Dung beetles form spherical balls of animal excrement, which they roll with their bodies, generally by walking backwards and pushing the ball with their rear legs. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that this rolling behavior evolved independently several times. The behavior of these beetles was noted in ancient Egyptian culture, which imparted sacred significance to their activities. Although it is the dung ball that rolls rather than the beetle itself, the beetles face many of the same mechanical difficulties that rolling organisms contend with.
### Free rotation
#### Macroscopic
Among animals, there exists a single known example of an apparently freely rotating structure, though it is used for digestion rather than propulsion: the crystalline style of certain bivalves and gastropods. The style consists of a transparent glycoprotein rod which is continuously formed in a cilia-lined sac and extends into the stomach. The cilia rotate the rod, so that it becomes wrapped in strands of mucus. As the rod slowly dissolves in the stomach, it releases digestive enzymes. Estimates of the speed of rotation of the style in vivo vary significantly, and it is unclear if the style is rotated continuously or intermittently.
#### Microscopic
There are two known examples of molecular-scale rotating structures used by living cells. ATP synthase is an enzyme used in the process of energy storage and transfer. It bears some similarity to the flagellar motors discussed below. ATP synthase is thought to have arisen by modular evolution, in which two subunits with their own functions have become associated and gained a new functionality.
The only known example of a biological "wheel"—a system capable of providing continuous propulsive torque about a fixed body—is the flagellum, a corkscrew-like tail used by single-celled prokaryotes for propulsion. The bacterial flagellum is the best known example. About half of all known bacteria have at least one flagellum, indicating that rotation may in fact be the most common form of locomotion in living systems, though its use is restricted to the microscopic environment.
At the base of the bacterial flagellum, where it enters the cell membrane, a motor protein acts as a rotary engine. The engine is powered by proton motive force, i.e. by the flow of protons (hydrogen ions) across the bacterial cell membrane due to a concentration gradient set up by the cell's metabolism. (In species of the genus Vibrio, there are two kinds of flagella, lateral and polar, and some are driven by a sodium ion pump rather than a proton pump.) Flagella are quite efficient, allowing bacteria to move at speeds of up to 60 cell lengths per second. The rotary motor at the base of the flagellum is similar in structure to ATP synthase. Spirillum bacteria have helical bodies with flagella at either end, and they spin about the central axis of their bodies as they move through the water.
Archaea, a group of prokaryotes separate from bacteria, also feature flagella – known as archaella – driven by rotary motor proteins, which are structurally and evolutionarily distinct from bacterial flagella: whereas bacterial flagella evolved from the bacterial Type III secretion system, archaella appear to have evolved from type IV pili.
Some eukaryotic cells, such as the protist Euglena and animal sperm, possess a convergent, evolutionary distinct flagellum-like structure known as a cilium or undulipodium. Unlike bacterial flagella, these structures do not rotate at the base; rather, they bend in such a way that the tip whips in a circle.
However, some protists may still have been observed utilizing free rotation. Navicula, a type of diatom, may possess an unconventional rolling mechanism unrelated to the flagellum.
## Biological barriers to wheeled organisms
The absence of wheels in nature is frequently attributed to constraints imposed by biology: natural selection constrains the evolutionary paths available to species, and the processes by which multicellular organisms grow and develop may not permit the construction of a functioning wheel.
### Evolutionary constraints
The processes of evolution can help explain why wheeled locomotion has not evolved in multicellular organisms: simply put, a complex structure or system will not evolve if its incomplete form does not benefit the organism.
Adaptations are produced incrementally through natural selection, so major phenotypic changes will not usually spread within populations if they decrease the fitness of individuals. Although neutral changes (ones which provide no benefit) can spread through genetic drift, and detrimental changes can spread under some circumstances, large changes that require multiple steps will occur only if the intermediate stages increase fitness. Richard Dawkins describes the matter: "The wheel may be one of those cases where the engineering solution can be seen in plain view, yet be unattainable in evolution because it lies [on] the other side of a deep valley, cutting unbridgeably across the massif of Mount Improbable." In such a fitness landscape, wheels might sit on a highly favorable "peak", but the valley around that peak may be too deep or wide for the gene pool to migrate across by genetic drift or natural selection. Stephen Jay Gould notes that biological adaptation is limited to working with available components, commenting that "wheels work well, but animals are debarred from building them by structural constraints inherited as an evolutionary legacy".
Natural selection therefore explains why wheels are an unlikely solution to the problem of locomotion: a partially evolved wheel, missing one or more key features, would probably not impart an advantage to an organism. The exception to this is the flagellum, the only known example of a freely rotating propulsive system in biology; in the evolution of flagella, individual components were recruited from older structures, where they performed tasks unrelated to propulsion. The basal body that is now the rotary motor, for instance, might have evolved from a structure used by the bacterium to inject toxins into other cells. This recruitment of previously evolved structures to serve new functions is called exaptation.
Molecular biologist Robin Holliday has written that the absence of biological wheels argues against creationist or intelligent design accounts of the diversity of life, because an intelligent creator—free of the limitations imposed by evolution—would be expected to deploy wheels wherever they would be of use.
### Developmental and anatomical constraints
Using human manufacturing processes, wheeled systems of varying complexity have proven fairly simple to construct, and issues of power transmission and friction have proven tractable. It is not clear, however, that the vastly different processes of embryonic development are suited to—or even capable of—producing a functioning wheel, for reasons described below.
The greatest anatomical impediment to wheeled multicellular organisms is the interface between the static and rotating components of the wheel. In either a passive or driven case, the wheel (and possibly axle) must be able to rotate freely relative to the rest of the machine or organism. Unlike animal joints, which have a limited range of motion, a wheel must be able to rotate through an arbitrary angle without ever needing to be "unwound". As such, a wheel cannot be permanently attached to the axle or shaft about which it rotates (or, if the axle and wheel are fixed together, the axle cannot be affixed to the rest of the machine or organism). There are several functional problems created by this requirement, though these may be partly surmountable.
#### Power transmission to driven wheels
In the case of a driven wheel, a torque must be applied to generate the locomotive force. In human technology, this torque is generally provided by a motor, of which there are many types, including electric, piston-driven, turbine-driven, pneumatic, and hydraulic (torque may also be provided by human power, as in the case of a bicycle). In animals, motion is typically achieved by the use of skeletal muscles, which derive their energy from the metabolism of nutrients from food. Because these muscles are attached to both of the components that must move relative to each other, they are not capable of directly driving a wheel, and can only do so through a linkage. In addition, large animals cannot produce high accelerations, as inertia increases rapidly with body size.
#### Friction
Reducing friction is vital for minimizing wear on mechanical components and preventing overheating. As the relative speed of the components rises, and as the contact force between them increases, the importance of friction mitigation increases. Various types of bearing and/or lubricant may be used to reduce friction at the interface between two components. In biological joints such as the human knee, friction is reduced by means of cartilage with a very low friction coefficient, as well as lubricating synovial fluid, which has very low viscosity. Gerhard Scholtz of Humboldt University of Berlin asserts that a similar secreted lubricant or dead cellular material could allow a biological wheel to rotate freely.
#### Nutrient and waste transfer
Another potential problem that arises at the interface between wheel and axle (or axle and body) is the limited ability of an organism to transfer materials across this interface. If the tissues that make up a wheel are living, they will need to be supplied with oxygen and nutrients and have wastes removed to sustain metabolism. A typical animal circulatory system, composed of blood vessels, would not be able to provide transportation across the interface. In the absence of blood vessels, oxygen, nutrients, and waste products would need to diffuse across the interface, a process that would be greatly limited by the available partial pressure and surface area, in accordance with Fick's law of diffusion. For large multicellular animals, diffusion would be insufficient. Alternatively, a wheel could be composed of excreted, nonliving material such as keratin (of which hair and nails are composed).
## Disadvantages of wheels
Wheels incur mechanical and other disadvantages in certain environments and situations that would represent a decreased fitness when compared with limbed locomotion. These disadvantages suggest that, even barring the biological constraints discussed above, the absence of wheels in multicellular life may not be the "missed opportunity" of biology that it first seems. In fact, given the mechanical disadvantages and restricted usefulness of wheels when compared with limbs, the central question can be reversed: not "Why does nature not produce wheels?", but rather, "Why do human vehicles not make more use of limbs?" The use of wheels rather than limbs in most engineered vehicles can likely be attributed to the complexity of design required to construct and control limbs, rather than to a consistent functional advantage of wheels over limbs.
### Efficiency
#### Rolling resistance
Although stiff wheels are more energy-efficient than other means of locomotion when traveling over hard, level terrain (such as paved roads), wheels are not especially efficient on soft terrain such as soil, because they are vulnerable to rolling resistance. In rolling resistance, a vehicle loses energy to the deformation of its wheels and the surface on which they are rolling. Smaller wheels are especially susceptible to this effect. Softer surfaces deform more and recover less than firm surfaces, resulting in greater resistance. Rolling resistance on medium to hard soil can be five to eight times greater than on concrete, and on sand it can be ten to fifteen times greater. While wheels must deform the surface along their entire path, limbs induce only a small, localized deformation around the region of foot contact.
For this reason, rolling resistance led at least one historical civilization to abandon wheels. During the time of the Roman Empire, wheeled chariots were common in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet when the Empire collapsed and its roads fell into disrepair, wheels fell out of favor with the local populations, who turned to camels to transport goods in the sandy desert climate. In his book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, Stephen Jay Gould explains this curiosity of history, asserting that, in the absence of maintained roads, camels required less manpower and water than a wheeled cart pulled by oxen.
#### Efficiency of aquatic locomotion
When moving through a fluid, rotating systems carry an efficiency advantage only at extremely low Reynolds numbers (i.e. viscosity-dominated flows) such as those experienced by bacterial flagella, whereas oscillating systems have the advantage at higher (inertia-dominated) Reynolds numbers. Whereas ship propellers typically have efficiencies around 60% and aircraft propellers up to around 80% (achieving 88% in the human-powered Gossamer Condor), much higher efficiencies, in the range of 96%–98%, can be achieved with an oscillating flexible foil like a fish tail or bird wing.
### Traction
Wheels are prone to slipping—an inability to generate traction—on loose or slippery terrain. Slipping wastes energy and can potentially lead to a loss of control or becoming stuck, as with an automobile on mud or snow. This limitation of wheels can be seen in the realm of human technology: in an example of biologically inspired engineering, legged vehicles find use in the logging industry, where they allow access to terrain too challenging for wheeled vehicles to navigate. Tracked vehicles suffer less from slipping than wheeled vehicles, owing to their larger contact area with the ground—but they tend to have larger turning radii than wheeled vehicles, and they are less efficient and more mechanically complex.
### Obstacle navigation
Work by vehicle engineer Mieczysław G. Bekker implies that the distribution of irregularities in natural terrains is log-normal; that is, small obstacles are far more common than larger ones. Thus, obstacle navigation is a challenge for locomotion in natural terrains at all size scales. The primary means of obstacle navigation on land are to go around obstacles and to go over them; each has its attendant challenges.
#### Going around
Anatomist Michael LaBarbera of the University of Chicago illustrates the poor maneuverability of wheels by comparing the turning radii of walking and wheelchair-using humans. As Jared Diamond points out, most biological examples of rolling are found in wide open, hard-packed terrain, including the use of rolling by dung beetles and tumbleweeds.
#### Going over
Wheels are poor at dealing with vertical obstacles, especially obstacles on the same scale as the wheel itself, and may be unable to climb vertical obstacles taller than about 40% of the wheel height. Because of this limitation, wheels intended for rough terrain require a larger diameter.
In addition, without articulation, a wheeled vehicle can become stuck on top of an obstacle, with the obstacle between the wheels, preventing them from contacting the ground. Limbs, in contrast, are useful for climbing and are equipped to deal with uneven terrain.
With unarticulated wheels, climbing obstacles will cause the body of a vehicle to tilt. If the vehicle's center of mass moves outside of the wheelbase or axle track, the vehicle becomes statically unstable, and will tend to tip over. At speed, a vehicle can become dynamically unstable – that is, it can be tipped over by an obstacle smaller than its static stability limit, or by excessive acceleration or tight turning. Suspension systems often mitigate the tendency of wheeled vehicles to overturn, but unlike fully articulated limbs, they do not provide any ability to recover from an overturned position.
### Versatility
Limbs used by animals for terrestrial locomotion are frequently also used for other purposes, such as grasping, manipulating, climbing, branch-swinging, swimming, digging, jumping, throwing, striking, and grooming. Without articulation, wheels cannot perform these functions.
## In fiction and legend
Legends and speculative fiction reveal a longstanding human fascination with rolling and wheeled creatures. Such creatures appear in mythologies from Europe, Japan, pre-Columbian Mexico, the United States, and Australia.
### Rolling creatures
The hoop snake, a creature of legend in the United States and Australia, is said to grasp its tail in its mouth and roll like a wheel towards its prey. Japanese culture includes a similar mythical creature, the Tsuchinoko. Buer, a demon mentioned in the 16th-century grimoire Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, was described and illustrated in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal as having radially-arranged arms on which it rolled.
The Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher illustrated a rolling creature of his own invention in a 1951 lithograph. Rolling creatures are also featured in works written by comic author Carl Barks, science fiction writers Fredric Brown, George R. R. Martin, and Joan Slonczewski, and in the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series.
### Wheeled creatures
Toy animals with wheels dating from the Pre-Columbian era were uncovered by archaeologists in Veracruz, Mexico, in the 1940s. The indigenous peoples of this region did not use wheels for transportation prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Several twentieth-century writers explored possibilities of wheeled creatures. L. Frank Baum's 1907 children's novel Ozma of Oz features humanoid creatures with wheels instead of hands and feet, called Wheelers. Their wheels are composed of keratin, which has been suggested by biologists as a means of avoiding nutrient and waste transfer problems with living wheels. Despite moving quickly on firm open terrain, the Wheelers cannot cross sand, and are stymied by obstacles in their path that do not hinder creatures with limbs.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, wheeled or wheel-using creatures featured in works by fantasy and science fiction writers including Clifford D. Simak, Piers Anthony, David Brin, K. A. Applegate, Philip Pullman, and writing partners Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. Some of these works address the developmental and biomechanical constraints on wheeled creatures: Brin's creatures suffer from arthritic axles, and Pullman's Mulefa are not born with wheels, but roll on seed pods with which they coevolved.
## See also
- Biomimicry, which includes biologically inspired engineering
- Projectile use by living systems, another adaptation commonly associated with human technology
- Robot locomotion, in which locomotive issues faced by living systems are addressed in a technological context
- Issus, one of many genera of planthoppers which use gear mechanisms to synchronize their legs while jumping
|
34,277,479 |
Lost operas by Claudio Monteverdi
| 1,169,791,208 |
Lost operas written between 1604 and 1643
|
[
"1608 operas",
"1641 operas",
"Italian-language operas",
"Lost operas",
"Operas based on classical mythology",
"Operas by Claudio Monteverdi",
"Unfinished operas"
] |
The Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), in addition to a large output of church music and madrigals, wrote prolifically for the stage. His theatrical works were written between 1604 and 1643 and included operas, of which three—L'Orfeo (1607), Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643)—have survived with their music and librettos intact. In the case of the other seven operas, the music has disappeared almost entirely, although some of the librettos exist. The loss of these works, written during a critical period of early opera history, has been much regretted by commentators and musicologists.
Opera, as a musical and theatrical genre, began to emerge during the early part of Monteverdi's career, initially as a form of courtly entertainment. With other composers, he played a leading part in its development into the main form of public musical theatre. His first opera, L'Orfeo, written in 1607 for the Mantuan court, which employed him, was a major success. In the years that followed, at Mantua and in his later capacity as maestro di cappella (director of music) at St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Monteverdi continued to write theatrical music in various genres, including operas, dances, and intermedi (short musical interludes inserted into straight plays). Because in Monteverdi's times stage music was rarely thought to have much utility after its initial performance, much of this music vanished shortly after its creation.
Most of the available information relating to the seven lost operas has been deduced from contemporary documents, including the many letters that Monteverdi wrote. These papers provide irrefutable evidence that four of these works—L'Arianna, Andromeda, Proserpina rapita and Le nozze d'Enea con Lavinia—were completed and performed in Monteverdi's lifetime, but of their music, only the famous lament from L'Arianna and a trio from Proserpina are known to have survived. The other three lost operas—Le nozze di Tetide, La finta pazza Licori and Armida abbandonata—were abandoned by Monteverdi before completion; how much of their music was actually written is unknown.
## Background
Monteverdi's creative life covered more than 50 years. Between 1590 and 1612 he served as a musician in the Gonzaga court in Mantua, followed by 30 years (1613–43) as maestro di capella at St Mark's Basilica in Venice. This timespan saw opera develop, from its beginnings as a limited form of court entertainment, to become part of the mainstream of public musical theatre. Before the Italian word "opera"—short for opera in musica ("musical work")—came into general use around 1634, musical stage works were typically termed favola in musica (musical fable), dramma in musica (musical drama), or tragedia in musica ("musical tragedy"); Monteverdi used these and similar descriptions for many of his early operatic projects.
The first work now generally considered as an opera is Jacopo Peri's Dafne of 1597, closely followed by Euridice (1600), for which Peri and Giulio Caccini wrote separate musical settings. Ottavio Rinuccini was the librettist for both Dafne and Euridice. In the new genre a complete story was told through characters, and in addition to choruses and ensembles, the vocal parts included recitative, aria and arioso. This was a development from various older forms of musical theatre that had existed since the earliest years of the Italian Renaissance; such forms included the maschera ("masque"), the ballo (a dance entertainment, often with sung passages), and particularly the intermedio or intermezzo, a short dramatic musical episode inserted as a prologue or entr'acte between the acts of straight plays. Another format in the later renaissance period was the torneo, or "tournament", a stylised dramatic spectacle in which the main singing was performed by a narrator. Sub-operatic forms of dramatic music continued to thrive as opera itself developed; the blurred boundaries that existed for many years between these forms and "opera" has led to debate about how to categorise some works. For example, the precise genre of Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) has proved particularly difficult to define.
Monteverdi's first acknowledged opera is L'Orfeo (1607). He composed, in all, 24 works for the stage. Of these, ten are usually classified as operas, of which the music for seven has been lost apart from a few fragments. Most of what is known about the missing works comes from surviving librettos and other documentation, including Monteverdi's own extensive correspondence. Tim Carter, a leading Monteverdi scholar, suggests that the high rate of loss is explicable because, in Monteverdi's times, "memories were short and large-scale musical works often had limited currency beyond their immediate circumstances".
## For Mantua
Monteverdi wrote six acknowledged operas for the Mantua court, of which only L'Orfeo survives with libretto and music intact. Four of the five lost Mantuan works were written after the composer had left the service of the Gonzagas in 1612 and was ensconced in Venice, but still retained contacts with Mantua. L'Arianna and Andromeda were completed and performed; the others were all abandoned incomplete.
### L'Arianna (1607–08)
(English: "Ariadne")
L'Arianna was composed as a festive piece for the wedding of the heir to the duchy, Francesco Gonzaga, to Margherita of Savoy, in May 1608. Monteverdi received the commission following L'Orfeo's successful premiere at the court in February 1607. The libretto for L'Arianna was by Rinuccini, whose literary skills had earlier impressed Duke Vincenzo I of Mantua after a performance of Euridice. The composition of L'Arianna became a fraught affair for Monteverdi, being only one of three works that the duke required from him for the wedding—he had also to compose a musical prologue for Giovanni Battista Guarini's play L'idropica, and write the music for a dramatic dance, Il ballo delle ingrate. His life had been disrupted by the fatal illness of his wife Claudia; she died on 10 September 1607, but Monteverdi was given no respite by the duke. L'Arianna was largely composed in the last two months of 1607, an exertion that Monteverdi's biographer Hans Redlich describes as "superhuman". Monteverdi felt slighted by the lack of acknowledgement from the duke for his efforts; nearly 20 years later, in a letter to the Mantua court secretary Alessandro Striggio the Younger, he wrote that he had almost killed himself when writing L'Arianna in such a hurry.
Rinuccini used numerous classical sources as the basis for his libretto, in particular works of Ovid—the Heroides and the Metamorphoses—and poems from Catullus. After a prologue, the main action begins as Venus tells Cupid that Ariadne and her lover Theseus, fleeing from Crete after his slaying of the Minotaur, will shortly arrive in Naxos. Theseus, she reports, will then abandon Ariadne, as he believes her to be unacceptable to the people of Athens as their queen. Venus plans to match her instead with the god Bacchus, and asks Cupid to arrange this. Theseus and Arianna arrive; Theseus agonises over his decision to abandon her, but is advised by his counsellor that he is wise in his resolve, and departs. In the morning Ariadne, finding herself abandoned, searches vainly for Theseus on the shore, where she sings her lament. A fanfare indicates an imminent arrival; Ariadne hopes this is Theseus returning, but it is Bacchus and his entourage. Jupiter speaks from the heavens, and amid festive scenes Bacchus promises Ariadne immortality with the gods in return for her love.
Rinuccini extended the libretto during the rehearsals, after complaints from the duchess that the piece was "too dry"; as a result the early scene between Venus and Cupid, and Jupiter's blessing from heaven, were added. Preparations for the opera's performance were disrupted when, in March 1608, the leading soprano Caterina Martinelli died of smallpox. A replacement had to be found rapidly, and the title role fell to Virginia Andreidi, a renowned actress-singer who used the stage name "La Florinda"; she reportedly learned the part in only six days. In his analysis of Monteverdi's theatrical works, Carter suggests that the lament may have been added to the work to make the most of Andreini's acting and vocal abilities. The premiere, on 28 May 1608, was staged in a specially erected temporary theatre, which according to contemporary reports could hold an audience of several thousands. The production was lavish; apparently 300 men were required to manipulate the stage machinery. Federico Follino, who prepared the Mantuan court's official report on the occasion, praised the beauty of the work, the magnificence of costumes and machinery, and the sweetness of the music. Monteverdi's fellow-composer Marco da Gagliano was equally complimentary, writing that the opera had "visibly moved the entire audience to tears." It is possible that L'Arianna was performed in Florence in 1614; a projected performance in Mantua in May 1620 to celebrate Duchess Caterina's birthday was cancelled for unknown reasons. Otherwise, there are no records of the opera's performance before its revival in 1640 at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice. In his study of late Renaissance opera, Gary Tomlinson surmises that the work's enthusiastic reception in Venice was a significant factor in Monteverdi's decision to resume opera composition during his final years.
Of the music, only the lament survives. It was published independently from the opera in various forms; an adaptation for five voices was included in Monteverdi's Sixth Book of Madrigals in 1614, and two versions of the original solo were published in 1623. Other composers emulated the lament's format; Redlich asserts that it initiated a musical subgenre that lasted to the end of the 17th century and beyond. The libretto has been preserved; versions were published in Mantua in 1608, and in Venice in 1622 and 1639.
### Le nozze di Tetide (1616–17)
(English: "The Marriage of Thetis")
After Duke Vincenzo's death in February 1612, Monteverdi found himself out of favour at the Mantuan court. Vincenzo's successor Francesco had no high regard for Monteverdi, and dismissed him from his post. Upon Francesco's sudden death in December 1612, the dukedom passed to his brother Ferdinando, but Monteverdi was not recalled to the court and was appointed maestro di capella in August 1613 at St Mark's, Venice. However, he remained in contact with Striggio and other highly placed Gonzaga courtiers, through whom he was able to secure occasional commissions to compose theatrical works for the Gonzaga court. Thus, late in 1616, Striggio asked him to set to music Scipione Agnelli's libretto Le nozze di Tetide, as part of the celebrations for Duke Ferdinando's forthcoming marriage to Catherine de' Medici. This story, based on the wedding of the mythical Greek hero Peleus to the sea-goddess Thetis, had previously been offered to the Mantuan court by Peri, whose setting of a libretto by Francesco Cini had been rejected in 1608 in favour of L'Arianna.
Initially, Monteverdi had little enthusiasm for Le nozze di Tetide, and sought ways of avoiding or delaying work on it. He would accept the commission, he informed Striggio on 9 December 1616, because it was the wish of the duke, his feudal lord. However, the verses he was given were not, he felt, conducive to beautiful music. He found the tale difficult to understand, and did not think he could be inspired by it. In any event he was occupied for most of December in writing a Christmas Eve mass for St Mark's. On 29 December, perhaps hoping that the commission would be withdrawn, Monteverdi told Striggio that he was ready to begin work on Le Nozze di Tetide "if you tell me to do so". In January 1617, however, he became more enthusiastic on learning that the project had been scaled down and was now being projected as a series of intermedi. He informed Striggio that what he had first considered a rather monotonous piece he now thought fully appropriate to the occasion. He began work on the recitative sections, but before he could start setting the more expressive numbers, the duke had a change of heart and cancelled Monteverdi's commission. Le nozze di Tetide was abandoned; its libretto and whatever music existed have disappeared.
### Andromeda (1618–20)
Monteverdi's next commission from Mantua came early in 1618, when he was asked to provide the music for Andromeda, an opera based on the ancient Greek myth of the princess chained to a rock. The libretto was written by Duke Ferdinando's chancellor, Ercole Marigliani, and the project was sponsored by the duke's younger brother, Don Vincenzo Gonzaga. It is probable that the work was intended for performance at the Mantua Carnival of March 1618, but as Carter records, Monteverdi's approach to his Mantua commissions was often dilatory and half-hearted; his inability or unwillingness to work on Andromeda delayed its performance, first to 1619 and then to 1620.
Monteverdi's letters during the 1618–20 period, mainly to Striggio but occasionally to Don Vincenzo or Marigliani, offer various excuses for his lack of progress on Andromeda, including his duties at St Mark's, his health, and his obligations to provide ceremonial music for the Doge (ruler) of Venice. In February 1619, Monteverdi had started work on another Mantuan project, a ballo (dance with sung parts) to Striggio's libretto entitled Apollo. On 9 January 1620, still with 400 lines of the Andromeda libretto to set to music, Monteverdi proposed to Striggio that the entire opera project be abandoned and the ballo substituted. This idea was rapidly quashed; Don Vincenzo ordered that the remaining Andromeda music be sent to him forthwith. The final segment of Andromeda, an eight-part song, was delivered to Marigliani on 15 February 1620.
None of Monteverdi's music for Andromeda has survived. The libretto was also thought to have been lost, until its rediscovery in 1984. As was customary in Monteverdi's time, the manuscript makes no mention of the composer's name—librettos were often the subject of numerous settings by different composers. The libretto's frontispiece confirms that Andromeda was performed during Mantua's Carnival, 1–3 March 1620. An analysis of its contents reveals some influence from Rinuccini's libretto for Arianna, such as use of identical metre and length in the prologues of each work, and several common characters in the respective cast lists. The document remains in private hands and has not been published.
Monteverdi recorded no apparent interest in the performance of Andromeda after the 1620 Carnival; the long letter that he wrote to Striggio on 13 March 1620 makes no reference to the event and is chiefly concerned with financial matters. The letter implies that the Gonzaga court was trying to persuade Monteverdi to return to Mantua; in courtly language Monteverdi evades the issue, while comparing the relative generosity of his Venetian employers with the parsimony of the Gonzaga court.
### Two abortive projects (1627–28)
After Andromeda there followed a period of several years in which Mantua made little use of Monteverdi's services. Duke Ferdinando died on 26 October 1626 and was succeeded by Don Vincenzo, who became Duke Vincenzo II. Early in 1627 Striggio approached Monteverdi with a request for theatrical music, possibly for the festivities that would celebrate Vincenzo's accession. Monteverdi replied offering three options: first, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda ("The Battle of Tancred and Clorinda"), a setting from Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata ("Jerusalem Delivered"), which had been performed at the 1624 Venice Carnival; secondly, a setting from another part of Tasso's poem, covering the story of the sorceress Armida and her abandonment by the Christian hero Rinaldo; finally, he offered to set the words of a new play by Giulio Strozzi, Licori finta pazza inamorata d'Aminta, about a woman who feigns madness for the sake of love. Monteverdi sent Striggio a copy of Strozzi's play on 7 May 1627; Striggio liked it and instructed Monteverdi to begin the music.
#### La finta pazza Licori
(English: "The feigned madwoman Licori")
Strozzi was a Venetian, born in 1583, whose literary works included plays and poetry as well as opera libretti; Monteverdi had first met him in 1621. Strozzi knew Monteverdi's music, and had developed a strong appreciation of the composer's innovative style. On 20 June 1627, Monteverdi informed Striggio that Strozzi had expanded and arranged the text into five acts, under the new title La finta pazza Licori. Feigned madness was a standard theme in the commedia dell'arte tradition that had established itself in Italian theatre in the 16th century. In Strozzi's plot, the first known attempt at comic opera, the woman Licori disguises herself initially as a man, then as a woman, and then pretends to be mad, all as part of a strategy to win the heart of her lover, Aminta.
Monteverdi was, at least initially, much taken with the potential of the plot, and the opportunities the libretto provided for a variety of musical effects. Monteverdi stressed to Striggio the importance of finding a singer with real acting ability to play the role of Licori, someone capable of playing a man and a woman with appropriate emotions and gestures. Later he enthused about the chance to write a ballet for each of the five acts, all in different styles. Monteverdi's letters continued throughout the summer, but his attitude slowly changed, from one of evident commitment to frustration at the delays in getting the libretto copied. The musicologist Gary Tomlinson, in his analysis of the opera's genesis, suggests that Monteverdi may have been stalling. In September Striggio, having received, read and presumably not liked the expanded libretto, abruptly cancelled the commission and the work is heard of no more. Monteverdi was told instead to work on the Armida setting.
For many years it was assumed that Monteverdi had written much of the music for Licori before its sudden cancellation; Redlich says the music was finished by 10 September 1627. The work's rejection and subsequent disappearance have been blamed on Striggio's disregard for Monteverdi's efforts. However, Tomlinson's reading of the correspondence suggests a different conclusion: Monteverdi, in his view, "did not even come close to completing the score" and may have written very little of the music. It is likely that he stopped composing at the end of July, having become suspicious of Striggio's true commitment to the work. Tomlinson suggests that, mindful of Mantua's earlier cancellation of Le nozze di Tetide, Monteverdi avoided extending himself on the new project, while maintaining a diplomatic impression of activity. Tomlinson writes: "[I]t would hardly be surprising if Monteverdi were preternaturally sensitive to signs of Mantuan vacillation [and] if, at the first such signs in 1627, he decided to move cautiously in the composition of Licori." Strozzi's libretto has vanished along with whatever music Monteverdi managed to write, but Strozzi wrote a second libretto under the same name, which was set by Francesco Sacrati and produced in Venice in 1641.
#### Armida abbandonata
(English: "Armida abandoned")
After the rejection of Licori, Monteverdi did not immediately turn his attention to Armida. Instead, he went to Parma, having been commissioned to provide musical entertainments for the marriage celebrations of the youthful Duke Odoardo Farnese of Parma and Margherita de' Medici. He spent several weeks in Parma working on these; nevertheless, on 18 December 1627 he was able to tell Striggio that the music for Armida had been completed and was being copied. In the relevant section of Tasso's poem, the enchantress Armida lures the noble Rinaldo to her enchanted island. Two knights arrive to persuade Rinaldo to return to his duty, while Armida pleads with him to stay, or if he must depart, to allow her to be at his side in battle. When he refuses and abandons her, Armida curses him before falling insensible.
Carter indicates several structural similarities to Il combattimento; both works require three voices, one of which acts as the narrator. Despite these similarities, Armida abbandonata, unlike the earlier work, is generally considered by scholars of Monteverdi to be an opera, although Denis Stevens, translator of Monteverdi's letters, has termed it a "parergon" (subsidiary work) to Il Combattimento.
Plans for Armida's performance were, however, cancelled when Duke Vincenzo died at the end of December 1627. On 4 February 1628, Striggio was still asking for a copy of Armida, perhaps to use in connection with the next duke's coronation. Monteverdi promised to send him one, but there is no confirmation that he did so. No trace of the music has been found, though Tomlinson has deduced some of its likely characteristics from Monteverdi's correspondence, including extensive use of the stile concitato effect. Although there is no record that Armida was ever performed in Mantua, Stevens has mooted the possibility that it may have been staged in Venice in 1628, since Monteverdi's reply to Striggio's February letter indicates that the work was in the hands of Girolamo Mocenigo, a wealthy patron of the arts at whose Venetian palace Il combattimento had been performed in 1624.
Licori and Armida were Monteverdi's final theatrical works for the Mantuan court. Vincenzo II's death ended the main Gonzaga line; the dukedom was inherited by a distant relative, Charles of Nevers, and Mantua was subsequently engulfed in a series of conflicts, which by 1630 had reduced much of the city to ruins. Monteverdi's last known letter to Striggio is dated 8 July 1628; Striggio died in Venice on 8 June 1630, while heading a mission requesting aid against the armies that were encircling Mantua.
## For Venice
Between 1630 and 1643 Monteverdi wrote four operas for performance in Venice. All were staged in Monteverdi's lifetime, but only Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea survive.
### Proserpina rapita (1630)
(English: "The Rape of Proserpine")
Proserpina rapita was the first of the theatrical works that Monteverdi wrote specifically for Venice, under a commission from Mocenigo for his daughter Giustiniana's wedding celebrations. The libretto, by Strozzi, is based on the ancient Greek myth of Pluto and Proserpine. Symbolic rape was a common theme in wedding entertainments designed for Italian courts, intended in Carter's words "both to proclaim the power of love and to set proper bounds on female behaviour".
In Strozzi's version of the story, an amorous shepherd Pachino invokes the aid of Pluto, ruler of the underworld, to cure his unrequited obsession with Proserpine. Pluto obliges by turning Pachino into a mountain, though promising his soul a place in Elysium. After being struck by a love-dart fired by Cupid, Pluto falls for Proserpine and claims her as his queen. Initially she resists him, but when Ciane her protector is turned by Pluto into a spring of water, she is overcome. Submissively, she vows obedience; the strength of her beauty is such that Pluto softens, and pledges that in future he will treat lovers less harshly.
The libretto was published in 1630, in Venice, by Evangelista Deuchino. Surviving copies indicate that the original scenery was created by Giuseppe Albardi, and that dances were arranged by Girolamo Scolari. The opera was staged on 16 April 1630, in a salon of the Mocenigo palace. Carter is sceptical that, in such a restricted venue, the performance could have incorporated all the special effects stipulated by the libretto. Nevertheless, an account by one of those present shows that the occasion provided considerable spectacle: "[I]n the evening with torches there was acted and represented in music ... the Rape of Proserpina with most perfect voices and instruments, with aerial apparitions, scene changes and other things, to the astonishment and wonder of all present."
One small fragment of the music for Proserpina rapita survives, a song for three voices: "Come dolce oggi l'auretta". This was published posthumously in Monteverdi's ninth Madrigal Book (Madrigali e Canzonette a due e tre voci) (1651). Otherwise, some indication of the musical character of the work is discernible from notes in the libretto, which Fabbri suggests, indicate that the work may not have been sung throughout. The work contained at least two sung balli, one of which concluded the opera with words that provided a thinly disguised tribute to the composer: "Quanto nel chiaro mondo / su verdi arcadi monti / di te si cantari?" ("How much in the clear world / on green Arcadian mountains / will be sung of you?"). More information about the nature of the music and the instrumentation is included in notes within the published libretto.
According to Carter, Proserpina rapita is a transitional work. With its emphasis on dance, and in terms of its subject matter, it represents the courtly traditions of early-17th-century opera. At the same time, in terms of characterisation it looks forward to the "modern" world of Monteverdi's trio of late operas, specifically to L'incoronazione di Poppea. Proserpina's temperament anticipates the character Poppea in the later opera; likewise Pachino may be a forerunner for Ottone, while some of the discourses in Proserpina have the rhetorical flavour of those between Nerone and Seneca in L'incoronazione. Redlich records that in 1644, the year following Monteverdi's death, Proserpina rapita was added to the repertory of Venice's Teatro San Moisè, but he provides no details of performances. A second edition of the libretto was published in Venice in that year.
### Le nozze d'Enea con Lavinia (1641)
(English: "The Marriage of Aeneas to Lavinia")
In the three years before his death in 1643, Monteverdi composed a trilogy of operas for the Venetian opera theatres following the opening in 1637 of the Teatro San Cassiano. Two of these three operas survive in complete, performable versions: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640), to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro, and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643) for which Giovanni Francesco Busenello provided the text. Between these, Monteverdi composed Le nozze d'Enea con Lavinia; the libretto survives in manuscript form, though no trace of the music has been found. In her analysis of Monteverdi's late works, Ellen Rosand links the three operas together: "[The] ghost opera joins with the two survivors to form a coherent body of works that attests to Monteverdi's position within the world of Venetian opera." The trilogy encompasses a historical trajectory that moves through Troy and the birth of Rome to the decline of the Roman Empire, and points forward to the foundation and ultimate glory of the Venetian Republic. The common theme of the three works is the mythical power of love, at first beneficial but later destructive.
Because of textual and structural similarities with Ulisse, it was once assumed that Badoaro had written the Le nozze libretto. However, Rosand's researches reveal the librettist to be a close friend of Badoaro's, Michelangelo Torcigliani. In a lengthy preface Torcigliani introduces his story, taken from Virgil's epic Aeneid, as a tragedia di lieto fine (tragedy with a happy ending). He acknowledges numerous departures from the original, including the introduction of a comic character, "Numanus". This was done, he admitted, because "Iro", an analogous character type in Ulisse, had proved popular with theatregoers. The text had been written to meet Monteverdi's requirements for emotional variety, thus enabling him, said Torcigliani, to demonstrate the full range of his musical genius.
The principal theme of the story is the desire by Juno, who is feuding with Aeneas's mother Venus to prevent the marriage of the Trojan Aeneas to Lavinia, daughter of King Latino of Latium. She uses an evil spirit to provoke disharmony between Trojans and Latins; when a Trojan hunting party first wounds a deer and then kills a Latin shepherd, Elminio, there are calls for war, which Latino rejects. Aeneas, resting by the River Tiber, is unaware of these troubling incidents, though he is warned by the spirit of the river. Danger arrives in the person of Turnus, King of the Rutuli, an ally of the Latins whose love Lavinia has rejected. Spurred on by Turnus's clamour for war, Trojans and Latins fight, and Aeneas kills Turnus. Latino invites Aeneas to take the hand of Lavinia, who is delighted to accept him. In the light of Aeneas's bravery, Juno forgets her former enmity, and joins with Venus and Hymen to bless the marriage. The opera ends with predictions of the greatness of Rome and the distant future glories of Venice.
Le nozze d'Enea con Lavinia was performed during the Venice Carnival of 1640–41, at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo where it alternated with a revival of Ulisse. According to Carter the work was fairly undemanding in terms of its staging, the action taking place mainly on the banks of the Tiber with few changes of set. There is no record of the Venetian public's response to the opera that, Rosand asserts, was clearly aimed at their patriotic impulses, with its final scene a celebration of "the birth and marvels of the city of Venice". In a preface published with the libretto, Torcigliani refers to "the sweetness of the music of the never-enough praised Monteverde", but the libretto itself provides no specific guides to the music's nature. Ringer records with regret that "[t]he words are all that remain of this Virgilian opera, offering faint hints of lost melodies".
## Consequences
Many of Monteverdi's lost works date from the 1610s and 1620s, and the manuscripts may have disappeared in the wars that overcame Mantua in 1630. Carter cites as a significant aspect of their loss the degree to which they might have provided musical links between the composer's early Mantuan court operas and the public operas he wrote in Venice towards the end of his life: "Without these links ... it is hard to a produce a coherent account of his development as a composer for the stage". In an essay on the opera orchestras of Montverdi's day, Janet Beat regrets that the 30-year gap between L'Orfeo and the next Monteverdi opera to have survived, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, hampers the study of how opera orchestration developed during those critical years.
Carter also reflects on the intriguing possibility, however remote, that a discovery in an unexplored library might one day bring some of this missing music to light. As of 2022 this has not occurred; however, a setting of Rinuccini's libretto by the British composer Alexander Goehr was performed at London's Royal Opera House on 15 September 1995, under the title Arianna. Goehr worked from Rinuccini's original script and, as a tribute to the historic opera, incorporated sections of Monteverdi's setting of the lament into his score.
|
1,811,611 |
What You Waiting For?
| 1,172,702,365 |
2004 song by Gwen Stefani
|
[
"2004 debut singles",
"2004 songs",
"American new wave songs",
"Dance-rock songs",
"Funk songs",
"Gwen Stefani songs",
"Interscope Records singles",
"Music videos directed by Francis Lawrence",
"Number-one singles in Australia",
"Songs with feminist themes",
"Songs written by Gwen Stefani",
"Songs written by Linda Perry"
] |
"What You Waiting For?" is a song by American singer Gwen Stefani from her debut solo studio album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). Written by Stefani and Linda Perry, the song is the album's opening track and was released as Stefani's debut solo single. Lyrically, "What You Waiting For?" details Stefani's lack of inspiration and fear of producing the album, as well as her reaction to pressures exerted by her record label. It is primarily an electropop song and introduces Stefani's four backup dancers, the Harajuku Girls, who had a major input into the album's production.
"What You Waiting For?" was released as the album's lead single; according to Stefani, as an "explanation for doing the record". The song was well received by critics and was frequently cited as a highlight of the album. The single was commercially successful, topping the chart in Australia and reaching the top 10 in several countries. It was certified gold in the United States, and was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards. The song has been remixed a number of times, and was covered by the indie rock band Franz Ferdinand and singer Marina Diamandis.
## Background and writing
During the night of the 45th Annual Grammy Awards, Linda Perry forced Stefani into a chokehold, and demanded that they were "gonna write songs together!", to which Stefani reluctantly agreed. Soon after, Stefani finished the Rock Steady Tour with her band No Doubt, and took a call from her label, who informed her that Perry was in a studio ready to collaborate and that Perry "only [had] five days out of the whole year to work with [her]." Stefani has since admitted that she was frustrated by not being able to see her husband Gavin Rossdale, and was intimidated at the thought of collaboration, in particular with Perry, who she did not feel was qualified to write dance music. Stefani was exhausted by the recently completed tour, and shortly afterwards suffered an emotional breakdown, which she spent in bed crying.
During their first day of work, the two wrote a song titled "Fine by You", which Stefani later described as "a stupid love song, but really good". Perry remarked that the song "wasn't right", and the track was excluded from the album. The session was unproductive, due in part to Stefani's self-consciousness and writer's block, and she at one stage broke down in tears in the studio. Stefani has since admitted that writing songs without her band members felt "humiliating and intimidating even if they're sweet and excited, because you're drowning in their creativity".
Perry recalled feeling Stefani's hesitation upon first meeting: "Jimmy Iovine really wanted Gwen to go solo... From my take of it, Gwen was very reluctant — she was not ready to go be Gwen Stefani. When she showed up, you could just tell she was, 'Oh, I don’t know if I wanna be here.' She was literally a kid with their foot halfway out the door and halfway in. I felt agonized for her. We talked for a while and then I said, 'Why don’t you go? Let's come back tomorrow and let's see how you feel. Don’t worry about it.' She left, and I was up all night long. I wanted her to show up the next day and be inspired."
That night, Perry began work on another track, which she played for Stefani the next day to motivate her. Stefani was impressed with the track, and Perry asked her, "What are you waiting for?" According to Perry, Stefani took the question as a dare, replying, "You're totally challenging me, right?" The two began writing lyrics for the new wave-styled song based on Stefani's writer's block and fears about making a solo record, and it grew into "What You Waiting For?" Perry set up multiple microphones to record different lines of verses, with each labeled as a different "character," leading to the battling back-and-forth in Stefani's delivery.
Stefani came up with the idea of the Harajuku Girls while writing the song. Stefani first saw the women of Harajuku, known for their unique style drawing from Gothic Lolita and cyberpunk fashion, in 1996 and had admired them since. She decided to mention them in the line "You Harajuku Girls, damn you got some wicked style", and the concept grew into a running theme on Love. Angel. Music. Baby., which went as far as to feature one song named after and dedicated to them.
## Composition
"What You Waiting For?" combines the genres of electropop, new wave, dance-rock, and funk, and was composed in common time and in the key of G minor. It is written in verse-chorus form, and its instrumentation derives from the guitar and electronic keyboard. The song opens with an emotional piano solo as a tribute to Stefani's time with No Doubt. The verse begins at only 60 beats per minute and gradually slows, mixed with sounds of applause from the audience. A beat set at 138 BPM begins, and Stefani repeats the phrase "tick-tock", commonly interpreted as a reference to her maternal clock and the pressures she felt about producing the album.
Stefani creates an argument between lyrical personas by alternating her vocal range and point of view. Stefani's vocal range spans two octaves in the song, from G<sub>3</sub> to G<sub>5</sub>. In a melody similar to that of Weezer's "Hash Pipe", one side of Stefani's personality sings in a higher range in the first person, and the other, more confident personality sings lower in the second person. During the verses, the more nervous personality discusses her concerns about leaving No Doubt for a solo career as well as the ephemeral success of female singers in the music industry. The chorus is a boost of confidence for her and continues the song's time motif with the lines "Look at your watch now/You're still a super hot female". Backed by perfect octave dyads, Stefani sings a verse about her excitement for her future, and the two personalities merge into one during the coda.
## Critical reception
"What You Waiting For?" received positive reviews from critics. Nick Sylvester of Pitchfork gave the song a strong review, rating it four and a half stars, and labeled it "fucking great". The website went on to rank the song 16th on its list of the Top 50 Singles of 2004. RJ Smith of Blender noted the song's new wave influence by stating that it could start a revival of Missing Persons, and Amy Linden of The Village Voice compared the "giddy, yodeling vocals" to those of Lene Lovich's 1981 song "New Toy". Jason Damas from PopMatters was mixed on the song, calling the opening "awkward" and the refrain "ridiculously dumb", but arguing that the song "is so frivolous and stupid that it winds up being brilliant; it pretends to be nothing more than party bubblegum and achieves its artistic criteria beautifully." Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani agreed, stating that "it's this impishness that helps make 'What You Waiting For' one of the hottest 'arrival' songs of all time". Richard Smirke of Playlouder found the track's production "crisp" and "edgy", and Jennifer Nine of Dotmusic called the song "itchily irresistible". Jemma Volp-Fletcher, writing for Contactmusic.com, rated the song nine out of 10, commenting that it has "irresistible commercial pull and a melody to die for" and that the track "makes the most of her unmistakable vocal and reflects that off-the-wall Stefani personality perfectly." Natasha Tripney from musicOMH gave the song a negative review, stating that "it'll become one of those tracks that's irritatingly catchy—but on this initial listening, Ms Stefani's debut solo effort is just plain irritating."
Many reviewers considered the track one of the album's highlights. Entertainment Weekly critic David Browne gave Love. Angel. Music. Baby. a C+ rating but called the track "one of the album's undeniable highs". In its review of the album, Nick Sylvester of Pitchfork believed that "we can't expect 12 more cuts as personal or urgent as debut single 'What You Waiting For'", while naming it "one of the best electro songs this year". Lisa Haines of BBC Music stated that it "stands out as the best track on the album for the way it pits storming beats against enthusiastic lyrics" and compared the song to Goldfrapp's 2003 single "Strict Machine". Eric Greenwood of Drawer B, who felt that the album "fails on every level", also commented that "if this album had even two more songs this immediate and catchy, then I'd stick my neck out for it, but, sadly, it's the only song worth listening to." In 2004, Slant Magazine ranked the song number 84 in their list of "The 100 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time". And in 2009, The Daily Telegraph listed the song at number 82 on their list "100 songs that defined the Noughties."
## Commercial performance
In the United States, "What You Waiting For?" debuted at number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the issue dated October 16, 2004. It reached a peak of number 47 on November 27, 2004, and remained on the chart for a total of 20 weeks. The song topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart, but only had moderate success on the pop charts, reaching number 17 on the Mainstream Top 40 and number 24 on the Adult Top 40. The song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 25, 2005. Additionally, it was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards, but lost to Norah Jones' "Sunrise".
Elsewhere, the song's reception was stronger. In the United Kingdom, "What You Waiting For?" debuted and peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart and remained on the chart for 15 weeks. The single performed well across most of the rest of Europe, reaching the top five in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and Romania, and the top 10 in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
In Australia, "What You Waiting For?" debuted atop the ARIA Singles Chart on November 14, 2004, and stayed there for two weeks. It remained within the top three through January 17, 2005, and dropped off the chart after 15 weeks. In 2014, the single was certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The song reached number three on New Zealand's RIANZ Singles Chart and spent four months on the chart.
## Music video
The song's music video was directed by Francis Lawrence and produced by Caleb Dewart of DNA Inc. The video deals directly with the lyrics' theme of Stefani's search for inspiration in songwriting. It opens with a lengthy non-musical section in which Stefani arrives in Los Angeles off of No Doubt's Rock Steady Tour. She receives several calls from Interscope label head Jimmy Iovine, who attempts to push her forward with her solo debut project, but she replies that she is tired and uninspired. After a failed studio attempt, Stefani sees a flyer advertising help for writer's block. Upon arrival, she is asked to fill out a suspicious questionnaire, where the camera pans to the questions which will be important. She is then told that she will be billed when she is finished. She asks for clarification only to discover that she is already back in the studio by herself. When Stefani picks up an oversized pocket watch from the piano, a rabbit knick-knack that she had previously seen jumps across the room. She throws the watch at the knick-knack, causing her to fall back on her wooden chair and find herself transported to a fantasy world based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
Stefani portrays several characters from the books, including Alice, the White Queen, and the Red Queen, in dresses by British-Gibraltarian fashion designer John Galliano. The video frequently cuts to Stefani back in the studio to show her singing and performing in semi-synchronization with her actions within her fantasy world. As this transpires the song is recording itself. Stefani ultimately rediscovers her confidence, and her full awareness is transported back to the ordinary reality of the studio just as she dances in front of her four giggling Harajuku Girls. She then is presented with her bill by the consultant as the chair topples to the floor.
There are four versions of the video. The full, long version is one minute longer than the Making the Video version, while the cut version omits the scenes in which she leaves the airport and is sleepy and in which she fills out the questionnaire. The short version begins with Stefani practicing on the piano and her finding the watch just seconds after that. Her being billed is not shown in this version, so the video ends with the Harajuku Girls laughing at her performance.
The music video was well-received by many reviewers. Sam Bloch from Stylus Magazine referred to it as a short film, comparing it to Michael Jackson's Thriller, and commented, "I sigh with admiration and wish every video was this alive." The video debuted on MTV's Total Request Live on October 19, 2004, at number 11. The following month it reached the top of the chart and was there for three non-consecutive days, remaining over five weeks on the program. At the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, the video won the award for Best Art Direction and was nominated for Best Editing. At the 2005 MuchMusic Video Awards, the video was nominated for Best International Video but lost to Usher's "Caught Up". It won the award for Best Dressed Video at the first MTV Australia Video Music Awards, and was also nominated for Video of the Year and Best Pop Video.
## Alternative versions
Stuart Price (also known as Jacques Lu Cont) made the most well-known remix of the song, titled the Thin White Duke Mix, which was included on the CD single. The track, over eight minutes long, is carried by a guitar riff and occasional chimes. The remix received positive reviews from music critics. Aaron Mandel of Pitchfork labeled it "outstanding", and John M. Cunningham of Stylus Magazine stated that it "endowed [the song] with a sense of grandeur". DJ InVincible from About.com viewed the remix as "moody and a bit hypnotic", commenting that it is "best suited for early-evening sets". Armand van Helden created two remixes, the Armand van Helden Remix and the Armand van Helden Dub, which use only some of the original vocals and a new bassline constructed with synthesizers and some electric guitar. Felix da Housecat created the Rude Ho Mix, which uses more bass guitar and leaves out the original background vocals by Mimi Parker until the final verse.
Alex Kapranos, guitarist and lead singer of Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand, wore a Gwen Stefani pin on a Members Only jacket as a tribute to "What You Waiting For?". In December 2005, the band performed a cover version of the song on Live Lounge, a segment of The Jo Whiley Show on BBC Radio 1. The cover includes the chorus from Billy Idol's 1983 song "White Wedding". In October 2006, the song was released as a part of the Radio 1's Live Lounge compilation, and the cover received mixed reviews. Jack Foley from IndieLondon called the track "completely insane", stating that it "really has to be heard to be believed." The Guardian's Dorian Lynskey found the cover smug, adding that "one of Alex Kapranos's eyebrows [is] raised so high that it practically vacates his head."
Welsh indie pop singer Marina Diamandis covered "What You Waiting For?" during some of her early live performances in 2009. Mary Bellamy of Drowned in Sound referred to her debut album The Family Jewels (2010) as "an extended album length re-write" of "What You Waiting For?".
## Track listings
- European 2-track CD single
1. "What You Waiting For?" (Album Version) – 3:41
2. "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont's TWD Mix) – 8:02
- European and Australian enhanced CD maxi single
1. "What You Waiting For?" (Album Version) – 3:41
2. "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont's TWD Mix) – 8:02
3. "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont's TWD Dub) – 8:22
4. "What You Waiting For?" (Video) (Director's Cut) – 8:37
- UK enhanced CD maxi single
1. "What You Waiting For?" (Album Version) – 3:41
2. "What You Waiting For?" (Jacques Lu Cont's TWD Mix) – 8:02
3. "What You Waiting For?" (Instrumental) – 3:41
4. "What You Waiting For?" (Video) (Director's Cut) – 8:37
- US 12-inch single
1. "What You Waiting For?" (Armand Van Helden Remix) – 8:39
2. "What You Waiting For?" (The Rude Ho Mix by Felix da Housecat) – 5:07
3. "What You Waiting For?" (Armand Van Helden Dub) – 7:55
## Credits and personnel
Credits are adapted from the liner notes of Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
- Gwen Stefani – lead vocals, songwriting
- Rusty Anderson – additional guitar
- Greg Collins – recording
- Brian "Big Bass" Gardner – mastering
- Rob Haggett – second assistant engineer
- Nellee Hooper – production
- Sam Littlemore – programming
- Kevin Mills – assistant engineering
- Mimi (Audia) Parker – backing vocals
- Linda Perry – guitar, guitar recording, keyboard recording, keyboards, songwriting
- Ian Rossiter – recording
- Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing
- David Treahearn – assistant engineering
## Charts
### Weekly charts
### Year-end charts
### Decade-end charts
## Certifications
## Release history
|
20,844,588 |
Adenanthos obovatus
| 1,164,514,402 |
Shrub of the family Proteaceae, endemic to southwest Australia
|
[
"Adenanthos",
"Eudicots of Western Australia",
"Garden plants of Australia",
"Plants described in 1805"
] |
Adenanthos obovatus, commonly known as basket flower (which usually refers to Centaurea, though), or, jugflower, is a shrub of the plant family Proteaceae endemic to Southwest Australia. Described by French naturalist Jacques Labillardière in 1805, it had first been collected by Archibald Menzies in 1791. Within the genus Adenanthos, it lies in the section Eurylaema and is most closely related to A. barbiger. A. obovatus has hybridized with A. detmoldii to produce the hybrid A. × pamela. Several common names allude to the prominent red flowers of the species. It grows as a many-stemmed spreading bush up to 1 m (3.3 ft) high, and about 1.5 m (4.9 ft) across, with fine bright green foliage. Made up of single red flowers, the inflorescences appear from April to December, and peak in spring (August to October).
The shrub grows on sandy soils in seasonally wet lowland areas as well as hills and dunes. It regenerates after bushfire by resprouting from its underground lignotuber. Pollinators include honeyeaters, particularly the western spinebill, which can access the nectar with its long curved bill, and the silvereye, which punctures the flower tube. The most commonly cultivated Adenanthos species in Australia, it has a long flowering period and attracts honeyeaters to the garden. It is harvested for the cut flower industry.
## Description
The growth habit of Adenanthos obovatus is that of a lignotuberous shrub, with many stems arising from a single underground lignotuber. It typically reaches about 1 m (3.3 ft) in height, and about 1.5 m in width, but plants occasionally reach a height of 2 m (6.6 ft).
The leaves of this species are bright green, oval in shape, up to 20 mm (0.79 in) long and 15 mm (0.59 in) wide, sessile, and arranged in a spiral pattern on the branches. The flowers appear steadily between April and December, and are most frequent between August and October. They are red or orange, and emerge from the leaf axils. They are usually solitary, but occasionally an axil will carry two flowers. As with other Proteaceae species, each flower consists of a perianth of four united tepals, and a single style. In A. obovatus, the perianth is around 25 mm (0.98 in) long, and the style around 40 mm (1.6 in). Although the flowering period is lengthy (six months), there are generally only a few flowers at any one time, and a seven-year study at Harry Waring Marsupial Reserve south of Perth revealed fairly constant flowering from year to year, even when shrubs were cut back to ground level to simulate a bushfire.
The species is very similar to A. barbiger. There are obvious differences in typical leaf shape, with leaves of most populations of A. barbiger being very much longer and narrower than those of A. obovatus. However, leaf shape is variable in both species, and some southern populations of A. barbiger have leaves that are indistinguishable from those of A. obovatus. The most systematically important properties by which the two may be distinguished are the shape of the perianth limb, which is rounded in A. obovatus and pointed in A. barbiger; the bracts, glabrous versus hirsute; and the style-ends, which are green and scarlet respectively. The species also differ slightly in range of flower colours: A. barbiger has scarlet to bright red flowers, whereas A. obovatus flowers are scarlet to orange.
## Taxonomy
### Discovery and naming
The first known botanical specimen collection of A. obovatus was made by Scottish surgeon and naturalist Archibald Menzies during the visit of the Vancouver Expedition to King George Sound in September and October 1791. However, this collection did not result in publication of the species. Other early collections include a specimen collected by Scottish botanist Robert Brown during the visit of HMS Investigator to King George Sound in December 1801 and January 1802; and, thirteen months later, King George Sound specimens collected by Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, botanist to Nicolas Baudin's voyage of exploration, and "gardener's boy" Antoine Guichenot. In his notes on vegetation published in the official account of the expedition, Leschenault writes:
> "Sur les bords de la mer, croissent, en grande abondance, l'adenanthos cuneata, l'adenanthos sericea au feuillage velouté, et une espèce du même genre dont les feuilles sont arrondies."
>
> ("On the seashore, grows, in great abundance, Adenanthos cuneata, the softer-leaved Adenanthos sericea, and a species of the same genus with rounded leaves.")
The species with rounded leaves was A. obovatus.
A description of the species was published by Jacques Labillardière in his 1805 Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen, accompanied by a figure drawn by Pierre Antoine Poiteau and engraved by Auguste Plée. Labillardière chose the specific name obovata, in reference to the leaves of his specimen, which were obovate (egg-shaped, with the narrow end at the base). This leaf shape is often seen in this species. The term obovata derives from the Latin ob- ("inverse") and ovum ("egg"), and has feminine gender, consistent with the gender assigned by Labillardière to the genus.
Labillardière did not acknowledge any collector, and so it was long thought that Labillardière himself had collected the first botanical specimens in 1792 while naturalist to Bruni d'Entrecasteaux's expedition in search of the lost ships of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. However, this and eight other species described by Labillardière do not occur in any locations that he visited, suggesting that he obtained specimens from someone else whom he failed to credit. Though he did not specify a type specimen for A. obovata, a specimen upon which the accompanying figure in Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen appears to be based has been located; it is annotated, apparently in Labillardière's hand, as having been collected by Leschenault. Ernest Charles Nelson states with certainty that Labillardière based this species on specimens collected by Leschenault, and this view has been accepted by some scholars though others treat it more cautiously.
### Infrageneric placement
In 1870, George Bentham published the first infrageneric arrangement of Adenanthos in Volume 5 of his landmark Flora Australiensis. Bentham divided the genus into two sections, placing A. obovata in A. sect. Eurylaema, defined as containing those species with one sterile stamen, and perianth tubes that are curved and swollen above the middle.
A phenetic analysis of the genus undertaken by Ernest Charles Nelson in 1975 yielded results in which the members of A. sect. Eurylaema occurred together, with A. obovata appearing most closely related to A. barbigera (now A. barbiger), and then A. detmoldii. A. obovata was therefore retained in A. sect. Eurylaema in Ernest Charles Nelson's 1978 revision of Adenanthos, and again in his 1995 treatment of the genus for the Flora of Australia series. By this time, the ICBN had issued a ruling that all genera ending in -anthos must be treated as having masculine gender. Hence the species is now known as Adenanthos obovatus. Its placement in Nelson's arrangement of Adenanthos may be summarised as follows:
Adenanthos
: A. sect. Eurylaema
: : A. detmoldii
: : A. barbiger
: : A. obovatus
: : A. × pamela
: A. sect. Adenanthos (29 species, 8 subspecies)
### Hybrids
Adenanthos obovatus hybridises with A. detmoldii to produce A. × pamela. Known only from road verges in the Scott River region, it was first discovered in 1979, and it is now known from more than twenty individual plants. The discovery of it in such large numbers, together with its recognised horticultural potential, prompted Nelson to formally describe and name it in 1986. Morphologically it is intermediate between its parents; that is, taller than A. obovatus, with longer leaves and light red flowers. It is fertile, raising the possibility of the establishment of a hybrid swarm.
It is also possible that A. obovatus infrequently hybridises with A. barbiger: in 1921, Carl Hansen Ostenfeld described A. intermedia (now A. intermedius), based on specimens found near Ngilgi Cave at Yallingup with leaf shape intermediate between these two species. The new species was rejected in 1924 by Charles Gardner, and again in the 1970s by Nelson, who argued that leaf shape is inappropriate grounds for erecting a new species in this context, and that, in terms of systematically important characteristics, A. intermedius is indistinguishable from A. barbiger. He therefore synonymized A. intermedius with A. barbiger, but noted the possibility that A. intermedius is of hybrid origin. Recently, however, a specimen collected by Greg Keighery was held to represent a new species, provisionally named "A. barbiger subsp. intermedius (Ostenf.) Keighery ms" (later revised to "Adenanthos sp. Whicher Range (G.J. Keighery 9736)"), suggesting that Keighery, at least, does not consider A. intermedius to be of hybrid origin.
### Common names
Common names for this species include basket flower, glandflower, jugflower and stick-in-the-jug. In the King George Sound vicinity the Aboriginal name Cheeuk is sometimes used.
## Distribution and habitat
Abundant and widespread, A. obovatus occurs on a wide range of soils, favouring soils in the acidic pH range 3.9–5.4. Like most Adenanthos species it is common on deeply leached siliceous sandplain sand. It also occurs on gravelly quartz sand derived from rock outcrops, such as on the rocky hillslopes of the Stirling Range. It is rarely found on gravelly lateritic soils. It is also one of the few Adenanthos species to grow well in moist environments; it will not tolerate seasonal waterlogging—that niche is filled by A. detmoldii—but thrives in damp soils not subject to waterlogging.
Consistent with these edaphic preferences, A. obovatus is widespread and common in the scrub and heath commonly found on the sandplains of Southwest Australia, and is also common in the sedgelands that develop in moister areas of the region. It is uncommon in forest or woodland areas, because these are usually associated with lateritic soils; but it may be found in stands of jarrah or marri forest where these grow in laterite-free sand. The climate in its range is mediterranean, with annual rainfall from 625–1,250 mm (24.6–49.2 in).
The species occurs in coastal regions of Southwest Australia, from Gingin and Muchea north of Perth south to Augusta and east along the south coast to Green Range, east of Albany. It also occurs in the Stirling Range, a possible disjunction; and at Narrogin, a certain and substantial disjunction. Nelson tentatively explains these disjunct populations in terms of natural climate fluctuations: during times of higher rainfall, the distribution of A. obovatus would have been much more extensive. Reductions in rainfall would cause the distribution to contract, but isolated populations could survive in favourable refugia.
## Ecology
The western spinebill (Acanthorhynchus superciliosus) is the most frequent visitor to the flowers. A territorial species, the territories are smaller when they contain more Adenanthos obovatus bushes. Their long curved bills fit the tube-like flowers exactly, so that the pollen-presenter brushes against the spinebill's head while it is probing for nectar. The birds then carry pollen from plant to plant, fertilising other plants. A field study marking the pollen with fluorescent dye found that pollen could be deposited on flowers of plants up to 20 metres (66 feet) away from the original flower visited. The New Holland honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) and brown honeyeater (Lichmera indistincta) have also been recorded with pollen from A. obovatus. The silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) drinks nectar from the flowers, but punctures the tube with its short bill. Larger honeyeaters in one field study tended to avoid A. obovatus, possibly seeking sources of more abundant nectar elsewhere. These species are too heavy for the fine branches and their bills are too large for the tubes.
Adenanthos obovatus has been recorded as a source of nectar for the honey possum (Tarsipes rostratus) in winter and spring (early June to September), from field studies in the Scott National Park, replaced by A. meisneri in late spring and summer (late October to February).
Adenanthos obovatus is highly susceptible to dieback caused by the water mould Phytophthora cinnamomi. Specimens in coastal dune vegetation were reported killed by the fungus Armillaria luteobubalina, with mycelial sheaths of the fungus beneath the bark of the root collar.
## Cultivation
Described by Ken Newbey as "an outstanding ornamental species with average foliage and very attractive in flower", A. obovatus was first grown in Great Britain in 1824, and is the most commonly cultivated Adenanthos species in Australia. It flowers for most of the year, is an excellent attractor of honeyeaters, and grows in a range of climates. Propagation is by cuttings of the current season's growth, from which it strikes readily, and subsequently makes fairly quick growth. Despite its natural occurrence in damp locations, in cultivation it grows best in a light, well-drained soil. It prefers a sunny aspect. Regular hard pruning is recommended to maintain an attractive form. Wildflowers of this species are harvested by licensed pickers in the cut flower industry, for sale in both local and export markets. The long, curved stems with flowers in the leaf axils have been described as "excellent for picking".
|
44,145,284 |
No. 91 Wing RAAF
| 1,050,561,191 |
Royal Australian Air Force composite wing
|
[
"Military aviation units and formations of the Korean War",
"Military units and formations disestablished in 1955",
"Military units and formations established in 1950",
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No. 91 (Composite) Wing was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wing that operated during the Korean War and its immediate aftermath. It was established in October 1950 to administer RAAF units deployed in the conflict: No. 77 (Fighter) Squadron, flying North American P-51 Mustangs; No. 30 Communications Flight, flying Austers and Douglas C-47 Dakotas; No. 391 (Base) Squadron; and No. 491 (Maintenance) Squadron. The wing was headquartered at Iwakuni, Japan, as were its subordinate units with the exception of No. 77 Squadron, which was based in Korea and came under the operational control of the United States Fifth Air Force.
No. 30 Communications Flight was re-designated No. 30 Communications Unit in November 1950, and No. 30 Transport Unit a year later, before re-forming as No. 36 (Transport) Squadron in March 1953. It undertook medical evacuation, cargo and troop transport, and courier flights. No. 77 Squadron converted to Gloster Meteor jets between April and July 1951, and operated primarily in the ground attack role from December that year. It remained in Korea on garrison duty following the July 1953 armistice, and returned to Australia in November 1954; No. 491 Squadron disbanded the same month. No. 36 Squadron returned to Australia in March 1955, leaving four aircraft to equip the newly formed RAAF Transport Flight (Japan), which briefly came under No. 91 Wing's control. The following month, No. 391 Squadron and No. 91 Wing headquarters were disbanded.
## History
### Origins and formation
When the Korean War broke out on 25 June 1950, No. 77 (Fighter) Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was based at Iwakuni, Japan. For the previous four years, equipped mainly with North American P-51 Mustangs, it had served with the British Commonwealth Air Group, the air component of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), initially as part of No. 81 Wing RAAF. No. 81 Wing was disbanded in November 1948, leaving No. 77 Squadron as Australia's sole air unit in Japan. It was now the largest squadron in the RAAF, comprising 299 officers and men, forty Mustangs, three CAC Wirraways, two Douglas C-47 Dakotas and two Austers. The squadron was preparing to return to Australia when it was placed on standby for action over Korea; it began flying missions as part of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force a week later. No. 77 Squadron's commanding officer, Wing Commander Lou Spence, was killed in action on 9 September 1950, and Air Commodore Alan Charlesworth, Chief of Staff at BCOF, temporarily took charge at Iwakuni, pending the formation of an overarching organisation for support and administration at the base. Squadron Leader Dick Cresswell arrived on 17 September to assume command of No. 77 Squadron.
Following the landing at Inchon and the northward advance of UN troops, No. 77 Squadron relocated to Pohang, South Korea, on 12 October 1950. It left its main support elements at Iwakuni. No. 91 (Composite) Wing was established at the base on 20 October. The term "composite" referred to an RAAF formation made up of disparate operational elements, rather than one comprising a single type such as bombers or fighters. Commanded by Group Captain A.D. (Dallas) Charlton, No. 91 Wing was given administrative responsibility for all RAAF units operating during the Korean War. As well as No. 77 Squadron, this included the newly formed No. 391 (Base) Squadron and No. 491 (Maintenance) Squadron, and No. 30 Communications Flight, formerly the No. 77 Squadron Communications Flight and initially comprising its two Dakotas and two Austers. Apart from No. 77 Squadron, the wing's units were all headquartered at Iwakuni. Some members of the US Far East Air Forces command favoured the establishment of a British Commonwealth Wing, to include No. 77 Squadron and the Mustang-equipped No. 2 Squadron of the South African Air Force, then en route to Korea, but the South African government vetoed the idea.
### Operations
No. 77 Squadron's tasking was controlled by the United States Fifth Air Force from the time it commenced operations in Korea, and this arrangement was not affected by the formation of No. 91 Wing. It moved forward from Pohang to Yonpo, near Hamhung, in November 1950, continuing its support of UN forces as they advanced up the peninsula. North Korea's counter-attack, augmented by Chinese forces, led to the squadron being hurriedly withdrawn to Pusan on 3 December. Poor radio communications with No. 91 Wing dogged the evacuation from Yonpo, which was effected through US Air Force support supplementing the efforts of RAAF Dakotas. Cresswell believed that the Iwakuni-based wing headquarters was not always in tune with frontline requirements, and he often dealt directly with Lieutenant General Sir Horace Robertson, BCOF commander and the theatre's senior Australian officer, and the RAAF's Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Frederick Scherger.
In response to the threat of communist Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighters, No. 77 Squadron was withdrawn to Iwakuni in April 1951, to re-equip with Gloster Meteors. Four Royal Air Force officers with Meteor experience were seconded to No. 91 Wing to assist with training. The squadron returned to action with its new aircraft on 29 July, operating out of Kimpo, South Korea. The Mustangs had been highly effective in close support, but No. 77 Squadron's main role in the RAAF was interception, and it was expected that with the Meteor it could again focus on fighter duties. According to the official history of Australia in the Korean War, the unit proved its value diplomatically as well as operationally: having been one of the first UN squadrons to go into action, it comprised one-third of the jet fighter force in the latter part of 1951, when clashes in "MiG Alley" were at their height. However, dogfights between Meteors and MiGs that August convinced the new commanding officer, Wing Commander Gordon Steege, that the Australian jets were outmatched, and Fifth Air Force agreed to take them out of an offensive air-to-air combat role in favour of escort duties and local air defence. The squadron's loss rate by the end of the year was one in four killed or captured.
Beginning in December 1951 under Steege's replacement, Wing Commander Ron Susans, No. 77 Squadron again took up an offensive role, namely ground attack, which constituted its primary tasking for the rest of the war. Flight Lieutenant J.C. Smith, No. 91 Wing's armament officer, played a key role in developing "Flaming Onion", napalm-tipped air-to-ground rockets that were used in several operations in 1952 and 1953. No. 77 Squadron remained in Korea on garrison duty—initially at Kimpo, later at Kunsan—following the armistice in July 1953. It had lost forty-one pilots killed during the war. A further seven pilots became prisoners of war. Aircraft losses totalled almost sixty, including over forty Meteors, mostly to ground fire. The squadron flew 18,872 sorties, including 3,872 in Mustangs and 15,000 in Meteors. It was credited with shooting down five MiG-15s and destroying 3,700 buildings, 1,408 vehicles, ninety-eight locomotives and carriages, and sixteen bridges.
No. 30 Communications Flight included Robertson's personal Dakota, operating under his direction. The unit's complement of two Dakotas and two Austers was soon augmented by two more Dakotas from Australia. On 1 November 1950, No. 30 Communications Flight was renamed No. 30 Communications Unit. The same month, it received another four Dakotas from No. 38 Squadron, of No. 90 (Composite) Wing in Malaya, giving it a strength of eight Dakotas and two Austers. The unit supported all Australian forces in Korea. One of its key functions was medical evacuation, but it was also responsible for supply drops, search and rescue, reconnaissance, and mail delivery, as well as transporting cargo, troops, and VIPs. Unlike No. 77 Squadron, it was not tasked by Fifth Air Force but instead operated under Australian control, which was exercised through BCOF headquarters in Japan. No. 30 Communications Unit was re-formed as No. 30 Transport Unit on 5 November 1951, and as No. 36 (Transport) Squadron on 10 March 1953. During the war it transported around 100,000 passengers and over 6,000 tons of cargo. No. 91 Wing's records listed 12,762 medical evacuations from Korea to Japan, and over 2,000 from Japan to Australia or Britain. The transportation unit lost an Auster and a Wirraway to crashes, resulting in four deaths.
### Support
When the Korean War broke out, No. 77 Squadron was self-supporting. The added burden of combat operations made this situation untenable after the squadron went into action in Korea, leading to the formation of No. 391 (Base) Squadron at Iwakuni, at the same time as No. 91 Wing headquarters. RAAF base squadrons were responsible for administrative, logistical, medical, communications and security functions. Staffed mainly by former No. 77 Squadron members, in the first year of its existence No. 391 Squadron had to contend with severe shortages of winter clothing and equipment. Further problems arose following the introduction of the Meteor, as spares for the British-made jet were harder to obtain than for the American Mustang. Along with its RAAF responsibilities, No. 391 Squadron supported Australian Army and other UN personnel travelling through Iwakuni. It ran No. 91 Wing's "Transit Hotel", which accommodated business people and entertainers, as well as military personnel. The squadron's medical contingent was heavily engaged in the preparation and escort of injured personnel from Korea to Iwakuni and then to other destinations.
No. 491 Squadron was also formed in tandem with No. 91 Wing on 20 October 1950. Headquartered at Iwakuni, it was responsible for all maintenance of the wing's aircraft except day-to-day servicing. A section was attached to No. 77 Squadron in South Korea to assist ground staff with daily maintenance. Personnel from Iwakuni were regularly rotated through this section, and augmented by additional No. 491 Squadron staff as needed for repair or salvage work. The standard RAAF working days for technicians at Iwakuni contrasted with shifts of up to sixteen hours near the front line in Korea. Korea was one of the coldest climates in which RAAF ground crews had ever worked; Squadron Leader Cresswell recalled seeing maintenance staff with tools frozen to their hands. Both Nos. 391 and 491 Squadrons used Japanese technicians as well as Australian, which was unusual for the time; during the occupation of Japan following its surrender in World War II, the RAAF had only employed Japanese workers for menial tasks.
### Disbandment
No. 77 Squadron stood down at Kunsan on 7 October 1954 and flew its Meteors to Iwakuni five days later. It departed for Australia in November and became operational again at RAAF Base Williamtown, New South Wales, on 4 January 1955. Its eleven-year absence from Australia, beginning in the Pacific during World War II and continuing in Japan as part of BCOF, was a record for an RAAF unit. No. 491 Squadron disbanded at Iwakuni on 13 December 1954. No. 36 Squadron ceased flying on 13 March 1955 and returned to Australia, leaving behind three Dakotas and a Wirraway that equipped RAAF Transport Flight (Japan), formed the following day under No. 91 Wing. No. 391 Squadron and No. 91 Wing headquarters were disbanded at Iwakuni on 30 April 1955. Transport Flight (Japan) flew a courier service to South Korea and remained operational until 8 July 1956, when its last Dakota—the last RAAF aircraft in Japan—departed Iwakuni.
## Commanding officers
No. 91 Wing was commanded by the following officers:
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42,558 |
Nikita Khrushchev
| 1,173,720,487 |
Leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964
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Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev ( – 11 September 1971) was a Soviet politician who served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev stunned the communist world with his denunciation of his predecessor Joseph Stalin's crimes, and embarked on a policy of de-Stalinization with his key ally Anastas Mikoyan. He sponsored the early Soviet space program and the enactment of moderate reforms in domestic policy. After some false starts, and a narrowly avoided nuclear war over Cuba, he conducted successful negotiations with the United States to reduce Cold War tensions. In 1964, the Kremlin leadership stripped him of power, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Khrushchev was born in 1894 in a village in western Russia. He was employed as a metal worker during his youth, and he was a political commissar during the Russian Civil War. Under the sponsorship of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges and approved thousands of arrests. In 1938, Stalin sent him to govern the Ukrainian SSR, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.
On 5 March 1953, Stalin's death triggered a power struggle in which Khrushchev emerged victorious upon consolidating his authority as First Secretary of the party's Central Committee. On 25 February 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", which denounced Stalin's purges and ushered in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's time in office saw the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Khrushchev enjoyed strong support during the 1950s thanks to major victories like the Suez Crisis, the launching of Sputnik, the Syrian Crisis of 1957, and the 1960 U-2 incident. By the early 1960s however, Khrushchev's popularity was eroded by flaws in his policies, as well as his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This emboldened his potential opponents, who quietly rose in strength and deposed him in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the deadly fate suffered by the losers of previous Soviet power struggles and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a dacha in the countryside. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970. Khrushchev died in 1971 of a heart attack.
## Early years
Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Kseniya Khrushcheva, were poor Russian peasants, and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning there when he had enough money.
Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev in his memoirs, Shevchenko was a freethinker who upset the villagers by not attending church, and when her brother visited, he gave Khrushchev books which had been banned by the Imperial Government. She urged Nikita to seek further education, but family finances did not permit this.
In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka (now Donetsk, Ukraine); fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Kseniya Khrushcheva and her daughter came after. Yuzovka, which was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire. After working briefly in other fields, Khrushchev's parents found Nikita a place as a metal fitter's apprentice. Upon completing that apprenticeship, the teenage Khrushchev was hired by a factory. He lost that job when he collected money for the families of the victims of the Lena Goldfields massacre, and was hired to mend underground equipment by a mine in nearby Ruchenkovo, where his father was the union organizer, and he helped distribute copies and organize public readings of Pravda. He later stated that he considered emigrating to the United States for better wages, but did not do so. He later recalled his working days:
> I started working as soon as I learned how to walk. Until the age of fifteen, I worked as a shepherd. I tended, as the foreigners say when they use the Russian language, "the little cows," I was a sheepherder, I herded cows for a capitalist, and that was before I was fifteen. After that, I worked at a factory for a German, and I worked in a French-owned mine, I worked at a Belgian-owned chemical factory, and [now] I'm the Prime Minister of the great Soviet state. And I am in no way ashamed of my past because all work is worthy of respect. Work as such cannot be dirty, it is only conscience that can be.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Khrushchev was exempt from conscription because he was a skilled metal worker. He was employed by a workshop that serviced ten mines, and he was involved in several strikes that demanded higher pay, better working conditions, and an end to the war. In 1914, he married Yefrosinia Pisareva, daughter of the lift operator at the Rutchenkovo mine. In 1915, they had a daughter, Yulia, and in 1917, a son, Leonid.
After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd had little influence over Ukraine. Khrushchev was elected to the worker's council (or soviet) in Rutchenkovo, and in May he became its chairman. He did not join the Bolsheviks until 1918, a year in which the Russian Civil War, between the Bolsheviks and a coalition of opponents known as the White Army, began in earnest. His biographer, William Taubman, suggests that Khrushchev's delay in affiliating himself with the Bolsheviks was because he felt closer to the Mensheviks who prioritized economic progress, whereas the Bolsheviks sought political power. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicated that he waited because there were many groups, and it was difficult to keep them all straight.
In March 1918, as the Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Germans occupied the Donbas and Khrushchev fled to Kalinovka. In late 1918 or early 1919, he was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar. The post of political commissar had recently been introduced as the Bolsheviks came to rely less on worker activists and more on military recruits; its functions included indoctrination of recruits in the tenets of Bolshevism, and promoting troop morale and battle readiness. Beginning as commissar to a construction platoon, Khrushchev rose to become commissar to a construction battalion and was sent from the front for a two-month political course. The young commissar came under fire many times, though many of the war stories he would tell in later life dealt more with his (and his troops') cultural awkwardness, rather than with combat. In 1921, the civil war ended, and Khrushchev was demobilized and assigned as commissar to a labor brigade in the Donbas, where he and his men lived in poor conditions.
The wars had caused widespread devastation and famine, and one of the victims of the hunger and disease was Khrushchev's wife, Yefrosinia, who died of typhus in Kalinovka while Khrushchev was in the army. The commissar returned for the funeral and, loyal to his Bolshevik principles, refused to allow his wife's coffin to enter the local church. With the only way into the churchyard through the church, he had the coffin lifted and passed over the fence into the burial ground, shocking the village.
## Party official
### Donbass years
Through the intervention of a friend, Khrushchev was assigned in 1921 as assistant director for political affairs for the Rutchenkovo mine in the Donbass region, where he had previously worked. There were as yet few Bolsheviks in the area. At that time, the movement was split by Lenin's New Economic Policy, which allowed for some measure of private enterprise and was seen as an ideological retreat by some Bolsheviks. While Khrushchev's responsibility lay in political affairs, he involved himself in the practicalities of resuming full production at the mine after the chaos of the war years. He helped restart the machines (key parts and papers had been removed by the pre-Soviet mine-owners) and he wore his old mine outfit for inspection tours.
Khrushchev was highly successful at the Rutchenkovo mine, and in mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of the nearby Pastukhov mine. However, he refused the offer, seeking to be assigned to the newly established technical college (tekhnikum) in Yuzovka, though his superiors were reluctant to let him go. As he had only four years of formal schooling, he applied to the training program (rabfak, short for Рабочий факультет / Rabotchyi Fakultyet, or Worker's Faculty) attached to the tekhnikum that was designed to bring undereducated students to high-school level, a prerequisite for entry into the tekhnikum. While enrolled in the rabfak, Khrushchev continued his work at the Rutchenkovo mine.
One of his teachers later described him as a poor student. He was more successful in advancing in the Communist Party; soon after his admission to the rabfak in August 1922, he was appointed party secretary of the entire tekhnikum, and became a member of the bureau—the governing council—of the party committee for the town of Yuzovka (renamed Stalino in 1924). He briefly joined supporters of Leon Trotsky against those of Joseph Stalin over the question of party democracy. All of these activities left him with little time for his schoolwork, and while he later said he had finished his rabfak studies, it is unclear whether this was true.
According to William Taubman, Khrushchev's studies were aided by Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, a well-educated Party organizer and daughter of well-to-do Ukrainian peasants. The family was poor, according to Nina's own recollections. The two lived together as husband and wife for the rest of Khrushchev's life, though they never registered their marriage. They had three children together: daughter Rada was born in 1929, son Sergei in 1935 and daughter Elena in 1937.
In mid-1925, Khrushchev was appointed Party secretary of the Petrovo-Marinsky raikom, or district, near Stalino. The raikom was about 1,000 square kilometres (400 sq mi) in area, and Khrushchev was constantly on the move throughout his domain, taking an interest in even minor matters. In late 1925, Khrushchev was elected a non-voting delegate to the 14th Congress of the USSR Communist Party in Moscow.
### Kaganovich protégé
Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917. In 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine and Khrushchev, falling under his patronage, was rapidly promoted. He was appointed second in command of Stalin's party apparatus in late 1926. Within nine months his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko, was ousted, which, according to Taubman, was due to Khrushchev's instigation. Kaganovich transferred Khrushchev to Kharkov, then the capital of Ukraine, as head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Party's Central Committee. In 1928, Khrushchev was transferred to Kiev, where he served as head of the organizational department, second-in-command of the Party organization there.
In 1929, Khrushchev again sought to further his education, following Kaganovich (now in the Kremlin as a close associate of Stalin) to Moscow and enrolling in the Stalin Industrial Academy. Khrushchev never completed his studies there, but his career in the Party flourished. When the school's Party cell elected a number of rightists to an upcoming district Party conference, the cell was attacked in Pravda. Khrushchev emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggle, becoming Party secretary of the school, arranging for the delegates to be withdrawn, and, afterward, purging the cell of the rightists. Khrushchev rose rapidly through the Party ranks, first becoming Party leader for the Bauman district, site of the Academy, before taking the same position in the Krasnopresnensky district, the capital's largest and most important. By 1932, Khrushchev had become second in command, behind Kaganovich, of the Moscow city Party organization, and in 1934, he became Party leader for the city and a member of the Party's Central Committee. Khrushchev attributed his rapid rise to his acquaintance with fellow Academy student Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's wife. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that Alliluyeva spoke well of him to her husband. His biographer, William Tompson, downplays the possibility, stating that Khrushchev was too low in the Party hierarchy to enjoy Stalin's patronage and that if influence was brought to bear on Khrushchev's career at this stage, it was by Kaganovich.
While head of the Moscow city organization, Khrushchev superintended the construction of the Moscow Metro, a highly expensive undertaking, with Kaganovich in overall charge. Faced with an already-announced opening date of 7 November 1934, Khrushchev took considerable risks in the construction and spent much of his time down in the tunnels. When the inevitable accidents did occur, they were depicted as heroic sacrifices in a great cause. The Metro did not open until 1 May 1935, but Khrushchev received the Order of Lenin for his role in its construction. Later that year, he was selected as First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee which was responsible for Moscow oblast, a province with a population of 11 million.
### Involvement in purges
Stalin's office records show meetings at which Khrushchev was present as early as 1932. The two increasingly built a good relationship. Khrushchev greatly admired the dictator and treasured informal meetings with him and invitations to Stalin's dacha, while Stalin felt warm affection for his young subordinate. Beginning in 1934, Stalin began a campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge, during which many were executed or sent to the Gulag. Central to this campaign were the Moscow Trials, a series of show trials of the purged top leaders of the party and the military. In 1936, as the trials proceeded, Khrushchev expressed his vehement support:
> Everyone who rejoices in the successes achieved in our country, the victories of our party led by the great Stalin, will find only one word suitable for the mercenary, fascist dogs of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite gang. That word is execution.
Khrushchev assisted in the purge of many friends and colleagues in Moscow oblast. Of 38 top Party officials in Moscow city and province, 35 were killed—the three survivors were transferred to other parts of the USSR. Of the 146 Party secretaries of cities and districts outside Moscow city in the province, only 10 survived the purges. In his memoirs, Khrushchev noted that almost everyone who worked with him was arrested. By Party protocol, Khrushchev was required to approve these arrests, and did little or nothing to save his friends and colleagues.
Party leaders were given numerical quotas of "enemies" to be turned in and arrested. In June 1937, the Politburo set a quota of 35,000 enemies to be arrested in Moscow province; 5,000 of these were to be executed. In reply, Khrushchev asked that 2,000 wealthy peasants, or kulaks living in Moscow be killed in part fulfillment of the quota. In any event, only two weeks after receiving the Politburo order, Khrushchev was able to report to Stalin that 41,305 "criminal and kulak elements" had been arrested. Of the arrestees, according to Khrushchev, 8,500 deserved execution.
Khrushchev had no reason to think himself immune from the purges, and in 1937, confessed his own 1923 dalliance with Trotskyism to Kaganovich, who, according to Khrushchev, "blanched" (for his protégé's sins could affect his own standing) and advised him to tell Stalin. The dictator took the confession in his stride, and, after initially advising Khrushchev to keep it quiet, suggested that Khrushchev tell his tale to the Moscow party conference. Khrushchev did so, to applause, and was immediately reelected to his post. Khrushchev related in his memoirs that he was also denounced by an arrested colleague. Stalin told Khrushchev of the accusation personally, looking him in the eye and awaiting his response. Khrushchev speculated in his memoirs that had Stalin doubted his reaction, he would have been categorized as an enemy of the people then and there. Nonetheless, Khrushchev became a candidate member of the Politburo on 14 January 1938 and a full member in March 1939.
In late 1937, Stalin appointed Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party in Ukraine, and Khrushchev duly left Moscow for Kiev, again the Ukrainian capital, in January 1938. Ukraine had been the site of extensive purges, with the murdered including professors in Stalino whom Khrushchev greatly respected. The high ranks of the Party were not immune; the Central Committee of Ukraine was so devastated that it could not convene a quorum. After Khrushchev's arrival, the pace of arrests accelerated. All but one member of the Ukrainian Politburo Organizational Bureau and Secretariat were arrested. Almost all government officials and Red Army commanders were replaced. During the first few months after Khrushchev's arrival, almost everyone arrested received the death penalty.
Biographer William Taubman suggested that because Khrushchev was again unsuccessfully denounced while in Kiev, he must have known that some of the denunciations were not true and that innocent people were suffering. In 1939, Khrushchev addressed the Fourteenth Ukrainian Party Congress, saying "Comrades, we must unmask and relentlessly destroy all enemies of the people. But we must not allow a single honest Bolshevik to be harmed. We must conduct a struggle against slanderers."
## World War II
### Occupation of Polish territory
When Soviet troops, pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, invaded the eastern portion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Khrushchev accompanied the troops at Stalin's direction. A large number of ethnic Ukrainians lived in the invaded area, much of which today forms the western portion of Ukraine. Many inhabitants therefore initially welcomed the invasion, though they hoped that they would eventually become independent. Khrushchev's role was to ensure that the occupied areas voted for union with the USSR. Through a combination of propaganda, deception as to what was being voted for, and outright fraud, the Soviets ensured that the assemblies elected in the new territories would unanimously petition for union with the USSR. When the new assemblies did so, their petitions were granted by the USSR Supreme Soviet, and Western Ukraine became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) on 1 November 1939. Clumsy actions by the Soviets, such as staffing Western Ukrainian organizations with Eastern Ukrainians, and giving confiscated land to collective farms (kolkhozes) rather than to peasants, soon alienated Western Ukrainians, damaging Khrushchev's efforts to achieve unity.
### War against Germany
When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, in June 1941, Khrushchev was still at his post in Kiev. Stalin appointed him a political commissar, and Khrushchev served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and the political rulers in Moscow. Stalin used Khrushchev to keep commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin.
As the Germans advanced, Khrushchev worked with the military to defend and save Kiev. Handicapped by orders from Stalin that under no circumstances should the city be abandoned, the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans. While the Germans stated they took 655,000 prisoners, according to the Soviets, 150,541 men out of 677,085 escaped the trap. Primary sources differ on Khrushchev's involvement at this point. According to Marshal Georgi Zhukov, writing some years after Khrushchev fired and disgraced him in 1957, Khrushchev persuaded Stalin not to evacuate troops from Kiev. However, Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that he and Marshal Semyon Budyonny proposed redeploying Soviet forces to avoid the encirclement until Marshal Semyon Timoshenko arrived from Moscow with orders for the troops to hold their positions. Early Khrushchev biographer Mark Frankland suggested that Khrushchev's faith in his leader was first shaken by the Red Army's setbacks. Khrushchev stated in his memoirs:
> But let me return to the enemy breakthrough in the Kiev area, the encirclement of our group, and the destruction of the 37th Army. Later, the Fifth Army also perished ... All of this was senseless, and from the military point of view, a display of ignorance, incompetence, and illiteracy. ... There you have the result of not taking a step backward. We were unable to save these troops because we didn't withdraw them, and as a result, we simply lost them. ... And yet it was possible to allow this not to happen.
In 1942, Khrushchev was on the Southwest Front, and he and Timoshenko proposed a massive counteroffensive in the Kharkov area. Stalin approved only part of the plan, but 640,000 Red Army soldiers would still become involved in the offensive. The Germans, however, had deduced that the Soviets were likely to attack at Kharkov, and set a trap. Beginning on 12 May 1942, the Soviet offensive initially appeared successful, but within five days the Germans had driven deep into the Soviet flanks, and the Red Army troops were in danger of being cut off. Stalin refused to halt the offensive, and the Red Army divisions were soon encircled by the Germans. The USSR lost about 267,000 soldiers, including more than 200,000 men captured, and Stalin demoted Timoshenko and recalled Khrushchev to Moscow. While Stalin hinted at arresting and executing Khrushchev, he allowed the commissar to return to the front by sending him to Stalingrad.
Khrushchev reached the Stalingrad Front in August 1942, soon after the start of the battle for the city. His role in the Stalingrad defense was not major—General Vasily Chuikov, who led the city's defense, mentions Khrushchev only briefly in a memoir published while Khrushchev was premier—but to the end of his life, he was proud of his role. Though he visited Stalin in Moscow on occasion, he remained in Stalingrad for much of the battle and was nearly killed at least once. He proposed a counterattack, only to find that Georgy Zhukov and other generals had already planned Operation Uranus, a plan to break out from Soviet positions and encircle and destroy the Germans; it was being kept secret. Before Uranus was launched, Khrushchev spent much time checking on troop readiness and morale, interrogating Nazi prisoners, and recruiting some for propaganda purposes.
Soon after Stalingrad, Khrushchev met with personal tragedy, as his son Leonid, a fighter pilot, was apparently shot down and killed in action on 11 March 1943. The circumstances of Leonid's death remain obscure and controversial, as none of his fellow fliers stated that they witnessed him being shot down, nor was his plane found or body recovered. As a result, Leonid's fate has been the subject of considerable speculation. One theory has Leonid surviving the crash and collaborating with the Germans, and when he was recaptured by the Soviets, Stalin ordering him shot despite Nikita Khrushchev pleading for his life. This supposed killing is used to explain why Khrushchev later denounced Stalin in the Secret Speech. While there is no supporting evidence for this account in Soviet files, some historians allege that Leonid Khrushchev's file was tampered with after the war. In later years, Leonid Khrushchev's wingmate stated that he saw his plane disintegrate, but did not report it. Khrushchev biographer Taubman speculates that this omission was most likely to avoid the possibility of being seen as complicit in the death of the son of a Politburo member. In mid-1943, Leonid's wife, Liuba Khrushcheva, was arrested on accusations of spying and sentenced to five years in a labor camp, and her son (by another relationship), Tolya, was placed in a series of orphanages. Leonid's daughter, Yulia, was raised by Nikita Khrushchev and his wife.
After Uranus forced the Germans into retreat, Khrushchev served on other fronts of the war. He was attached to Soviet troops at the Battle of Kursk, in July 1943, which turned back the last major German offensive on Soviet soil. Khrushchev related that he interrogated an SS defector, learning that the Germans intended an attack—a claim dismissed by his biographer Taubman as "almost certainly exaggerated". He accompanied Soviet troops as they took Kiev in November 1943, entering the shattered city as Soviet forces drove out German troops. As Soviet forces met with greater success, driving the Nazis westwards towards Germany, Nikita Khrushchev became increasingly involved in reconstruction work in Ukraine. He was appointed Premier of the Ukrainian SSR in addition to his earlier party post, one of the rare instances in which the Ukrainian party and civil leader posts were held by one person.
According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, it is difficult to assess Khrushchev's war record, since he most often acted as part of a military council, and it is not possible to know the extent to which he influenced decisions, rather than signing off on the orders of military officers. However, Tompson points to the fact that the few mentions of Khrushchev in military memoirs published during the Brezhnev era were generally favorable, at a time when it was "barely possible to mention Khrushchev in print in any context". Tompson suggests that these favorable mentions indicate that military officers held Khrushchev in high regard.
## Rise to power
### Return to Ukraine
Almost all of Ukraine had been occupied by the Germans, and Khrushchev returned to his domain in late 1943 to find devastation. Ukraine's industry had been destroyed, and agriculture faced critical shortages. Even though millions of Ukrainians had been taken to Germany as workers or prisoners of war, there was insufficient housing for those who remained. One out of every six Ukrainians were killed in World War II.
Khrushchev sought to reconstruct Ukraine but also desired to complete the interrupted work of imposing the Soviet system on it, though he hoped that the purges of the 1930s would not recur. As Ukraine was recovered militarily, conscription was imposed, and 750,000 men aged between nineteen and fifty were given minimal military training and sent to join the Red Army. Other Ukrainians joined partisan forces, seeking an independent Ukraine. Khrushchev rushed from district to district through Ukraine, urging the depleted labor force to greater efforts. He made a short visit to his birthplace of Kalinovka, finding a starving population, with only a third of the men who had joined the Red Army having returned. Khrushchev did what he could to assist his hometown. Despite Khrushchev's efforts, in 1945, Ukrainian industry was at only a quarter of pre-war levels, and the harvest actually dropped from that of 1944, when the entire territory of Ukraine had not yet been retaken.
In an effort to increase agricultural production, the kolkhozes (collective farms) were empowered to expel residents who were not pulling their weight. Kolkhoz leaders used this as an excuse to expel their personal enemies, invalids, and the elderly, sending them to the eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev viewed this policy as very effective and recommended its adoption elsewhere to Stalin. He also worked to impose collectivization on Western Ukraine. While Khrushchev hoped to accomplish this by 1947, lack of resources and armed resistance by partisans slowed the process. The partisans, many of whom fought as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), were gradually defeated, as Soviet police and military reported killing 110,825 "bandits" and capturing a quarter million more between 1944 and 1946. About 600,000 Western Ukrainians were arrested between 1944 and 1952, with one-third executed and the remainder imprisoned or exiled to the east.
The war years of 1944 and 1945 had seen poor harvests, and 1946 saw intense drought strike Ukraine and Western Russia. Despite this, collective and state farms were required to turn over 52% of the harvest to the government. The Soviet government sought to collect as much grain as possible to supply communist allies in Eastern Europe. Khrushchev set the quotas at a high level, leading Stalin to expect an unrealistically large quantity of grain from Ukraine. Food was rationed—but non-agricultural rural workers throughout the USSR were given no ration cards. The inevitable starvation was largely confined to remote rural regions and was little noticed outside the USSR. Khrushchev, realizing the desperate situation in late 1946, repeatedly appealed to Stalin for aid, to be met with anger and resistance on the part of the leader. When letters to Stalin had no effect, Khrushchev flew to Moscow and made his case in person. Stalin finally gave Ukraine limited food aid, and money to set up free soup kitchens. However, Khrushchev's political standing had been damaged, and in February 1947, Stalin suggested that Lazar Kaganovich be sent to Ukraine to "help" Khrushchev. The following month, the Ukrainian Central Committee removed Khrushchev as party leader in favor of Kaganovich, while retaining him as premier.
Soon after Kaganovich arrived in Kiev, Khrushchev fell ill and was barely seen until September 1947. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicates he had pneumonia; some biographers have theorized that Khrushchev's illness was entirely political, out of fear that his loss of position was the first step towards downfall and demise. However, Khrushchev's children remembered their father as having been seriously ill. Once Khrushchev was able to get out of bed, he and his family took their first vacation since before the war, to a beachfront resort in Latvia. Khrushchev, though, soon broke the beach routine with duck-hunting trips, and a visit to the new Soviet Kaliningrad, where he toured factories and quarries. By the end of 1947, Kaganovich had been recalled to Moscow and the recovered Khrushchev had been restored to the First Secretaryship. He then resigned the Ukrainian premiership in favor of Demyan Korotchenko, Khrushchev's protégé.
Khrushchev's final years in Ukraine were generally peaceful, with industry recovering, Soviet forces overcoming the partisans, and 1947 and 1948 seeing better-than-expected harvests. Collectivization advanced in Western Ukraine, and Khrushchev implemented more policies that encouraged collectivization and discouraged private farms. These sometimes backfired, however: a tax on private livestock holdings led to peasants slaughtering their stock. With the idea of eliminating differences in attitude between town and countryside and transforming the peasantry into a "rural proletariat", Khrushchev conceived the idea of the "agro-town". Rather than agricultural workers living in villages close to farms, they would live further away in larger towns which would offer municipal services such as utilities and libraries, which were not present in villages. He completed only one such town before his December 1949 return to Moscow; he dedicated it to Stalin as a 70th birthday present.
In his memoirs, Khrushchev spoke highly of Ukraine, where he governed for over a decade:
> I'll say that the Ukrainian people treated me well. I recall warmly the years I spent there. This was a period full of responsibilities, but pleasant because it brought satisfaction ... But far be it from me to inflate my significance. The entire Ukrainian people was exerting great efforts ... I attribute Ukraine's successes to the Ukrainian people as a whole. I won't elaborate further on this theme, but in principle, it's very easy to demonstrate. I'm Russian myself, and I don't want to offend the Russians.
### Stalin's final years
From mid-December 1949, Khrushchev again served as head of the Party in Moscow city and province. His biographer Taubman suggests that Stalin most likely recalled Khrushchev to Moscow to balance the influence of Georgy Malenkov and security chief Lavrentiy Beria, who were widely seen as Stalin's heirs. The aging leader rarely called Politburo meetings. Instead, much of the high-level work of government took place at dinners hosted by Stalin for his inner circle of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikolai Bulganin. Khrushchev took early naps so that he would not fall asleep in Stalin's presence; he noted in his memoirs, "Things went badly for those who dozed off at Stalin's table."
In 1950, Khrushchev began a large-scale housing program for Moscow. Five- or six-story apartment buildings became ubiquitous throughout the Soviet Union; many remain in use today. Khrushchev had prefabricated reinforced concrete used, greatly speeding up construction. These structures were completed at triple the construction rate of Moscow housing from 1946 to 1950, lacked elevators or balconies, and were nicknamed Khrushchyovka by the public, but because of their shoddy workmanship sometimes disparagingly called Khrushchoba, combining Khrushchev's name with the Russian word trushchoba, meaning "slum". In 1995, almost 60,000,000 residents of the former Soviet Union still lived in these buildings.
In his new positions, Khrushchev continued his kolkhoz consolidation scheme, which decreased the number of collective farms in Moscow province by about 70%. This resulted in farms that were too large for one chairman to manage effectively. Khrushchev also sought to implement his agro-town proposal, but when his lengthy speech on the subject was published in Pravda in March 1951, Stalin disapproved of it. The periodical quickly published a note stating that Khrushchev's speech was merely a proposal, not policy. In April, the Politburo disavowed the agro-town proposal. Khrushchev feared that Stalin would remove him from office, but the leader mocked Khrushchev, then allowed the episode to pass.
On 1 March 1953, Stalin suffered a massive stroke. As terrified doctors attempted treatment, Khrushchev and his colleagues engaged in an intense discussion as to the new government. On 5 March, Stalin died.
Khrushchev later reflected on Stalin:
> Stalin called everyone who didn't agree with him an "enemy of the people." He said that they wanted to restore the old order, and for this purpose, "the enemies of the people" had linked up with the forces of reaction internationally. As a result, several hundred thousand honest people perished. Everyone lived in fear in those days. Everyone expected that at any moment there would be a knock on the door in the middle of the night and that knock on the door would prove fatal ... [P]eople not to Stalin's liking were annihilated, honest party members, irreproachable people, loyal and hard workers for our cause who had gone through the school of revolutionary struggle under Lenin's leadership. This was utter and complete arbitrariness. And now is all this to be forgiven and forgotten? Never!
### Struggle for power
On 6 March 1953, Stalin's death was announced, as was the new leadership. Malenkov was the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Beria (who consolidated his hold over the security agencies), Kaganovich, Bulganin, and former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as first vice-chairmen. Those members of the Presidium of the Central Committee who had been recently promoted by Stalin were demoted. Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as Party head for Moscow to concentrate on unspecified duties in the Party's Central Committee. The New York Times listed Malenkov and Beria first and second among the ten-man Presidium—and Khrushchev last.
However, Malenkov resigned from the secretariat of the Central Committee on 14 March. This came due to concerns that he was acquiring too much power. The major beneficiary was Khrushchev. His name appeared atop a revised list of secretaries—indicating that he was now in charge of the party. The Central Committee formally elected him First Secretary in September.
After Stalin's death, Beria launched a number of reforms. According to Taubman, "unparalleled in his cynicism, he [Beria] did not let ideology stand in his way. Had he prevailed, he would almost certainly have exterminated his colleagues, if only to prevent them from liquidating him. In the meantime, however, his burst of reforms rivaled Khrushchev's and in some ways even Gorbachev's thirty-five years later." One proposal, which was adopted, was an amnesty which eventually led to the freeing of over a million non-political prisoners. Another, which was not adopted, was to release East Germany into a united, neutral Germany in exchange for compensation from the West—a proposal considered by Khrushchev to be anti-communist. Khrushchev allied with Malenkov to block many of Beria's proposals, while the two slowly picked up support from other Presidium members. Their campaign against Beria was aided by fears that Beria was planning a military coup, and, according to Khrushchev in his memoirs, by the conviction that "Beria is getting his knives ready for us." The key move by Khrushchev and Malenkov was to lure two of Beria's most powerful deputy ministers, Sergei Kruglov and Ivan Serov, to betray their boss. This allowed Khrushchev and Malenkov to arrest Beria as Beria belatedly discovered he had lost control of Ministry of Interior troops and the troops of the Kremlin guard. On 26 June 1953, Beria was arrested at a Presidium meeting, following extensive military preparations by Khrushchev and his allies. Beria was tried in secret and executed in December 1953 with five of his close associates. The execution of Beria proved to be the last time the loser of a top-level Soviet power struggle paid with his life.
The power struggle continued. Malenkov's power was in the central state apparatus, which he sought to extend through reorganizing the government, giving it additional power at the expense of the Party. He also sought public support by lowering retail prices and lowering the level of bond sales to citizens, which had long been effectively obligatory. Khrushchev, on the other hand, with his power base in the Party, sought to strengthen the Party and his position within it. While, under the Soviet system, the Party was to be preeminent, it had been greatly drained of power by Stalin, who had given much of that power to himself and to the Politburo (later, to the Presidium). Khrushchev saw that with the Presidium in conflict, the Party and its Central Committee might again become powerful. Khrushchev carefully cultivated high Party officials, and was able to appoint supporters as local Party bosses, who then took seats on the Central Committee.
Khrushchev presented himself as a down-to-earth activist prepared to take up any challenge, contrasting with Malenkov who, though sophisticated, came across as colourless. Khrushchev arranged for the Kremlin grounds to be opened to the public, an act with "great public resonance". While both Malenkov and Khrushchev sought reforms to agriculture, Khrushchev's proposals were broader and included the Virgin Lands Campaign, under which hundreds of thousands of young volunteers would settle and farm areas of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. While the scheme eventually became a tremendous disaster for Soviet agriculture, it was initially successful. In addition, Khrushchev possessed incriminating information on Malenkov, taken from Beria's secret files. As Soviet prosecutors investigated the atrocities of Stalin's last years, including the Leningrad case, they came across evidence of Malenkov's involvement. Beginning in February 1954, Khrushchev replaced Malenkov in the seat of honour at Presidium meetings; in June, Malenkov ceased to head the list of Presidium members, which was thereafter organized in alphabetical order. Khrushchev's influence continued to increase, winning the allegiance of local party heads, and with his nominee heading the KGB.
At a Central Committee meeting in January 1955, Malenkov was accused of involvement in atrocities, and the committee passed a resolution accusing him of involvement in the Leningrad case, and of facilitating Beria's climb to power. At a meeting of the mostly ceremonial Supreme Soviet the following month, Malenkov was demoted in favor of Bulganin, to the surprise of Western observers. Malenkov remained in the Presidium as Minister of Electric Power Stations. According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, "Khrushchev's position as first among the members of the collective leadership was now beyond any reasonable doubt."
The post-Stalin battle for political control reshaped foreign-policy. There was more realism and less ideological abstraction when confronted by European and Middle Eastern situations. Khrushchev's "secret speech" attack on Stalin in 1956 was a signal for abandoning Stalinist precepts and looking at new options, including more involvement in the Middle East. Khrushchev in power did not moderate his personality—he remained unpredictable, and was emboldened by the spectacular successes in space. He thought that would give the USSR world prestige, leading to quick Communist advances in the Third World. Khrushchev's policy was still restrained by the need to retain the support of the Presidium and to placate the inarticulate but restive Soviet masses who were thrilled by Sputnik but demanded a higher standard of living on the ground as well.
## Leader (1956–1964)
### Domestic policies
#### Consolidation of power and "Secret Speech"
After the demotion of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov initially worked together well. Molotov even proposed that Khrushchev, not Bulganin, replace Malenkov as premier. However, Khrushchev and Molotov increasingly differed on policy. Molotov opposed the Virgin Lands policy, instead proposing heavy investment to increase yields in developed agricultural areas, which Khrushchev felt was not feasible due to a lack of resources and a lack of a sophisticated farm labor force. The two differed on foreign policy as well; soon after Khrushchev took power, he sought a peace treaty with Austria, which would allow Soviet troops then in occupation of part of the country to leave. Molotov was resistant, but Khrushchev arranged for an Austrian delegation to come to Moscow and negotiate the treaty. Although Khrushchev and other Presidium members attacked Molotov at a Central Committee meeting in mid-1955, accusing him of conducting a foreign policy which turned the world against the USSR, Molotov remained in his position.
By the end of 1955, thousands of political prisoners had returned home and told their experiences of the Gulag labor camps. Continuing investigation into the abuses brought home the full breadth of Stalin's crimes to his successors. Working together with his close ally Anastas Mikoyan, Khrushchev believed that once the stain of Stalinism was removed, the Party would inspire loyalty among the people. Beginning in October 1955, Khrushchev fought to tell the delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress about Stalin's crimes. Some of his colleagues, including Molotov and Malenkov, opposed the disclosure and managed to persuade him to make his remarks in a closed session.
The 20th Party Congress opened on 14 February 1956. In his opening words in his initial address, Khrushchev denigrated Stalin by asking delegates to rise in honour of the Communist leaders who had died since the last congress, whom he named, equating Stalin with Klement Gottwald and the little-known Kyuichi Tokuda. In the early morning hours of 25 February, Khrushchev delivered what became known as the "Secret Speech" to a closed session of the Congress limited to Soviet delegates. In four hours, he demolished Stalin's reputation. Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that the "congress listened to me in silence. As the saying goes, you could have heard a pin drop. It was all so sudden and unexpected." Khrushchev told the delegates:
> It is here that Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.
The Secret Speech, while it did not fundamentally change Soviet society, had wide-ranging effects. The speech was a factor in unrest in Poland and revolution in Hungary later in 1956, and Stalin defenders led four days of rioting in his native Georgia in June, calling for Khrushchev to resign and Molotov to take over. In meetings where the Secret Speech was read, communists would make even more severe condemnations of Stalin (and of Khrushchev), and even call for multi-party elections. However, Stalin was not publicly denounced, and his portrait remained widespread through the USSR, from airports to Khrushchev's Kremlin office. Mikhail Gorbachev, then a Komsomol official, recalled that though young and well-educated Soviets in his district were excited by the speech, many others decried it, either defending Stalin or seeing little point in digging up the past. Forty years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev applauded Khrushchev for his courage in taking a huge political risk and showing himself to be "a moral man after all".
The term "Secret Speech" proved to be an utter misnomer. While the attendees at the Speech were all Soviet, Eastern European delegates were allowed to hear it the following night, read slowly to allow them to take notes. By 5 March, copies were being mailed throughout the Soviet Union, marked "not for the press" rather than "top secret". An official translation appeared within a month in Poland; the Poles printed 12,000 extra copies, one of which soon reached the West. Khrushchev's son, Sergei, later wrote, "[C]learly, Father tried to ensure it would reach as many ears as possible. It was soon read at Komsomol meetings; that meant another eighteen million listeners. If you include their relatives, friends, and acquaintances, you could say that the entire country became familiar with the speech ... Spring had barely begun when the speech began circulating around the world."
The anti-Khrushchev minority in the Presidium was augmented by those opposed to Khrushchev's proposals to decentralize authority over industry, which struck at the heart of Malenkov's power base. During the first half of 1957, Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich worked to quietly build support to dismiss Khrushchev. At an 18 June Presidium meeting at which two Khrushchev supporters were absent, the plotters moved that Bulganin, who had joined the scheme, take the chair, and proposed other moves which would effectively demote Khrushchev and put themselves in control. Khrushchev objected on the grounds that not all Presidium members had been notified, an objection which would have been quickly dismissed had Khrushchev not held firm control over the military, through Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov, and the security departments. Lengthy Presidium meetings took place, continuing over several days. As word leaked of the power struggle, members of the Central Committee, which Khrushchev controlled, streamed to Moscow, many flown there aboard military planes, and demanded to be admitted to the meeting. While they were not admitted, there were soon enough Central Committee members in Moscow to call an emergency Party Congress, which effectively forced the leadership to allow a session of the Central Committee. At that meeting, the three main conspirators were dubbed the Anti-Party Group, and denounced with accusations of factionalism and complicity in Stalin's crimes. The three were expelled from the Central Committee and Presidium, as was former Foreign Minister and Khrushchev client Dmitri Shepilov who joined them in the plot. Molotov was sent as Ambassador to Mongolia; the others were sent to head industrial facilities and institutes far from Moscow.
Marshal Zhukov was rewarded for his support with full membership in the Presidium, but Khrushchev feared his popularity and power. In October 1957, the defense minister was sent on a tour of the Balkans, as Khrushchev arranged a Presidium meeting to dismiss him. Zhukov learned what was happening, and hurried back to Moscow, only to be formally notified of his dismissal. At a Central Committee meeting several weeks later, not a word was said in Zhukov's defense. Khrushchev completed the consolidation of power by in March 1958 arranging for Bulganin's dismissal as premier in favor of himself (Bulganin was appointed to head the Gosbank) and by establishing a USSR Defense Council, led by himself, effectively making him commander in chief. Though Khrushchev was now preeminent, he did not enjoy Stalin's absolute power.
#### Liberalization and the arts
After assuming power, Khrushchev allowed a modest amount of freedom in the arts. Vladimir Dudintsev's novel Not by Bread Alone, about an idealistic engineer opposed by rigid bureaucrats, was allowed to be published in 1956, though Khrushchev called the novel "false at its base". In 1958, however, Khrushchev ordered a fierce attack on Boris Pasternak after his novel Doctor Zhivago was published abroad (he was denied permission to publish it in the Soviet Union). Pravda described the novel as "low-grade reactionary hackwork", and the author was expelled from the Writer's Union. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but under heavy pressure he declined it. Once he did so, Khrushchev ordered a halt to the attacks on Pasternak. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that he agonized over the novel, very nearly allowed it to be published, and later regretted not doing so. After his fall from power, Khrushchev obtained a copy of the novel and read it (he had earlier read only excerpts) and stated, "We shouldn't have banned it. I should have read it myself. There's nothing anti-Soviet in it."
Khrushchev believed that the USSR could match the West's living standards, and was not afraid to allow Soviet citizens to see Western achievements. Stalin had permitted few tourists to the Soviet Union, and had allowed few Soviets to travel. Khrushchev let Soviets travel (over two million Soviet citizens travelled abroad between 1957 and 1961, 700,000 of whom visited the West) and allowed foreigners to visit the Soviet Union, where tourists became subjects of immense curiosity. In 1957, Khrushchev authorized the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in Moscow that summer. He instructed Komsomol officials to "smother foreign guests in our embrace". The resulting "socialist carnival" involved over three million Moscovites, who joined with 30,000 young foreign visitors in events that ranged from discussion groups throughout the city to events at the Kremlin itself. According to historian Vladislav Zubok, the festival "shattered propagandist clichés" about Westerners by allowing Moscovites to see them for themselves.
In 1962, Khrushchev, impressed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, persuaded the Presidium to allow publication. That renewed thaw ended on 1 December 1962, when Khrushchev was taken to the Manezh Gallery to view an exhibit which included a number of avant-garde works. On seeing them, Khrushchev exploded with anger, an episode known as the Manege Affair, describing the artwork as "dog shit", and proclaiming that "a donkey could smear better art with its tail". A week later, Pravda issued a call for artistic purity. When writers and filmmakers defended the painters, Khrushchev extended his anger to them. However, despite the premier's rage, none of the artists were arrested or exiled. The Manezh Gallery exhibit remained open for some time after Khrushchev's visit, and experienced a considerable rise in attendance after the article in Pravda.
#### Political reform
Under Khrushchev, the special tribunals operated by security agencies were abolished. These tribunals, known as troikas, had often ignored laws and procedures. Under the reforms, no prosecution for a political crime could be brought even in the regular courts unless approved by the local Party committee. This rarely happened; there were no major political trials under Khrushchev, and at most several hundred political prosecutions overall. Instead, other sanctions were imposed on Soviet dissidents, including loss of job or university position, or expulsion from the Party. During Khrushchev's rule, forced hospitalization for the "socially dangerous" was introduced. According to author Roy Medvedev, who wrote an early analysis of Khrushchev's years in power, "political terror as an everyday method of government was replaced under Khrushchev by administrative means of repression".
In 1958, Khrushchev opened a Central Committee meeting to hundreds of Soviet officials; some were even allowed to address the meeting. For the first time, the proceedings of the committee were made public in book form, a practice which was continued at subsequent meetings. This openness, however, actually allowed Khrushchev greater control over the committee, since dissenters would have to make their case in front of a large, disapproving crowd.
In 1962, Khrushchev divided oblast level Party committees (obkoms) into two parallel structures, one for industry and one for agriculture. This was unpopular among Party apparatchiks, and led to confusions in the chain of command, as neither committee secretary had precedence over the other. As there were limited numbers of Central Committee seats from each oblast, the division set up the possibility of rivalry for office between factions, and, according to Medvedev, had the potential for beginning a two-party system. Khrushchev also ordered that one-third of the membership of each committee, from low-level councils to the Central Committee itself, be replaced at each election. This decree created tension between Khrushchev and the Central Committee, and upset the party leaders upon whose support Khrushchev had risen to power.
#### Agricultural policy
Khrushchev was an expert on agricultural policies and sensed an urgent need to reform the backward, inefficient system with ideas that worked in the United States. He looked especially at collectivism, state farms, liquidation of machine-tractor stations, planning decentralization, economic incentives, increased labor and capital investment, new crops, and new production programs. Henry Ford had been at the center of American technology transfer to the Soviet Union in the 1930s; he sent over factory designs, engineers, and skilled craftsmen, as well as tens of thousands of Ford tractors. By the 1940s Khrushchev was keenly interested in American agricultural innovations, especially on large-scale family-operated farms in the Midwest. In the 1950s he sent several delegations to visit farms and land grant colleges, looking at successful farms that utilized high-yielding seed varieties, very large and powerful tractors and other machines, all guided by modern management techniques. Especially after his visit to the United States in 1959, he was keenly aware of the need to emulate and even match American superiority and agricultural technology.
Khrushchev became a hyper-enthusiastic crusader to grow corn (maize). He established a corn institute in Ukraine and ordered thousands of hectares to be planted with corn in the Virgin Lands. In 1955, Khrushchev advocated an Iowa-style corn belt in the Soviet Union, and a Soviet delegation visited the U.S. state that summer. The delegation chief was approached by farmer and corn seed salesman Roswell Garst, who persuaded him to visit Garst's large farm. The Iowan visited the Soviet Union, where he became friends with Khrushchev, and Garst sold the USSR 4,500 metric tons (5,000 short tons) of seed corn. Garst warned the Soviets to grow the corn in the southern part of the country and to ensure there were sufficient stocks of fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides. This, however, was not done, as Khrushchev sought to plant corn even in Siberia, and without the necessary chemicals. The corn experiment was not a great success, and he later complained that overenthusiastic officials, wanting to please him, had overplanted without laying the proper groundwork, and "as a result corn was discredited as a silage crop—and so was I".
Khrushchev sought to abolish the Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS) which not only owned most large agricultural machines such as combines and tractors but also provided services such as plowing, and transfer their equipment and functions to the kolkhozes and sovkhozes (state farms). After a successful test involving MTS which served one large kolkhoz each, Khrushchev ordered a gradual transition—but then ordered that the change take place with great speed. Within three months, over half of the MTS facilities had been closed, and kolkhozes were being required to buy the equipment, with no discount given for older or dilapidated machines. MTS employees, unwilling to bind themselves to kolkhozes and lose their state employee benefits and the right to change their jobs, fled to the cities, creating a shortage of skilled operators. The costs of the machinery, plus the costs of building storage sheds and fuel tanks for the equipment, impoverished many kolkhozes. Inadequate provisions were made for repair stations. Without the MTS, the market for Soviet agricultural equipment fell apart, as the kolkhozes now had neither the money nor skilled buyers to purchase new equipment.
In the 1940s Stalin put Trofim Lysenko in charge of agricultural research, with his ideas that flouted modern genetics science. Lysenko maintained his influence under Khrushchev, and helped block the adoption of American techniques. In 1959, Khrushchev announced a goal of overtaking the United States in the production of milk, meat, and butter. Local officials kept Khrushchev happy with unrealistic pledges of production. These goals were met by farmers who slaughtered their breeding herds and by purchasing meat at state stores, then reselling it back to the government, artificially increasing recorded production.
In June 1962, food prices were raised, particularly on meat and butter, by 25–30%. This caused public discontent. In the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk (Rostov Region), this discontent escalated to a strike and a revolt against the authorities. The revolt was put down by the military, resulting in a massacre that killed 22 people and wounded 87 according to Soviet official accounts. In addition, 116 demonstrators were convicted of involvement and seven of them executed. Information about the revolt was completely suppressed in the USSR, but spread through Samizdat and damaged Khrushchev's reputation in the West.
Drought struck the Soviet Union in 1963; the harvest of 97,500,000 t (107,500,000 short tons) of grain was down from a peak of 122,200,000 t (134,700,000 short tons) in 1958. The shortages resulted in bread lines, a fact at first kept from Khrushchev. Reluctant to purchase food in the West, but faced with the alternative of widespread hunger, Khrushchev exhausted the nation's hard currency reserves and expended part of its gold stockpile in the purchase of grain and other foodstuffs.
#### Education
While visiting the United States in 1959, Khrushchev was greatly impressed by the agricultural education program at Iowa State University, and sought to imitate it in the Soviet Union. At the time, the main agricultural college in the USSR was in Moscow, and students did not do the manual labor of farming. Khrushchev proposed to move the programs to rural areas. He was unsuccessful, due to resistance from professors and students, who never actually disagreed with the premier, but who did not carry out his proposals. Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs, "It's nice to live in Moscow and work at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. It's a venerable old institution, a large economic unit, with skilled instructors, but it's in the city! Its students aren't yearning to work on the collective farms because to do that they'd have to go out in the provinces and live in the sticks."
Khrushchev founded several academic towns, such as Akademgorodok. The premier believed that Western science flourished because many scientists lived in university towns such as Oxford, isolated from big-city distractions, and had pleasant living conditions and good pay. He sought to duplicate those conditions in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev's attempt was generally successful, though his new towns and scientific centres tended to attract younger scientists, with older ones unwilling to leave Moscow or Leningrad.
Khrushchev also proposed to restructure Soviet high schools. While the high schools provided a college preparatory curriculum, in fact, few Soviet youths went on to university. Khrushchev wanted to shift the focus of secondary schools to vocational training: students would spend much of their time at factory jobs or in apprenticeships and only a small part at the schools. In practice, schools developed links with nearby enterprises and students went to work for only one or two days a week; the organizations disliked having to teach, while students and their families complained that they had little choice in what trade to learn.
While the vocational proposal would not survive Khrushchev's downfall, a longer-lasting change was a related establishment of specialized high schools for gifted students or those wishing to study a specific subject. These schools were modeled after the foreign-language schools that had been established in Moscow and Leningrad beginning in 1949. In 1962, a special summer school was established in Novosibirsk to prepare students for Siberian math and science Olympiad. The following year, the Novosibirsk Maths and Science Boarding-School became the first permanent residential school specializing in math and science. Other such schools were soon established in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. By the early 1970s, over 100 specialized schools had been established, in mathematics, the sciences, art, music, and sport. Preschool education was increased as part of Khrushchev's reforms, and by the time he left office, about 22% of Soviet children attended preschool—about half of urban children, but only about 12% of rural children.
#### Anti-religious campaign
The anti-religious campaign of the Khrushchev era began in 1959, coinciding with the 21st Party Congress in the same year. It was carried out by mass closures of churches (reducing the number from 22,000 in 1959 to 13,008 in 1960 and to 7,873 by 1965), monasteries, convents, and still-existing seminaries. The campaign also included a restriction of parental rights to teach religion to their children; a ban on the presence of children at church services (beginning with the Baptists in 1961, it was then extended to the Orthodox in 1963); and a ban on the administration of the Eucharist to children over the age of four. Khrushchev additionally banned all services held outside of churches' walls, renewed enforcement of 1929 legislation banning pilgrimages, and recorded the personal identities of all adults requesting church baptisms, weddings, or funerals. He also disallowed the ringing of church bells and services in daytime in some rural settings from May to the end of October under the pretext of fieldwork requirements. Non-fulfillment of these regulations by clergy would lead to disallowance of state registration; meaning clergy could no longer do any pastoral or liturgical work without special state permission). According to Dimitry Pospielovsky, the state carried out forced retirement, arrests, and prison sentences for clergymen on "trumped-up charges," but in reality, he writes, said state actions were taken against clergy who resisted the closure of churches; delivered sermons attacking the USSR's state atheism and anti-religious campaign; conducted Christian charity; or made religion popular by personal example.
### Foreign and defense policies
From 1950 to 1953 Khrushchev in the inner circle at the Kremlin was well-placed to closely observe and evaluate Stalin's foreign policy. Khrushchev considered the entire Cold War to be a serious mistake on Stalin's part. In the long-term, it created a militarized struggle with NATO, a stronger capitalist coalition. That struggle was entirely unnecessary, and was very expensive for the Soviet Union. It diverted attention away from the neutral developing world, where progress could be made, and it weakened Moscow's relationship with its East European satellites. Basically Khrushchev was much more optimistic about the future than Stalin or Molotov, and was more of an internationalist. He believed the working classes and the common peoples of the world would eventually find their way towards socialism and (possibly) even communism, and that conflicts like the Cold War diverted their attention from this eventual goal. Peaceful coexistence was instead endorsed, or the sort that Lenin himself had practiced at first. That would allow the Soviet Union and its satellite states to build up their economies and their standard of living. In specific terms Khrushchev decided that Stalin had made a series of mistakes, such as heavy-handed pressure in Turkey and Iran in 1945 and 1946, and especially heavy pressure on Berlin that led to the failed Berlin blockade in 1948. Khrushchev was pleased that when Malenkov replaced Stalin in 1953 he spoke of better relations with the West, and also with building ties to the Communist Party movements in imperialistic European colonies that would soon become independent nations across Africa and Asia. Germany was a major issue for Khrushchev, not because he feared a NATO Invasion eastward, but because it weakened the East German regime, which economically paled in comparison to the economic progress of West Germany. Khrushchev blamed Molotov for being unable to resolve the conflict with Yugoslavia, and largely ignoring the needs of the East European communist satellites.
Khrushchev chose Austria as a way to quickly come to agreement with NATO. It became a small neutralized nation economically tied to the West but diplomatically neutral and no threat.
When Khrushchev took control, the outside world still knew little of him, and initially was not impressed by him. Short, heavyset, and wearing ill-fitting suits, he "radiated energy but not intellect", and was dismissed by many as a buffoon who would not last long. British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan wondered, "How can this fat, vulgar man with his pig eyes and ceaseless flow of talk be the head—the aspirant Tsar for all those millions of people?"
Khrushchev biographer Tompson described the mercurial leader:
> He could be charming or vulgar, ebullient or sullen, he was given to public displays of rage (often contrived) and to soaring hyperbole in his rhetoric. But whatever he was, however, he came across, he was more human than his predecessor or even than most of his foreign counterparts, and for much of the world that was enough to make the USSR seem less mysterious or menacing.
#### United States and NATO
##### Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a "malignant tumor", he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city. They proposed making Berlin a free city, which meant no outside military forces would be stationed there. West Germany, United States and France strongly opposed the ultimatum, but Britain wanted to consider it as a starting point for negotiations. No one wanted to risk war over the issue. At Britain's request, Khrushchev extended and ultimately dropped the ultimatum, as the Berlin issue became part of the complex agenda of high-level summit meetings.
Khrushchev sought to sharply reduce levels of conventional weapons and to defend the Soviet Union with missiles. He believed that without this transition, the huge Soviet military would continue to eat up resources, making Khrushchev's goals of improving Soviet life difficult to achieve. He abandoned Stalin's plans for a large navy in 1955, believing that the new ships would be too vulnerable to either a conventional or nuclear attack. In January 1960, he took advantage of improved relations with the U.S. to order a reduction of one-third in the size of Soviet armed forces, alleging that advanced weapons would make up for the lost troops. While conscription of Soviet youth remained in force, exemptions from military service became more and more common, especially for students.
Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko argue that Khrushchev thought that policies like Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) were too dangerous for the Soviet Union. His approach did not greatly change his foreign policy or military doctrine but is apparent in his determination to choose options that minimized the risk of war. The Soviets had few operable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM); in spite of this, Khrushchev publicly boasted of the Soviets' missile programs, stating that Soviet weapons were varied and numerous. The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would put psychological pressure on the West resulting in political concessions. The Soviet space program, which Khrushchev firmly supported, appeared to confirm his claims when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, a feat that astonished the world. When it became clear that the launch was real, and Sputnik 1 was in orbit, Western governments concluded that the Soviet ICBM program was further along than it actually was. Khrushchev added to this misapprehension by stating in an October 1957 interview that the USSR had all the rockets, of whatever capacity, that it needed. For years, Khrushchev would make a point of preceding a major foreign trip with a rocket launch, to the discomfiture of his hosts. In January 1960 Khrushchev told the Presidium that Soviet ICBMs made an agreement with the U.S. possible because "main-street Americans have begun to shake from fear for the first times in their lives". The United States had learned of the underdeveloped state of the Soviet missile program from overflights in the late 1950s, but only high U.S. officials knew of the deception. The general U.S. and public perception of a "missile gap" led to a considerable defense buildup on the part of the United States.
During Vice President Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union in 1959 he and Khrushchev took part in what later became known as the Kitchen Debate. Nixon and Khrushchev had an impassioned argument in a model kitchen at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with each defending the economic system of his country.
Nixon invited Khrushchev to visit the United States, and he agreed. He made his first visit to the United States, arriving in Washington, on 15 September 1959, and spending thirteen days in the country. This first visit by a Soviet premier resulted in an extended media circus. Khrushchev brought his wife, Nina Petrovna, and adult children with him, though it was not usual for Soviet officials to travel with their families. The peripatetic premier visited New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco (visiting a supermarket), Coon Rapids, Iowa (visiting Roswell Garst's farm), Pittsburgh, and Washington, concluding with a meeting with President Eisenhower at Camp David. During luncheon at the Twentieth Century-Fox Studio in Los Angeles Khrushchev engaged in an improvised yet jovial debate with his host Spyros Skouras over the respective merits of capitalism and communism. Khrushchev was also to visit Disneyland, but the visit was canceled for security reasons, much to his disgruntlement. He did, however, visit Eleanor Roosevelt at her home. While visiting IBM's new research campus in San Jose, California, Khrushchev expressed little interest in computer technology, but he greatly admired the self-service cafeteria, and, on his return, introduced self-service in the Soviet Union.
This visit resulted in an informal agreement that there would be no firm deadline over Berlin, but that there would be a four-power summit to try to resolve the issue. The Russian's goal was to present warmth, charm and peacefulness, using candid interviews to convince Americans of his humanity and good will. He performed well and Theodore Windt calls it, "the zenith of his career." The friendly American audiences convinced Khrushchev that he had achieved a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower and that he could achieve détente with the Americans. Eisenhower was actually unimpressed by the Soviet leader. He pushed for an immediate summit but was frustrated by French President Charles de Gaulle, who postponed it until 1960, a year in which Eisenhower was scheduled to pay a return visit to the Soviet Union.
##### U-2 and Berlin crisis (1960–1961)
A constant irritant in Soviet–U.S. relations was the overflight of the Soviet Union by American U-2 spy aircraft. On 9 April 1960, the U.S. resumed such flights after a lengthy break. The Soviets had protested the flights in the past but had been ignored by Washington. Content in what he thought was a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower, Khrushchev was confused and angered by the flights' resumption, and concluded that they had been ordered by CIA Director Allen Dulles without the U.S. President's knowledge. Nikita Khrushchev planned to visit the U.S. to meet President Eisenhower, however, the visit was canceled when Soviet Air Defence Forces brought down the U.S. U-2. On 1 May, a U-2 was shot down, its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, captured alive. Believing Powers to have been killed, the U.S. announced that a weather plane had been lost near the Turkish-Soviet border. Khrushchev risked destroying the summit, due to start on 16 May in Paris, if he announced the shootdown, but would look weak in the eyes of his military and security forces if he did nothing. Finally, on 5 May, Khrushchev announced the shootdown and Powers' capture, blaming the overflight on "imperialist circles and militarists, whose stronghold is the Pentagon", and suggesting the plane had been sent without Eisenhower's knowledge. Eisenhower could not have it thought that there were rogue elements in the Pentagon operating without his knowledge, and admitted that he had ordered the flights, calling them "a distasteful necessity". The admission stunned Khrushchev and turned the U-2 affair from a possible triumph to a disaster for him, and he even appealed to U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson for help.
Khrushchev was undecided what to do at the summit even as he boarded his flight to Paris. He finally decided, in consultation with his advisers on the plane and Presidium members in Moscow, to demand an apology from Eisenhower and a promise that there would be no further U-2 flights in Soviet airspace. Neither Eisenhower nor Khrushchev communicated with the other in the days before the summit, and at the summit, Khrushchev made his demands and stated that there was no purpose in the summit, which should be postponed for six to eight months, that is until after the 1960 United States presidential election. The U.S. president offered no apology, but stated that the flights had been suspended and would not resume, and renewed his Open Skies proposal for mutual overflight rights. This was not enough for Khrushchev, who left the summit. Eisenhower accused Khrushchev "of sabotaging this meeting, on which so much of the hopes of the world have rested". Eisenhower's visit to the Soviet Union, for which the premier had even built a golf course so the U.S. president could enjoy his favorite sport, was cancelled by Khrushchev.
Khrushchev made his second and final visit to the United States in September 1960. He had no invitation but had appointed himself as head of the USSR's UN delegation. He spent much of his time wooing the new Third World states which had recently become independent. The U.S. restricted him to the island of Manhattan, with visits to an estate owned by the USSR on Long Island. The notorious shoe-banging incident occurred during a debate on 12 October over a Soviet resolution decrying colonialism. Khrushchev was infuriated by a statement of the Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong charging the Soviets with employing a double standard by decrying colonialism while dominating Eastern Europe. Khrushchev demanded the right to reply immediately and accused Sumulong of being "a fawning lackey of the American imperialists". Sumulong resumed his speech and accused the Soviets of hypocrisy. Khrushchev yanked off his shoe and began banging it on his desk. This behavior by Khrushchev scandalized his delegation.
Khrushchev considered U.S. Vice President Nixon a hardliner and was delighted by his defeat in the 1960 presidential election. He considered the victor, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, as a far more likely partner for détente, but was taken aback by the newly inaugurated U.S. President's tough talk and actions in the early days of his administration. Khrushchev achieved a propaganda victory in April 1961 with the first human spaceflight, while Kennedy suffered a defeat with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. While Khrushchev had threatened to defend Cuba with Soviet missiles, the premier contented himself with after-the-fact aggressive remarks. The failure in Cuba led to Kennedy's determination to make no concessions at the Vienna summit scheduled for 3 June 1961. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev took a hard line, with Khrushchev demanding a treaty that would recognize the two German states and refusing to yield on the remaining issues obstructing a test-ban treaty. Kennedy, in contrast, had been led to believe that the test-ban treaty could be concluded at the summit, and felt that a deal on Berlin had to await easing of east–west tensions. Kennedy described negotiating with Khrushchev to his brother Robert as "like dealing with Dad. All give and no take."
An indefinite postponement of action over Berlin was unacceptable to Khrushchev if for no other reason than that East Germany was suffering a continuous "brain drain" as highly educated East Germans fled west through Berlin. While the boundary between the two German states had elsewhere been fortified, Berlin, administered by the four Allied powers, remained open. Emboldened by statements from former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Charles E. Bohlen and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright that East Germany had every right to close its borders, which were not disavowed by the Kennedy Administration, Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what became known as the Berlin Wall, which would surround West Berlin. Construction preparations were made in great secrecy, and the border was sealed off in the early hours of Sunday, 13 August 1961, when most East German workers who earned hard currency by working in West Berlin would be at their homes. The wall was a propaganda disaster, and marked the end of Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers and the two German states. That treaty would not be signed until September 1990, as an immediate prelude to German reunification.
#### Cuban Missile Crisis and the test ban treaty (1962–1964)
Superpower tensions culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis (in the USSR, the "Caribbean crisis") of October 1962, as the Soviet Union sought to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, about 90 miles (140 km) from the U.S. coast. Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro was reluctant to accept the missiles, and, once he was persuaded, warned Khrushchev against transporting the missiles in secret. Castro stated, thirty years later, "We had a sovereign right to accept the missiles. We were not violating international law. Why do it secretly—as if we had no right to do it? I warned Nikita that secrecy would give the imperialists the advantage."
On 16 October, Kennedy was informed that U-2 flights over Cuba had discovered what were most likely medium-range missile sites, and though he and his advisors considered approaching Khrushchev through diplomatic channels, they could come up with no way of doing this that would not appear weak. On 22 October, Kennedy addressed his nation by television, revealing the missiles' presence and announcing a blockade of Cuba. Informed in advance of the speech but not (until one hour before) the content, Khrushchev and his advisors feared an invasion of Cuba. Even before Kennedy's speech, they ordered Soviet commanders in Cuba that they could use all weapons against an attack—except atomic weapons.
As the crisis unfolded, tensions were high in the U.S.; less so in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev made several public appearances and went to the Bolshoi Theatre to hear American opera singer Jerome Hines, who was then performing in Moscow. By 25 October, with the Soviets unclear about Kennedy's full intentions, Khrushchev decided that the missiles would have to be withdrawn from Cuba. Two days later, he offered Kennedy terms for the withdrawal. Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and a secret promise that the U.S. would withdraw missiles from Turkey, near the Soviet heartland. As the last term was not publicly announced at the request of the U.S., and was not known until just before Khrushchev's death in 1971, the resolution was seen as a great defeat for the Soviets and contributed to Khrushchev's fall less than two years later. Castro had urged Khrushchev to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S. in the event of an invasion of Cuba, and was angered by the outcome, referring to Khrushchev in profane terms.
After the crisis, superpower relations improved, as Kennedy gave a conciliatory speech at American University on 10 June 1963, recognizing the Soviet people's suffering during World War II, and paying tribute to their achievements. Khrushchev called the speech the best by a U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and, in July, negotiated a test ban treaty with U.S. negotiator Averell Harriman and with Lord Hailsham of the United Kingdom. Plans for a second Khrushchev-Kennedy summit were dashed by the U.S. President's assassination in November 1963. The new U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson, hoped for continued improved relations but was distracted by other issues and had little opportunity to develop a relationship with Khrushchev before the premier was ousted.
#### Eastern Europe
The Secret Speech, combined with the death of the Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut, who suffered a heart attack while reading the Speech, sparked considerable liberalization in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, a worker's strike in Poznań developed into disturbances that left more than 50 dead in June 1956. When Moscow blamed the disturbances on Western agitators, Polish leaders ignored the claim, and instead made concessions to the workers. With anti-Soviet displays becoming more common in Poland, and crucial Polish leadership elections upcoming, Khrushchev and other Presidium members flew to Warsaw on 19 October to meet with the Polish Presidium. The Soviets agreed to allow the new Polish leadership to take office, on the assurance there would be no change to the Soviet-Polish relationship. A period of at least partial liberalization, known as the Polish October, followed.
The Polish settlement emboldened the Hungarians, who decided that Moscow could be defied. A mass demonstration in Budapest on 23 October turned into a popular uprising. In response to the uprising, Hungarian Party leaders installed reformist Premier Imre Nagy. Soviet forces in the city clashed with Hungarians and fired on demonstrators, with hundreds of both Hungarians and Soviets killed. Nagy called for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Soviet troops, which a Khrushchev-led majority in the Presidium decided to obey, choosing to give the new Hungarian government a chance. Khrushchev assumed that if Moscow announced liberalization in how it dealt with its allies, Nagy would adhere to the alliance with the Soviet Union.
On 30 October Nagy announced multiparty elections, and the next morning that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. On 3 November, two members of the Nagy government appeared in Ukraine as the self-proclaimed heads of a provisional government and demanded Soviet intervention, which was forthcoming. The next day, Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian uprising, with a death toll of 4,000 Hungarians and several hundred Soviet troops. Nagy was arrested, and was later executed. Despite the international outrage over the intervention, Khrushchev defended his actions for the rest of his life. Damage to Soviet foreign relations was severe, and would have been greater were it not for the fortuitous timing of the Suez crisis, which distracted world attention.
In the aftermath of these crises, Khrushchev made the statement for which he became well-remembered, "We will bury you" (in Russian, "Мы вас похороним!" (My vas pokhoronim!)). While many in the West took this statement as a literal threat, Khrushchev made the statement in a speech on peaceful coexistence with the West. When questioned about the statement during his 1959 U.S. visit, Khrushchev stated that he was not referring to a literal burial, but that, through inexorable historical development, communism would replace capitalism and "bury" it.
Khrushchev greatly improved relations with Yugoslavia, which had been entirely sundered in 1948 when Stalin realized he could not control Yugoslav leader Josip Tito. Khrushchev led a Soviet delegation to Belgrade in 1955. Though a hostile Tito did everything he could to make the Soviets look foolish (including getting them drunk in public), Khrushchev was successful in warming relations, ending the Informbiro period in Soviet-Yugoslav relations. During the Hungarian crisis, Tito initially supported Nagy, but Khrushchev persuaded him of the need for intervention. Still, the intervention in Hungary damaged Moscow's relationship with Belgrade, which Khrushchev spent several years trying to repair. He was hampered by the fact that China disapproved of Yugoslavia's liberal version of communism, and attempts to conciliate Belgrade resulted in an angry Beijing.
#### China
After completing his takeover of mainland China in 1949, Mao Zedong sought material assistance from the USSR, and also called for the return to China of territories taken from it under the Tsars. As Khrushchev took control of the USSR, he increased aid to China, even sending a small corps of experts to help develop the new communist country. This assistance was described by historian William C. Kirby as "the greatest transfer of technology in world history". The Soviet Union spent 7% of its national income between 1954 and 1959 on aid to China. On his 1954 visit to China, Khrushchev agreed to return Port Arthur and Dalian to China, though Khrushchev was annoyed by Mao's insistence that the Soviets leave their artillery as they departed.
Mao bitterly opposed Khrushchev's attempts to reach a rapprochement with more liberal Eastern European states such as Yugoslavia. Khrushchev's government, on the other hand, was reluctant to endorse Mao's desires for an assertive worldwide revolutionary movement, preferring to conquer capitalism through raising the standard of living in communist-bloc countries.
Relations between the two nations began to cool in 1956, with Mao angered both by the Secret Speech and by the fact that the Chinese had not been consulted in advance about it. Mao believed that de-Stalinization was a mistake, and a possible threat to his own authority. When Khrushchev visited Beijing in 1958, Mao refused proposals for military cooperation. Hoping to torpedo Khrushchev's efforts at détente with the U.S., Mao soon thereafter provoked the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, describing the Taiwanese islands shelled in the crisis as "batons that keep Eisenhower and Khrushchev dancing, scurrying this way and that. Don't you see how wonderful they are?"
The Soviets had planned to provide China with an atomic bomb complete with full documentation, but in 1959, amid cooler relations, the Soviets destroyed the device and papers instead. When Khrushchev paid a visit to China in September, shortly after his successful U.S. visit, he met a chilly reception, and Khrushchev left the country on the third day of a planned seven-day visit. Relations continued to deteriorate in 1960, as both the USSR and China used a Romanian Communist Party congress as an opportunity to attack the other. After Khrushchev attacked China in his speech to the congress, Chinese leader Peng Zhen mocked Khrushchev, stating that the premier's foreign policy was to blow hot and cold towards the West. Khrushchev responded by pulling Soviet experts out of China. In the dispute between Mao and Khrushchev, Albania was on the side of China, labelling Khrushchev "Rrapo Lelo", after an Albanian anti-communist peasant.
#### West Africa
Under Khrushchev, the Soviet Union provided considerable amounts of aid to the newly independent West African states of Ghana and Guinea. These were seen as ideal places to test the "socialist model of development" because of their critical dependence on economic cooperation with the Soviet Union, in contrast to larger Third World nations like Egypt and Indonesia. This project proved to be a resounding failure, although the lessons learned in West Africa during the Khrushchev years would have an important influence on Soviet foreign policy towards Africa in the following decades. Additionally, the Soviet Union's display of ineptitude during the Congo Crisis, where it failed to prevent both the newly independent Republic of the Congo from descending into chaos and the substantial military intervention by Western powers, led to a further cooling of relations between the Soviet Union and its Ghanaian and Guinean partners.
## Removal
Beginning in March 1964, Supreme Soviet presidium chairman and thus nominal head of state Leonid Brezhnev began plotting Khrushchev's removal with his colleagues. While Brezhnev considered having Khrushchev arrested as he returned from a trip to Scandinavia in June, he instead spent time persuading members of the Central Committee to support the ousting of Khrushchev, remembering how crucial the committee's support had been to Khrushchev in defeating the Anti-Party Group plot. Brezhnev was given ample time for his conspiracy, as Khrushchev was absent from Moscow for a total of five months between January and September 1964.
The conspirators, led by Brezhnev, First Deputy Premier Alexander Shelepin, and KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, struck in October 1964, while Khrushchev was on vacation at Pitsunda, Abkhaz ASSR with his friend and Presidium colleague Anastas Mikoyan. On 12 October, Brezhnev called Khrushchev to notify him of a special Presidium meeting to be held the following day, ostensibly on the subject of agriculture. Even though Khrushchev suspected the real reason for the meeting, he flew to Moscow, accompanied by the head of the Georgian KGB, General Aleksi Inauri, but otherwise taking no precautions.
Khrushchev arrived at the VIP hall of Vnukovo Airport; KGB chairman Semichastny waited for him there, flanked by KGB security guards. Semichastny informed Khrushchev of his ouster and told him not to resist. Khrushchev did not resist, and the plotters' coup went off smoothly; Khrushchev felt betrayed by Semichastny, as he considered him a friend and ally until that very moment, not suspecting that he had joined his enemies within the Party. Khrushchev was then taken to the Kremlin, to be verbally attacked by Brezhnev, Suslov and Shelepin. He had no stomach for a fight, and put up little resistance. Semichastny was careful not to create the appearance of a coup:
> I didn't even close the Kremlin to visitors. People were strolling around outside, while in the room the Presidium was meeting. I deployed my men around the Kremlin. Everything that was necessary was done. Brezhnev and Shelepin were nervous. I told them: Let's not do anything that isn't necessary. Let's not create the appearance of a coup.
That night, after his ouster, Khrushchev called Mikoyan, and told him:
> I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight.
On 14 October 1964, the Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Khrushchev's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices for reasons of "advanced age and ill health." Brezhnev was elected First Secretary (later General Secretary), while Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev as premier.
## Life in retirement
Khrushchev was granted a pension of 500 rubles per month and was given a house, a dacha and a car. Following his removal, he fell into deep depression. He received few visitors, especially since his security guards kept track of all guests and reported their comings and goings. His pension was reduced to 400 rubles per month, though his retirement remained comfortable by Soviet standards. One of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, and the boy replied, "Grandfather cries." Khrushchev was made a non-person to such an extent that the thirty-volume Great Soviet Encyclopedia omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War.
As the new rulers made known their conservatism in artistic matters, Khrushchev came to be more favorably viewed by artists and writers, some of whom visited him. One visitor whom Khrushchev regretted not seeing was former U.S. Vice President Nixon, then in his "wilderness years" before his election to the presidency, who went to Khrushchev's Moscow apartment while the former premier was at his dacha.
Beginning in 1966, Khrushchev began his memoirs. He initially tried to dictate them into a tape recorder while outdoors, in an attempt to avoid eavesdropping by the KGB. These attempts failed due to background noise, so he switched to recording indoors. The KGB made no attempt to interfere until 1968, when Khrushchev was ordered to hand over his tapes, which he refused to do. While Khrushchev was hospitalized with heart ailments, his son Sergei was approached by the KGB in July 1970 and told that there was a plot afoot by foreign agents to steal the memoirs. Sergei Khrushchev handed over the materials to the KGB since the KGB could steal the originals anyway, but copies had been made, some of which had been transmitted to a Western publisher. Sergei instructed that the smuggled memoirs should be published, which they were in 1970 under the title Khrushchev Remembers. Under some pressure, Nikita Khrushchev signed a statement that he had not given the materials to any publisher, and his son was transferred to a less desirable job. Upon publication of the memoirs in the West, Izvestia denounced them as a fraud. Soviet state radio carried the announcement of Khrushchev's statement, and it was the first time in six years that he had been mentioned in that medium. In the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Khrushchev was given a short characterization: "As a leader, Khrushchev showed signs of subjectivism and voluntarism".
In his final days, Khrushchev visited his son-in-law and former aide Alexei Adzhubei (1924–1993) and told him, "Never regret that you lived in stormy times and worked with me in the Central Committee. We will yet be remembered!"
## Death
Khrushchev died of a heart attack around noon in the Kremlin hospital in Moscow on 11 September 1971, at the age of 77. He was denied a state funeral with interment in the Kremlin Wall and was instead buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Fearing demonstrations, the authorities did not announce Khrushchev's death until the hour of his wake, which would be held in a morgue in the southern suburbs of Moscow, and surrounded the cemetery with troops. Even so, some artists and writers joined the family at the graveside for the interment.
Pravda ran a one-sentence announcement of the former premier's death; Western newspapers contained considerable coverage. Veteran New York Times Moscow correspondent Harry Schwartz wrote of Khrushchev, "Mr. Khrushchev opened the doors and windows of a petrified structure. He let in fresh air and fresh ideas, producing changes which time already has shown are irreversible and fundamental."
## Legacy
Many of Khrushchev's innovations were reversed after his fall. The requirement that one-third of officials be replaced at each election was overturned, as was the division in the Party structure between industrial and agricultural sectors. His vocational education program for high school students was also dropped, and his plan for sending existing agricultural institutions out to the land was ended. However, new agricultural or vocational institutions thereafter were located outside major cities. When new housing was built, much of it was in the form of high rises rather than Khrushchev's low-rise structures, which lacked elevators or balconies.
Historian Robert Service summarizes Khrushchev's contradictory personality traits. According to him, Khrushchev was:
> at once a Stalinist and an anti-Stalinist, a communist believer and a cynic, a self-publicizing poltroon and a crusty philanthropist, a trouble-maker and a peacemaker, a stimulating colleague and a domineering boor, a statesman and a politicker who was out of his intellectual depth.
Some of Khrushchev's agricultural projects were also easily overturned. Corn became so unpopular in 1965 that its planting fell to the lowest level in the postwar period, as even kolkhozes which had been successful with it in Ukraine and other southern portions of the USSR refused to plant it. Lysenko was stripped of his policy-making positions. However, the MTS stations remained closed, and the basic agricultural problems, which Khrushchev had tried to address, remained. While the Soviet standard of living increased greatly in the ten years after Khrushchev's fall, much of the increase was due to industrial progress; agriculture continued to lag far behind, resulting in regular agricultural crises, especially in 1972 and 1975. Brezhnev and his successors continued Khrushchev's precedent of buying grain from the West rather than suffer shortfalls and starvation. Neither Brezhnev nor his colleagues were personally popular, and the new government relied on authoritarian power to assure its continuation. The KGB and Red Army were given increasing powers. The government's conservative tendencies would lead to the crushing of the "Prague Spring" of 1968.
Though Khrushchev's strategy failed to achieve the major goals he sought, Aleksandr Fursenko, who wrote a book analyzing Khrushchev's foreign and military policies, argued that the strategy did coerce the West in a limited manner. The agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba has been adhered to. The refusal of the western world to acknowledge East Germany was gradually eroded, and, in 1975, the United States and other NATO members signed the Helsinki Agreement with the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations, including East Germany, setting human rights standards in Europe.
The Russian public's view of Khrushchev remains mixed. According to a major Russian pollster, the only eras of the 20th century that Russians in the 21st century evaluate positively are those under Nicholas II, and under Khrushchev. A poll in 1998 of young Russians found that they felt Nicholas II had done more good than harm, and all other 20th-century Russian leaders more harm than good—except Khrushchev, about whom they were evenly divided. Khrushchev biographer William Tompson related the former premier's reforms to those which occurred later:
> Throughout the Brezhnev years and the lengthy interregnum that followed, the generation which had come of age during the 'first Russian spring' of the 1950s awaited its turn in power. As Brezhnev and his colleagues died or were pensioned off, they were replaced by men and women for whom the Secret Speech and the first wave of de-Stalinization had been a formative experience, and these 'Children of Twentieth Congress' took up the reins of power under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and his colleagues. The Khrushchev era provided this second generation of reformers with both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.
## See also
- 1954 transfer of Crimea
- History of the Soviet Union (1953–1964)
- Outline of the Cold War
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